Eye Miniatures from the Philadelphia Museum' Collection

I recently read a blog post about an exhibit, Look of Love, at the Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama, that reminded me of the most fascinating objects I had encountered at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, "eye miniatures".  On the second floor of the museum, in Gallery 296 there is a small display case that is lined up with a series of eye miniatures.

The tradition of giving miniatures as keepsakes, love charms or presents was on old one but in late eighteenth century a new trend of sending the beloved a miniature of one's eye was started. Mrs Fitzherbert was supposed to have sent the Prince of Wales (later George IV) a miniature of her eye on the occasion of their secret marriage in 1785.  Since they could not get married without his father's consent, their whole affair had to be clandestine so the Prince had his eye painted in return and had it set in a ring for her. The enigmatic quality of these works must have been very appealing since these quickly became a rage among the upper echelons of society in France as well as England.1

I have always found miniatures to be a sweet, romantic notion but the idea of giving someone the likeness of your eye seems bizarre somehow... Curious subject matter notwithstanding, eye miniatures are precious artifacts that are alone worthy of a trip to the Philadelphia Museum.

Resources

1  Philadelphia Museum of Art

A Special Birthday Greeting for My Mom

Today is my mother's birthday! As I was trying to figure out how to say "Happy Birthday" in a special way from so many miles away, I started to recall the visual images imprinted in my mind from all my studies and museum visits with "mother and child" themes.  There are so many to choose from starting with religious themes of Madonna and Child to more recent 19th century renditions of domestic scenes by Mary Cassatt or the idealized, romanticized impressions of the interaction of mother and children by Renoir. After much deliberation I decided to use this touching scene I had encountered at my last visit to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  This little detail I took of the Spanish artist Ribera's work seems to be the perfect visualization of the affection between a mother and child, there is a sense of warmth, care and protection, all the attributes we would need from a mother figure... Anyone who has experienced the same kind of loving from their own mother would be able to relate to this painting on a personal level but...  when we look at it from art historical view, we know that it is so much more than that...


"Happy Birthday Mom"

Are you in the mood for some Matisse?

Henri Matisse, Dance, 1909
(MOMA)

I have been doing a bit of spring cleaning and found this post about a Matisse exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York July 18th -October 11, 2010 - Matisse:  Radical Invention, 1913-1917.  I went to the show a number of times and enjoyed revisiting it here once again so much that I wanted to post it and share it with my readers.  It was a powerful exhibit that I still don't feel qualified enough to interpret but would like to share here for your enjoyment and edification...

BACK SERIES

El Greco - View of Toledo

El Greco, View of Toledo,  1597-99
(Metropolitan Museum of Art)

El Greco's View of Toledo from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection, is  an engrossing landscape that captures  the essence of this city while proclaiming its grandeur through  the artist's unique and thoroughly modern vision.   There is a very interesting article, "View of Toledo" by distinguished scholars Jonathan Brown and Richard L. Kagan which refers to this painting as one of the most evocative landscapes ever to be painted. Brown and Kagan argue that  El Greco might have painted this landscape as part of a propaganda campaign to encourage Philip II to reinstate the court in Toledo after he abandoned it in 1561.  

Van Gogh - The Roulin Family

Vincent van Gogh, La Bercuese, 1889
(Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Sunflowers, 1888
(National Gallery, London)

Vase with Twelve Sunflowers,  1888
(Neue Pinakhotek, Munich)

Van Gogh was living in Arles, when he painted a series of portraits of his friend postmaster Joseph Roulin and his family.  Monsieur and Madame Roulin took care of van Gogh at a time when he was lonely, both of his parents having past away and his brother living in Paris, they had become his close friends as well as a surrogate family.