Two Days, Two Museums, One Post

So without too much further ado, I'm going to tell you about my visits to both Mass MoCA in North Adams, MA, and the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA.  But first, a little brief background.

[Above, upside down trees at Mass MoCA - I think there are 4 or 5 of them - greet you when you walk to the entry.  I've seen them bare in the late fall and winter, and now fully leafed, but I'd love to see them in early/mid fall, when they are color-changing. My question: since the trees are upside down, do the leaves fall up into the sky instead of down to the ground?  I think they should.  Also above, part of a a sculptural installation in the museum.  Sorry I don't have the artist name.  Below, a view of part of the museum, which consists of 6 large interconnected buildings.  The photo was taken from the viewpoint of an outdoor seasonal installations.]

Anyhow....  Last post, I told you about my week of immersive plein air art-making at Bennington college in an Mass Art program called Art New England.  An art teacher friend of mine from Michigan was there the week after me, also plein air painting, and after her week concluded I joined her for two days of museum touring nearby.  We visited Mass MoCA (I've previously told you about other visits to this terrific museum, in blog posts HERE, HERE and HERE, and also HERE.  The next day we visited the also-fabulous and completely different Clark Art Institute, pictured below.  That's the older part of the museum.

Last time I was there was several years ago, before a major renovation.  The new building is a fascinating (and I might guess controversial) use of space.  There are lots of large architectural spaces that do not serve the purpose of displaying art.  I'm still trying to decide if I loved it or hated it.  Or maybe it was a little of both. But Mass MoCA also has unused architectural spaces, and I love it.  So.... I guess I need to figure out why I reacted so differently to them.  Mostly, I think, it's because Mass MoCA is built in old warehouse/factory buildings, and the original architecture is what makes it so gorgeous.  The spacious empty spaces at the Clark are all sterile brand-new construction, like this lovely reflecting pond below.  Pretty, yes.  Practical use of space?  I just don't know. 

The three photos below are interior spaces in the newest building of Mass MoCA. The walls and floors are very similar to that in the other buildings.  Beautiful architecture.  Not sure who made the hanging sculpture of wildly intertwined bodies (note the feet and heads).  The sculptural piece in the 2nd photo is by Louise Bourgeois.

Below is some of the expansive outdoor space by the new construction at the Clark.  Unfortunately I evidently forgot to shoot photos of the large 'dead' interior space in the new buildings. Probably because it just didn't 'grab' me aesthetically. 

 Anyhow... the real reason for visiting the museum was for the art, not the architecture.  While Mass MoCA is a contemporary museum, here's what it says on the Clark's website about their collection:  "The collection of the Clark features European and American paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, photographs, and decorative arts from the Renaissance to the early twentieth century. The collection is especially rich in French Impressionist and Academic paintings, British oil sketches, drawings, and silver, and the work of American artists Winslow Homer, George Inness, and John Singer Sargent."  Below are a few of my favorite images from our visit.  Some of these were big surprises to me! I am smitten with this George Inness directly below, called Autumn in Montclair. 

Below left, Chrysanthemums, by James Tissot. Isn't it beautiful?  So lush!  On the right, Woman with Dog, by Pierre Bonnard.  I was first introduced to Bonnard as a favorite of a very special college painting teacher.  I think Bonnard is often overlooked and this painting is just exquisite. 

I think this painting below might be my favorite of the whole museum.  Looking at the brush strokes close up, it amazes me how much detail you can see without it actually being meticulously drawn in!  The painting is Young Woman Reading by Lucius Rossi.   This wasn't the only gorgeous Rossi painting in the gallery.

 Below, Crossing the Street, by Giovanni Boldini.   Again, it wasn't the only Boldini, and each painting was just as expressive and rich in its portrayal.  I wish I could show you them all in this post!

The painting below, Terrace in the Luxembourg Gardens, is, believe it or not, is a Vincent van Gogh.  It definitely caught me by surprise to discover it was a van Gogh.   

Two other favorites from the museum were both of these white-on-white paintings.  On the left, one of the few paintings by a woman in the main galleries, is The Bath, by Berthe Morisot.  Lovely!  On the right, and in the detail below, by John Singer Sargent, is, in English, Smoke of Ambergris. 

Below, Low Tide, Yport by Renoir was my biggest surprise.  I'm not generally a big fan of Renoir's sugary sweet portraits, 'pretty' colors, and soft-edged brush strokes.  But this landscape, and a couple of others, really grabbed me!  Below it is a lovely Monet. 

In another building, accessible by walking up a hill or riding a quickie shuttle bus (we chose the shuttle bus), was an exhibit of abstract landscape paintings by Helen Frankenthaler.   This first, gigantic painting was my favorite.  I found that if I visually blocked out half of the painting, it was easier to see it as a landscape. 

In an experiment, I turned it upside down, and it still reads as a landscape.  

Check it out!!!

 Here's a couple other of the Frankenthaler paintings. 

Before we totally leave the Clark, here's Spring from a collection of The Four Seasons, paintings by Alfred Stevens. 

 And before I close this post, here's another handful of images from Mass MoCA!

 Below, is a tiny part of the installation all utopias fell, by Michael Oatman. 

Many times we have driven over the overpass in the background, while on our way home from somewhere else, and I had a brief view of these giant pink sculptures.  I always wondered what the heck they were, (and maybe I still do), but never was able to stop on the bridge for a closer look.  So I was glad to finally get a closeup view of Franz West’s Les Pommes d’Adam.

And finally, to close this post, here's some pretty pink waterlilies from a large lily pond on the grounds of The Clark.  I should mention, the grounds are beautiful, and there's lots of wooded walking trails.  I'd like to return in the fall for some time in both the museum and to hike the trails. 

NYC, the Met, and an amazing special exhibit

 

Here I am, finally, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, where I returned a couple of days ago with a friend for just one day, because I wanted to finally see the Matisse exhibit, the one that I missed a month ago due to the big blizzard that send us home early.  Well this time I saw and loved the Matisse exhibit, and also saw another special exhibit that totally blew me away (which I will tell you about later in this post), but unfortunately they wouldn't allow photos in the special exhibitions, and at $50 for one exhibition book and $40 for the other, and a hefty weight and size for a day traveler trying to travel light, I didn't buy and bring home the books, and most of the postcards from the shows were not of the images that I wanted.  But anyhow, I still have a lot to show you, and tell you about.   But if you are in a hurry, scroll to the end of the post, about that special exhibit.

Meanwhile, while I've said it many times before, and probably will again, one more time won't hurt: the Met is simply an astounding museum, unmatched by any other art museum I have been to.  Huge, extensive, impressive, and awe-inspiring, and impossible to get through in one day. But we did what we could, and I will show you a sample of what we saw as we explored the museum.  We spent a bit of time in the galleries for 19th/early 20th century European art, though we didn't get through it all (how did I miss the Picasso rooms?!). Many of these images that follow are from those galleries, but not all.

Dubuffet

encaustic painting

 Even though I have no pictures, I want to tell you about that Matisse exhibit.  It was an unusual, interesting, and effective arrangement.  The paintings were arranged in pairs, side-by-side, representing different treatments of the same subject, the same pose.  It was interesting to see him paint and repaint the same exact pose over and over again, treating it differently each time.  Missing from the exhibit were works from his later years, the cutouts, but otherwise it was a well-represented cross-section of work from a brilliant artist!  Now back to the rest of the musuem...

Painting a Vermeer copy!

digitally altered image, sorry it's sideways!

 

Me in Jackson Pollock camouflage

Bonnard

Gauguin

Lichtenstein

David Hockney - I love this painting!

 Below are snippets from some Tiffany windows.  Gorgeous, so rich and vibrant.  The window posted sideways  here so I deleted it and left the detail images.

Sideways or not, just lovely.  There's an extensive and fabulous collection of sculpture at the Met.

sideways me and painting by Chuck Close

by Vuilliard, one of my favorite impressionists

and another Vuilliard

Georgia O'Keefe

and another - do you see the leg and eyeball that I see?

a bracelet!!

by Stuart Davis

 

I'd like this shelf above in my studio (if I HAD a studio ha ha!)

necklace w/opal, my birthstone.  LOVE!

The Met has an extensive Egyptian collection, including a temple and reflecting pool, and rooms and rooms of mummies and artifacts of all shapes and sizes.  The wig below is from the Egyptian wing.  There's also many other extensive collections - Greek, Roman, African, Asian, Middle Eastern, Medieval; arms and armor, decorative arts; Modern and Contemporary, American, European... what have I left out?

And below, views from the train ride to NYC, as we breezed along the Hudson River.  Views 2 and 3 are what is known as "The Palisades". 

 And, drumroll please... below are paintings from the amazing special exhibition titled Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity, newly on display at the Met.  These three images below are scans from postcards I purchased.  The actual dress from the first and second paintings below were both on display along with the paintings, as well as several other dresses, corsets, top hats, and more fashion items of the era.  I just love the first painting, by an artist unfamiliar to me.

The second painting by James Tissot, who, I swear, I had never heard of before, but who was prominently featured in this exhibition.  I was in love with basically every one of his paintings in the show.  Wonderful, just wonderful.

But the biggest surprise of the of the show was Monet, the same Monet we all know from waterlilies, Japanese bridges, cathedrals, and gardens.  These magnificent paintings of women, especially his wife Camille, in lovely dresses, were unlike anything I'd ever seen by Monet, absolutely spectacular, and showing a talent and skill that just blew us away.  A pair of paintings on one wall were sections from a massive painting.  One of them was so large it must have been painted  from a scaffolding.  The last painting in this post is a Monet, of his wife Camille.  It was the first painting in the exhibit, and the one featured on the exhibit signage, and the satin of her dress looked so real.  Other paintings showed sheer fabrics that you could see through, and textures that it seemed you could touch.  And the colors.  Oh, I was in awe!

In the Conservatory by Albert Bartholome

July: Specimen of a Portrait by James Tissot

Camille by Claude Monet

I believe this is a traveling exhibit, so maybe it could be coming to a museum in your part of the world!  If it does, go see it!  Many of the paintings are from museums in Europe that perhaps have not been seen in the US before.  I certainly had never seen most of them.  I think I may have to order that exhibition book.