Archibald Willard's "The Spirit of '76"

Nationality: American
Born-Died: 1836-1918
Creation Date: c. 1875
Size: 24 x 18 in (61 x 45 cm)
Media: Oil on canvas 
Location: United States Department of State, Washington D.C., USA

Antione Watteau's "Fêtes Vénitiennes"

Nationality: French
Born-Died: 1684-1721
Creation Date: 1718-1719
Size: 93.9 x 47.7 in (55.9 x 45.7 cm)
Media: Oil on canvas 
Location: The National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, UK


This wonderful painting is another example of a work that was given a title after the death of the artist.  Apparently the lutist is a depiction of Watteau himself.  It appears as if the primary figures in this painting are about to engage in a very serious dance.  As is typical of Watteau, it also appears as if some sexual advances are being made by other characters.

Jean-Marc Nattier's "Thalia, Muse of Comedy" and "Terpsichore, Muse of Music and Dance"

Nationality: French
Born-Died: 1869-1895


Creation Date: 1739
Size: 53.5 x 49 in (135.9 x 124.5 cm)
Media: Oil on canvas 
Location: The California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, California, USA

Jewel Kilcher's "The Walmart Song"

Nationality: American

Born-Died: 1974-

Creation Date: 2012

Size: 00:03:05

Media: Music

Is this a good song?  Well, it's cute, but it's not for me.  However, I'm posting it today because I find it absolutely incredible that 1.) Jewel sang a song about Walmart and 2.) a celebrity dared to depict Walmart in a positive light.  What a bizarre occurrence!  I'm sure this is going to open up a huge can of worms for whatever remains of Jewel's career, but I applaud her performance because I don't have any problem with Walmart.  And I'm not ignorant of many of the criticisms.  I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if the celebrities that criticize capitalism and corporations like Walmart have their products sold there.  However, I wouldn't be surprised if Jewel herself had anti-capitalist leanings in that I saw the nigh-socialist Green Party of America once used a quote by her on their home page. 

Sadly, I can already see that an unusually large number of people "disliked" this peppy little song.  

Greek Sculptor's "Piping and Dancing Satyr"

Nationality: Greek
Creation Date: 300-100 BCE
Size: 8.5 inch (21 cm)
Media: Bronze
Location: The Cleveland Museum of Art

The first photo (the inferior one) is by me.  I like the idea of depicting someone who is dancing, perhaps playing music and essentially rocking out. 

Justin Wisniewski's "Valerie Defended Valerie with her Violin Bow"

Nationality: All American
Born: 1978
Creation Date: 2011
Media: Graphite on paper
Location: Collection of the artist

Johannes Vermeer's "Lady Seated at a Virginal"

Nationality: Dutch
Born-Died: 1632-1675
Creation Date: c. 1670-1672
Size: 20.2 × 17.9 inch (51.5 × 45.5 cm)
Media: Oil on canvas
Location: The National Gallery, London, UK

Today's post is the last of Vermeer's paintings.  There is one more disputed work, but it looks so different I wouldn't know why people think it is by Vermeer, so I decided not to include it.  There are also a number of relatively famous forgeries which are fascinating to analyze, but I'll save that for another time.  Whatever I post tomorrow I promise that it won't be Dutch! 

I hope that you enjoyed seeing all of Vermeer's works and found the little bit of commentary and information interesting. 

Johannes Vermeer's "Lady Standing at a Virginal"

Nationality: Dutch
Born-Died: 1632-1675
Creation Date: c. 1670-1672
Size: 20.3 × 17.8 inch (51.7 × 45.2 cm)
Media: Oil on canvas
Location: The National Gallery, London, UK
Seeing this painting in such detail is amazing.

Johannes Vermeer's "The Guitar Player"

Nationality: Dutch
Born-Died: 1632-1675
Creation Date: c. 1672
Size: 20.8 × 18.2 inch (53 × 46.3 cm)
Media: Oil on canvas
Location: Kenwood House, London, UK

This was another Vermeer painting that was at one time stolen.  The thieves held the painting "hostage" demanding that two convicted IRA bombers be moved from an English prison to an Irish one.  They even cut off a strip of the painting and sent it to the police with a letter criticising capitalism, threatening to burn the painting.  However, it was later discovered in a churchyard, unsinged and wrapped in a newspaper.  Apparently the thieves demands were not met either.  What idiotic, loser bastards.

Johannes Vermeer's "The Concert"

Nationality: Dutch Born-Died: 1632-1675
Creation Date: c. 1664
Size: 28.5 × 25.5 inch (72.5 × 64.7 cm)
Media: Oil on canvas
Location: Unknown!

MISSING! 

Have you seen this painting? This painting was stolen in 1990 and it's whereabouts are currently unknown.

Johannes Vermeer's "Girl with a Flute"

Nationality: Dutch
Born-Died: 1632-1675
Creation Date: c. 1665-1670
Size: 7.8 × 7 inch (20 × 17.8 cm)
Media: Oil on panel
Location: The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., USA

When I was a graduate student I had many colleagues that made very large, but extremely poor quality paintings.  When I looked at their work I often thought of this tiny, magnificent painting.  This photograph certainly doesn't do it justice.

Johannes Vermeer's "Woman with a Lute"

Nationality: Dutch
Born-Died: 1632-1675
Creation Date: c. 1662-1663
Size: 20.2 × 18 inch (51.4 × 45.7 cm)
Media: Oil on canvas
Location: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, New York, USA

Johannes Vermeer's "The Music Lesson"

Nationality: Dutch
Born-Died: 1632-1675
Creation Date: c. 1662-1665
Size: 29.4 × 25.2 inch (74.6 × 64.1 cm)
Media: Oil on canvas
Location: The Royal Collection, St. James Palace, London, U.K.

Johannes Vermeer's "Girl Interrupted at her Music"

Nationality: Dutch
Born-Died: 1659-1660
Creation Date: c. 1660-1661
Size: 155 × 175 inch (39.4 × 44.5 cm)
Media: Oil on canvas
Location: The Frick Collection, New York City, New York, USA

This photograph is from Wikipedia and I suspect that it should be a littler warmer in tone.

Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer"

Nationality: American
Born-Died: 1867-1917

Creation Date: 1902

Media: piano music

Jay Ungar's "Ashokan Farewell"

Nationality: American
Born/Died: 1946

Creation Date: 1982

Despite how American this music seems to me, I think that after America is long gone this music will still bring tears to people's eyes.

Atul Kapur's Pick: Louis Hersent's "Daphnis and Chloe"

A special thanks to Atul Kapur for hosting this blog for a day. If you there is a work of art that you would like to share here, feel free to drop me a line.

Nationality: French
Born/Died: 1777-1860

Creation Date: 1817
Size: 55.1 x 68.9 in. (140 x 175 cm)
Media: Oil on canvas
Location: The Louvre, Paris, France



Why I like Daphnis and Chloe:

One of my favorite paintings is "Daphnis and Chloe" by a 19th century French painter Louis Hersent.

I like the painting for its depiction of a passionate couple engaged in a life-affirming moment. Let me define that moment by briefly describing the painting as we see it (i.e. without any reference to the story that it's based upon).

Natalie Merchant's "Golden Boy"

Nationality: American
Born/Died: 1963

Creation Date: 2001

This song reminds me very strongly of a Peter Keating type of person. When I first heard this it several years ago I could relate to it very strongly because I was in close proximity to a Peter Keating and I found it very frustrating. It was one of countless instances where the character of Howard Roark gave me encouragment.

Lyrics below.

Michel Gondry and Björk's "Bachelorette"

This is another video directed by Michel Gondry which has similarities to the Kylie Minogue video. Both involve a simple situation that grows in complexity and eventually becomes more and more disorganized. In this video the organizational breakdown takes the form of natural reclamation and the process climaxes with a return to the starting point.

I find interpreting these events to be difficult and the most general statement I can draw from the work is a statement about the futility of human action. I find myself trying to draw some kind of moral stance from the work, such as "learn to leave well enough alone" but there are no scenes where the character is shown making any errors--except perhaps by acting at all.

The music here fits with the narrative so well that it is easy for me to forget that the music was recorded before the video. Both the music and the video encompass a grand scale and both have an uncomfortable tension or feeling of impending disaster.

In short, although I wouldn't enjoy watching it every day, this is an excellent work of art.

Michel Gondry and Kylie Minogue's "Come Into My World"

Today's post is another excellent work of art in the genre of the music video. Unlike the Massive Attack video I do not like this song, but that isn't to say it is a bad song.

It is unfortunate that there is no relationship between the lyrics of the song and the content of the video--it seems like the idea for the video could have been applied to just about any song--but it was a good choice to unify the music and the narrative by matching the rhythm of the music with the pace of the performer. The sequence of events is incredibly ambitious and clever despite it's simplicity. The actions performed don't really result in any kind of meaningful climax, but it's interesting to watch the chaos build as the quantity increases. I can't even imagine how much meticulous planning went into this work!