Saturday, August 20, 2005

When commissioning the monument, Henry Adams directed the sculptor to discuss with John La Farge ideas about Buddhist philosophy and symbolism and to have beside him photographs of the works of Michelangelo. St. Gaudens, having studied images of the Buddha in drawings and photographs, converted his understanding of the contemplative attitude they represented into the enigmatically peaceful face. Friends close to Henry Adams described it as "The Peace That Passeth Understanding.... full of poetry and suggestion, infinite wisdom, a past without beginning, and a future without end" and Kwannon, the Buddhist image of compassion. Adams, who said his own name for it was "The Peace of God", stated that "The whole meaning and feeling of the figure is in its universality and anonymity" . [The monument was commissioned shortly after the suicide of Adams' wife.]

Smithsonian Preservation Quarterly

These images are elaborations on my previous rant on modern monuments, and the enormous disconnect from humanity that our modern sensibilities unveil. Saint-Gaudens was sculpting in a continuous heritage of relevance and relevant intellectual searching.

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What am I doing in Southern Pines, North Carolina?

Studying drawing and painting in a traditional academic program at Mims Studios.

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Knit blog

The sort of fluff that doesn't belong here.

Inscription:

Michelangelo borrowed this from Dante's "Paradiso" and inscribed it in the cross in the drawing of a pieta...

Ye little think what blood costs.

Change your frame of reference:

for news sans current US-administration bias, click HERE...

Cost of the War in Iraq

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In Progress:

The real act of discovery consists, not in finding new lands, but in seeing with new eyes. -Proust

Copy after Jacques-Louis David. Oil on Linen. 48" x 78".

Portrait of A, in progress. 18" x 16". Charcoal and Chalk on Toned Paper.

Ecorche Study of the Arm, In Progress.

Ecorche Study of the Arm, In Progress.

Recent Work:

J, Unfinished. Portrait drawing from life. Charcoal and chalk on toned paper.

Study for painting. Charcoal and chalk on brown paper.

Portrait drawing from life. Charcoal, pencil and chalk on toned paper.

Portrait Drawing from Life. 15" x 11" Charcoal and pencil on toned paper

Ariadne. 36" x 28" Oil on linen.

Parthenon relief. Cast drawing. Charcoal, pencil and conte on tinted paper

Silenus. Cast drawing. 40" x 26" Charcoal and chalk on toned paper

Euripedes. Cast drawing. 30" x 22" Charcoal on white paper

Reading:

Ovid, Metamorphosis.

Bonfait, French Artists in Rome: Ingres to Degas, 1803 - 1873.

Museums/Other Research:

Mims Studios

The Louvre - Searchable Collection

The Metropolitan

Sothebys

Christie's

Bonhams

artcyclopedia.com

Ann Long Fine Art

Bartleby Online Reference

Kremer Pigments is now Sinopia

Other:

The Classical Design Foundation

Local News.

Art Watch International

Light in My Eyes

Free Will Astrology - read it for the strong writing, not necessarily the hocus-pocus

The Classicist Blog

to do list:

Tone landscape panels

Color sketch

Landscape drawings

pace calculator

Mari Quance DeRuntz