This was the first thing to hit me upon entering the exhibition, A Wild Note of Longing at the New Bedford Whaling Museum up until the end of the month of October. This is romantic chaos at its best, a churning oval of sublime contrasts dwarfing the terrors of the small boat escaping the death of the main ship as the light disappears with the sun. This might be taken as a sign that this feeling, which seems so preponderant now, is actually a central experience of the human condition.
There is a strong lyric sensibility in this, Jonah, the largest work in this exhibition at approximately 30x40,” highlighting mystical experiences with deep ambers and clear brackish blackish garnets set in pale gold ethers of joyous and delicate paint handling. It is probably impossible to capture the contrast of these darker colors with the indigo line drawing of god at the top of this, reminiscent of Polke’s larger paintings in Storr’s Venice Beinale. Because of the difficulty of photographing this work, until seeing this exhibit I was more influenced by the idea of Ryder rather than the reality of his paintings.
I first heard of Ryder very early on in my life in art as a painter. The thought of hermitizing as a recluse with the aromatic colors of oil paint captured me totally. The joyous experiments destined to destroy so much of his painting seemed to me then, pure.
This work is not photogenic and is a marvel to see first hand. I doubt one can be a real painter now without at least one in person encounter with this work. It is up until October 31.
There were several related works by contemporary and modern artists including a demanding little black tree by Wolfe Kahn.
There is a great catalogue for this show with quality reproductions.
https://www.whalingmuseum.org/exhibition/a-wild-note-of-longing/
The newly restored QUAN YIN at the MFA Boston
This Song Dynasty work of Quan Yin, the goddess of compassion, recently restored to its original condition at the Boston MFA, ties in with something I want to try to articulate about being in museums and why we somehow change in these environments, maybe most of the time to a better state of being. Artists everywhere know that art practice is, primarily, the exercise & nourishment of spirit & that this gives art its value. The focus on that which is greater than self is a balm to inhabiting the physical body with its irrational demands and desires. Perhaps it is this that makes us sigh in relief to be absorbed into devotions expressed by artifacts (for as it is said, museums are where art goes to die, or be transformed into artifact) that remind us that there are indeed higher ideals, and to be comforted by the vast array expressed by those of us whose calling it is to think about these things. It is the difference between the self that says “gimme” and the prayer “May all beings achieve relief from suffering.”
About the restoration; the figure was until recently covered in gold leaf and this was removed, exposing the more ancient and subtle under coloring. What a great metaphor for our times! We are coated in urgency to attain material comfort using gold as the metaphor for that which obliterates reality in the form of greed. We must delve deeper into the subtle and true colors of our being, breaking the chains of greed that gold symbolizes.
The cauldron is a hexagram in the IChing symbolizing cooking, or what is cooked in the transformational fires of alchemy and so these ancient three legged vessels are potent symbols.
“Cross Pollination” stained glass 2020 ©Judith Schacter
This is the work of a contemporary artist whose work I have admired for a long while, the stained glass artist Judith Schaechter. Stained glass has traditionally been the expression of Christian piety. Here it is an expression of homage to life itself, which is a good trade into considerations that have been under rated until very recently.
Kathe Kollowitz around 1930 shot by Lotte Jacobi
I noted two figurative photographs that resonate strongly with me, the great voice of woman and the people, Kathe Kollowitz, shot by Lotte Jacobi about 1930 in Germany, whose portrait shows such depth of character & integrity, and a Deborah Turberville image, “The Petite Theatre of the Queen, Marie Antoinette” a deliciously morbid & glamorous image taken as “the Unseen Versailles” shot in 1980. Although in some ways seeming to inhabit opposing realms, there is that which transcends the temporal in both images. They are both in their seemingly opposite ways spiritual in orientation.
shot by Deborah Turberville in 1980
We were fortunate to catch the last day of the Monet show. The poplar tree series may be one of the most iconic vertical images in modern art.
Of course there was very much more than what I am showing here, which started as a private notebook to myself, drinking in as many images as I could lay my eyes on, a quantity of images I have been starved for in recent years, I was so thirsty that I took no notes and only reluctantly and rather haphazardly took my shots with a phone, basking in history, metaphor and meaning. Here is a pond painting by Monet followed by a shot of the pond where I once lived before moving upstate.
Below is an image of my studio yard at Sperling Pond, Naples Florida 2014, taken at 6:00 AM.
