The Second Day in Los Angeles What a wonderful world/Day off2010/08/03 13:51
As soon as got up on the second day in Los Angeles, we went to the Huntington, a private nonprofit collections-based research and educational institution, founded in 1919 by Henry E. Huntington. When I saw the map to find directions, I was very surprised because of the size of the garden. It was large than I'd expected! I was getting worried about walking around the whole place but we decided to try looking all around the gardens, including the library and the art galleries.
We were excited about having the sun shining while we're walking around the gardens. We've had a jinx of getting rains whenever we travel, but in this trip, we never saw any clouds!
While my husband and I were looking around the gardens, we could experience a variety of tropical plants, different cactuses, and beautiful flowers.
the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art
One of the purposes for walking in the gardens was going to the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art. I didn't go to the Huntington Art Gallery, which was originally the Huntington’s residence, because I prefer seeing American art around the twentieth century to seeing European art.
Wilhelm Hunt Diederich, Antelope and Hound, 1916 Stanton MacDonald-Wright, Gestation #2, Kyoto, 1963 Reginald Marsh, Girls (Red Buttons), 1936 Mary Cassatt, Breakfast in Bed, 1897
Unfortunately, I don't know much information about American art.-I hope to learn about American art while I'm living in the United States- and this was the reason why I wanted to go to the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art. In my opinion, since the United States has a relatively short history of art, it seemed to be influenced by European artists rather than creating specific schools compared to other European art movements such as Impressionism, Expressionism, Art nouveau, Cubism, Realism, Surrealism, etc. Although some artists in the United States have their own characteristic style, they belong in the stream of times or trends at that time.
I really enjoyed the Modern Art such as Girls(Red Buttons) or Breakfast in Bed in the gallery which was very realistic and lively.
I'd expected that I could learn the history of American art through the gallery but it wasn't easy to understand because of my lack of knowledge. There were many more art works than I expected and only a few artists were familiar to me. Even some artists’ works were the new tome. Yes, I need to study more about American art.
One of the unfamiliar artists to me yet one of the most impressive artists in the gallery was Sam Francis. His work, Free Floating Clouds, seemed to be similar to Jackson Pollock’s work. Pollock was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. However, Francis combined freely applied paint with underlying structure; in Free Floating Clouds, he first made a grid with a wet roller to provide an armature for the thicker, more biomorphic forms. The extremely huge scale of canvas definitely deserved to catch my interest, and I carefully looked over it. Whenever I stepped closer or further, I could feel an organic movement though the overlapping pouring, dripping, and brushing paint on the canvas. The colors he had used, red, blue, green, and black, were naturally combined with each other and swirling on the canvas.
in front of the Library Exhibition Hall
There was a special exhibition in the Susan and Stephen Chandler Wing about California landscapes, a gift to the Huntington Art Collections. The exhibition offered paintings, watercolors, drawings, prints, and photographs depicting the varied topography of California. Although the pieces in the room were small, I could see the artists’ delicate sensibility because they were so obviously showing their own style.
There were some prints and I really enjoyed them. Since I've been working with brushes for a long time as a painter, I've been very accustomed to handling brushes and believe that brushes can be the best material to use in depicting exquisite descriptions of landscapes on a canvas with plentiful colors compared to knives. However, I realize that monochrome prints could show delicate depictions as well as tender effects. The thinking I've had might be from my fixed ideas and I have not been particularly interested in prints when I go to art museums. Yes, I think I wasn't concerned about prints even though I have seen incredible pieces. I don't know much about fascinating prints and I haven't spent much time studying printmaking. This was such a great chance to see prints fully and I could grasp various expressions of engraving.
Paul Landacre, whose distinguished body of work was largely responsible for elevating the wood engraving to an art form in twentieth-century America, was very attractive to me. I saw some pieces of wood engravings of landscapes and could feel a lot of energy. His sharp lines which were technically perfect and bold contrasts made the prints very dynamic and infused with liveliness. I rediscovered the values of print through Landacre’s work and I was really happy that I could see his work in the gallery.
LAST!
I saw the Gutenberg Bible at the Library Exhibition Hall.
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