The Goncourt’s have been away for the Summer. It’s given us new perspectives and energy. We’ll be posting again very soon.
Spring Salon Review 12: Lynn Hilton Bennett, Storm Building over Lower Geyser Basin (2010)
Posted 08 Jul 2010 — by Micah Christensen
Category Exhibitions, Goncourt Brothers, Micah Christensen, Spring Salon 2010
Category Exhibitions, Goncourt Brothers, Micah Christensen, Spring Salon 2010
(For an introduction and full critical catalog of the Spring Salon, click here.)
Lynn Hilton Bennett, Storm Building over Lower Geyser Basin (2010) Oil on canvas.
Tourists must have been disappointed and left wondering why they had come so far to see a geyser upstaged by a cloud.
Salon Review 11: J. Kirk Richards, Cantata “Wir Eilen Mit Schwachen.” (2009)
Posted 08 Jul 2010 — by Philipp Malzl
Category Exhibitions, Goncourt Brothers, Philipp Malzl, Spring Salon 2010
Category Exhibitions, Goncourt Brothers, Philipp Malzl, Spring Salon 2010
(For an introduction and full critical catalog of the Spring Salon, click here.)
Combining Proto-Renaissance haloes in the thirteenth-century Italian style of Cimabue with a simple wooden arch, Richards effectively emphasizes fundamental notions of innocence and purity and thus elevates the children’s choir to angelic status. The title of this painting (which is actually incomplete as it stands) refers to a sacred choral work by famed seventeenth-century German composer Johann Sebastian Bach, and roughly translates into English as: “We hurry with weak, yet diligent strides.”
My Evening with Arnold Friberg (American, December 21, 1913 – July 1, 2010)
Posted 05 Jul 2010 — by Micah Christensen
Category Micah Christensen, Obituary
Category Micah Christensen, Obituary
Arnold Friberg
Many obituaries have been written since his death four days ago. Rather than repeat the long lists of accomplishments printed in numerous obituaries (NY Times, for example), I’d like to share a personal experience I had with Arnold Friberg five years ago, when he was 91.
My wife and I were invited to have dinner with Arnold and his wife, Heidi, at their home. Heidi cooked. Afterwards, we sat, talked about art, and walked through Arnold’s studio. For a man of any age–let alone 91–Arnold was full of energy. He hopped out of his seat to punctuate a passionate thought about Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres (French, 1780-1867), whom he felt had been unfairly treated by historical memory. (How appropriate it was when Susan Siegfried’s book Ingres: Painting Reimagined was delivered to my house the same day Friberg died.)
As we toured his studio, Friberg lifted an original oil painting he had done for a Christmas edition of the Saturday Evening Post. “Unlike my colleagues,” he said “I painted a perfect reindeer.”
“I would look for the perfect antlers on one reindeer, the perfect eyes from another, nose from another; and, then, I combined them. Other artists don’t do that.”
Perhaps knowingly, perhaps not, Friberg’s self-described “perfectionism” was, in practice, akin to the Ideal reached for by Ingres. Friberg was tirelessly detailed. His work often featured elaborate script applied by hand without the use of stencils. Even at his advanced age, Friberg could be found working in his studio, touching and re-touching works, which, in his mind, could always be improved.
We spent several hours looking through his catalogue of works. Any artist would be satisfied to have so many memorable and widely-reproduced works. Yet, Friberg had an air of anxious energy. “I’m happiest when working,” he told me.
Wherever he is now, I’m sure that Arnold Friberg will not sit back and enjoy what will surely be a growing reputation. He is probably sorting through cherubs, looking for which one has the best wings, eyes, lips, etc.
Spring Salon Review 10: Kevin Thompson, Sun Dog (2009)
Posted 05 Jul 2010 — by Micah Christensen
Category Exhibitions, Goncourt Brothers, Micah Christensen, Spring Salon 2010
Category Exhibitions, Goncourt Brothers, Micah Christensen, Spring Salon 2010
(For an introduction and full critical catalog of the Spring Salon, click here.)
Kevin Thompson, Sun Dog (2009) Oil on board.
If Edward Hopper had a dog and named it Velázquez, this would be it.
With Sun Dog, Thompson accomplishes something that only great art can: he dignifies the everyday, causing us to linger on humble moments we frequently experience without reflection. The limited palette and effects of chiaroscuro would be sinister in the hands of a lesser artist. Here they become the agents of melancholy and meditation.
Salon Review 9: Terrel J. VanLeeuwen, Concrete (2010)
Posted 05 Jul 2010 — by Philipp Malzl
Category Exhibitions, Goncourt Brothers, Philipp Malzl, Spring Salon 2010
Category Exhibitions, Goncourt Brothers, Philipp Malzl, Spring Salon 2010
(For an introduction and full critical catalog of the Spring Salon, click here.)
Terrel J. VanLeeuwen, Concrete (2010) Conte crayon.
What an astonishing display of skill in an underrepresented medium (conte crayon on paper) ! Here, we witness a dynamic encounter between the forces of nature as represented by massive mountains and angry skies on the one hand and the powers of human creation as represented in the concrete factory and automobiles on the other. The artist’s vigorous treatment of the stormy sky is especially noteworthy. One wonders what might have inspired the artist to choose such an unusual presentation of subject, which, to me, seems quite unprecedented
Salon Review 8: Craig Hone, The Matador (2009)
Posted 30 Jun 2010 — by Micah Christensen
Category Exhibitions, Goncourt Brothers, Micah Christensen, Spring Salon 2010
Category Exhibitions, Goncourt Brothers, Micah Christensen, Spring Salon 2010
(For an introduction and full critical catalog of the Spring Salon, click here.)
Craig Hone, The Matador (2009) Bronze.
This is not the tame, ceramic rooster that accompanies wax fruit or holds cookies in so many American kitchens. Rather it is the “Matador” described by my undergraduate creative writing professor who had recently returned from a six-month stint in Chihuahua, Mexico. He was working as an undercover investigative journalist observing illegal cockfighting. “Trainers would strap razor blades to the roosters feet,” he told us. “Then, they were placed in the ring.”
Salon Review 7: David Edward Linn, Memory (2010)
Posted 30 Jun 2010 — by Philipp Malzl
Category Exhibitions, Goncourt Brothers, Philipp Malzl, Spring Salon 2010
Category Exhibitions, Goncourt Brothers, Philipp Malzl, Spring Salon 2010
(For a full critical catalog of the Spring Salon, click here.)
David Edward Linn, Memory (2010) Oil on panel.
David Linn’s enigmatic and mysterious canvases communicate with their spectator through a pictorial language that transcends traditional narrative qualities to accommodate more open-ended types of interpretation. Basic human emotions, such as fear and anxiety regarding present or impending misery as well as the hope for deliverance seem to be his primary interests. In a way, Linn’s monochromatic and surrealistic image of a single figure acts as a tabula rasa, inviting us to project onto the scene our clandestine struggles, dreams and emotions.
Salon Review 6: Jeffery Pugh, Tracks (2009)
Posted 28 Jun 2010 — by Micah Christensen
Category Exhibitions, Goncourt Brothers, Micah Christensen, Spring Salon 2010
Category Exhibitions, Goncourt Brothers, Micah Christensen, Spring Salon 2010
(For a full critical catalog of the Spring Salon, click here.)
Jeffery Pugh, Tracks (2009) Oil on canvas.
Pugh has absorbed the lessons of this father-in-law, Gary Ernest Smith (See Review 1), and moved into a realm where he stands solidly and brilliantly on his own. Both artists are dedicated to the use of palette knives instead of brushes. They believe, with some reason, when the numerous tiny hairs from a loaded brush place paint on a canvas the result is a surface marked with thousands of tiny furrows. As light hits the hills and valleys created by brush hairs, the light bounces off the canvas in thousands of directions, interfering with the eye’s ability to absorb light (i.e. color) from the painting. The palette knife creates a series of flat applications of paint to the surface of the painting; therefore, light bounces off the painting in more direct way.
In Tracks, Pugh takes advantage of this flat-surface approach by creating horizontal lines of color that exaggerate the natural world. In the process, he exhibits a remarkable compositional instinct, and enormous arsenal of brushwork that creates a myriad of textures.
Salon Review 5: Justin Taylor, First Grief Revisited (2009)
Posted 28 Jun 2010 — by Philipp Malzl
Category Exhibitions, Goncourt Brothers, Philipp Malzl, Spring Salon 2010
Category Exhibitions, Goncourt Brothers, Philipp Malzl, Spring Salon 2010
(For a full critical catalog of the Spring Salon, click here.)
Justin Taylor, First Grief Revisited (2009) Oil on canvas.
Justin Taylor is a modern master. He demonstrates in this moving piece that the Renaissance tradition of painting is as effective today in relating a contemporary message as it has been for the past six hundred years. To prove his point, Taylor updates a painting titled First Grief (1895) by nineteenth-century American artist Daniel Ridgway Knight. Taylor successfully demonstrates that Knight’s work is timeless; that is, it functions within a modern paradigm without losing any of the sentiment and immediacy of the original work. If anything, in contrast to the soothing effect of the lyrical French landscape in Knight’s version, Taylor’s monotonous and bleak urban background reveals more emphatically the sitters’ psychological states and invites us to guess what the topic of their intimate conversation might be.
Taylor deserves great admiration for his excellent handling of oil paint and use of unobtrusive color palette, both of which contribute largely to the compelling visual effect of this work. In order to appreciate Taylor’s efforts fully, I strongly encourage the reader to visit the Museum of Art at Brigham Young University to see Ridgway Knight’s original painting.
