{"id":2568,"date":"2014-01-16T22:07:48","date_gmt":"2014-01-16T22:07:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moirakirkwood.com\/?p=2568"},"modified":"2020-08-28T13:24:31","modified_gmt":"2020-08-28T02:24:31","slug":"america-the-beautiful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moirakirkwood.com\/?p=2568","title":{"rendered":"America the beautiful"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday a buddy and I visited the Art Gallery of NSW<\/a> to check out the Summer blockbuster\u00a0America: painting a Nation<\/em>.<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0 The works were organised chronologically, following America’s development since white settlement. We were able to witness the changes in the way Americans have seen themselves.<\/p>\n

\"Copley,<\/a><\/p>\n

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John Singleton Copley (1738-1815) Portrait of a lady,<\/strong><\/em> 1771, oil on canvas, 126.9 x 100.3cm<\/p>\n

The 18th century portraits were similar in style to the European ones I’m more familiar with. \u00a0Idealised, ‘airbrushed’ images of perfect flesh and immaculate rendering of fabrics. This image by Copley is an example, with the addition of a marvellous capturing of character for which he was famous. I could have sat with this image all day.<\/p>\n

The 19th century saw a relationship with the wild landscape which was being ‘conquered’ as people moved west. There was an undercurrent of conflation of principles of liberty, a noble principle, with the right to colonise and develop the land.<\/p>\n

We did see some images that made reference to the plight of the First Peoples, including this beauty:<\/p>\n

\"REMINGTON,<\/a><\/p>\n

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Frederic Remington (1861-1909) The herd boy,<\/strong> <\/em>c. 1905, oil on canvas, 68.9 x 114.9cm<\/p>\n

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\"wyeth,nc_MOVING<\/a><\/p>\n

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NC Wyeth (1882-1945) Moving Camp,<\/strong> <\/em>1908, oil on canvas, 92.1×66.4cm<\/p>\n

This image was amazing. It was in fact darker than it looks here. It was dim, really. But the line of bright water, aligned with the chiefs’ headgear, was really interesting. you could not take your eyes off this one. It is worth considering in more detail in terms of its composition.<\/p>\n

It was great to see a Mary Cassatt image in the flesh. The canvas is wonderfully active. She went off to join the French Impressionists and exhibited with them several times.<\/p>\n

\"CASSATT,<\/a><\/p>\n

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Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) Mother about to wash her sleepy child,<\/strong><\/em> 1880, oil on canvas, 100.3 x 65.8cm<\/p>\n

I finally got to see a work by the father of Abstract Expressionism, Hans Hofmann. The show finished with the Ab Ex painters, more or less.<\/p>\n

\"Blue<\/a><\/p>\n

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Hans Hofmann (1880-1966) Blue monolith,<\/strong> <\/em>1964, oil on canvas, 183.5 x 152.7cm<\/p>\n

I did enjoy the material presence of this, although I’m not sure I really received it as he intended…the scale was relevant, it’s pretty big and…unapologetic. I enjoyed the negative space. There was depth and movement to be sure. Maybe I needed to spend more time with it.<\/p>\n

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Yesterday a buddy and I visited the Art Gallery of NSW to check out the Summer blockbuster\u00a0America: painting a Nation.\u00a0 The works were organised chronologically, following America’s development since white settlement. We were able to witness the changes in the way Americans have seen themselves.                     […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[40,34,42,41,31,30],"class_list":["post-2568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-exhibitions-ive-seen-recently","tag-9th-century-art","tag-abstract-art","tag-abstract-expressionism","tag-american-art","tag-fine-art","tag-portraiture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moirakirkwood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moirakirkwood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moirakirkwood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moirakirkwood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moirakirkwood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2568"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/moirakirkwood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2584,"href":"https:\/\/moirakirkwood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2568\/revisions\/2584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moirakirkwood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moirakirkwood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moirakirkwood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}