Time: Sept 14-16

Place: Walnut Street, Pittsburgh, PA (between South Aiken Avenue and South Negley Avenue)

The best feature of the 10th Annual Art Festival on Walnut Street is that it is a juried show, which command the artists to balance between unique artistic inspiration and pop-market demand. (Sadly, the two sometimes do not converge.) Around 150 exhibitors will be presented.

Detailed information can be found at here.

Eric Zafran gave an interesting lecture about William Bouguereau yesterday at Frick Art and Historical Center in Point Breeze. But in the end, when one of the audience asked the question why Bouguereau was so “tasteless” from modern perspective, Dr. Zafran, while pointing out Bouguereau negative role in Academy by blocking and suppressing new movements and styles, failed to explain why the painter’s perfection has not been fully appreciated NOW.

From my point of view, two reasons contribute to today’s Bouguereau’s lukewarm reputation; one from the audience, the other from the painter himself.

“There's only one kind of painting. It is the painting that presents the eye with perfection, the kind of beautiful and impeccable enamel you find in Veronese and Titian,” Bouguereau said in 1895. Unfortunately, it is partly his perfect craftsmanship that has blinded some viewers from piecing through the sheer beauty to explore the emotion power. Those immaculate hands and feet, exquisite skin tones, and subtle details make eyes stay and unwilling to probe further. The great paintings command viewers constant looking: The more one looks, the less apparent the surface would appear and the more unconscious and conscious thinking it may involve. That is the joy of visual art. It may only take a few seconds for one to go through Rothko’s Red and Orange, but some can feel totally dissolved in the color after a few minutes’ close stare. Portrait by Rembrandt may have only a dip of light on the tip of the nose, yet their eyes are always penetrative and unfaltering true. Bouguereau, on the other hand, has too much to offer for the pleasure of eyes: the tender veins from the arms, the warm pink along the nail grooves, the nuance in light and shade of the body. The viewers, when intoxicated with the immediacy of proficiency and effectivity, would bother to challenge themselves no further.

Bouguereau’s denigration in reputation began as early as his death when Edward Munch had painted his Dance of Life while Gustav Mahler just finished his No. 6 symphony in tragic manner. Idealism would only be linked to naivety and French Academy was deemed as “old establishment” after two world wars. Execution became less and less important than concepts in post-war period. It was not until recently that Bouguereau has begun to receive attention in both academia and market.

Bouguereau’s poetry and harmony are as simply effective as effervescence and happiness in Mozart’s music. Most of those who enjoy Mozart seldom study him. The glossy texture seems easy to “understand”, yet requires too much energy and time to grasp the deep meaning under streams of notes. The declination of classic music in the rise of pop and rock alienates the majority of audience in the same way as the modern art propaganda has done to school of old masters. Thus it was not an incident that the majority of the audience in yesterday’s lecture are gray-haired.


Secondly, his desire for happiness, beauty and purity leads to somewhat monotonous topics and styles. Bouguereau said nothing is more difficult to paint children. In his paintings they caress, touch, kiss or sleep in untainted innocence and ultimate joy. His shepherd woman, (modeled consistently with a woman named Carmen in reality) is called “princess transformed into rustic”, and if her clothes were taken off, would be as sensual as the nymphs. For over five decades, he didn’t progress in his artistic style, nor his subjects, which becomes both his pleasure and his necessity of living. It is true that antiquity or classicism has never totally fallen out of style in art history, but fastidious nicety and exactness may.

Bouguereau once said: “One has to seek Beauty and Truth”. But when truth is contradictory to beauty in his art, he unmistakenly favored the latter. As early as1850’s and 1860’s, he explored dark and violence in both mythological and religious themes (Dante And Virgil In Hell and The Remorse of Orestes). But soon he abandoned such efforts and changed to paler palette and elegant topics. His human figures became always gorgeous, void of defect and somewhat (particularly in mythological themes) mannered. Any potential tension is lost in bright yet soft light, which in turn dissolves into silky skin. To some extent, his genre paintings are of no difference from those mythological ones: no matter who he painted, they are always as perfect as those in arcadia. Thus he locked himself in a golden cage of what he thought paintings should be: only about beauty and true joy as opposed to truth.

The idiosyncrasy of Bouguereau’s stringency in styles and topics can be best observed in Carnegie Museum of Art, which displays art works chronologically. His 6-footer of a peasant girl (Haymaker), a little plump yet tender and smooth stands against small spontaneous works by Manet and Sisley. Such striking contrast may confuse some visitors as if the painting came from the age of Jacques-Louis David or Jean Auguste Ingres. (Unfortunately, the museum does not have any works of the two for such comparison) Often after viewers have expressed their admiration of technique, they soon move to the other side of the wall, where the loose and painterly style of Monet’s seashore catch their eyes.

In 1895, Henry Clay Frick bought the painting named Espičglerie (Mischievous girl) from William Bouguereau for $5,000. (For a quick comparison, one year after the Carnegie Institute acquired “The Wreck” from Winslow Homer at its first international exhibition at the same price, which is the highest price for a single work Homer had ever got in his lifetime.) For Henry, the subject reminded him of his deceased daughter Matha, who, if still alive, would have been the same age as the girl in the painting . He kept the painting all his life because he must have seen something deeper than the angle face, something stirred by another affectionate father, who had also seen death of two children in his life time.

It moves me too to see his painting of children, regardless of dreams, fantasy or reality. There under the sheer beauty lies the harmony of love, passion and consummate mastery execution.

(PHOTO: Butler Institute of American Art, one of many U.S. Museums with a free admission policy.)
I remember a story told to me in California about some travelers from Pittsburgh wondering around Europe, in a museum looking at dinosaur bones. One commented to the tune of "there's nothing like this back in Pittsburgh." Just then the other pointed to a label that indicated the item was a "copy of the original at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh.

Folks at the Carnegie have been busy recently renovating our famed dinosaur exhibit and it should be a time for a monster of a celebration. It is time for that celebration, unfortunately it will be accompanied by a stone-age decision.

The Carnegie announced this week admission prices will increase with the opening, by as much as eighty percent.

Undoubtedly this decision is rooted in a need for additional revenue in order to continue the improvements to the largely state-supported art and natural history museums. Unfortunately the move will likely result in making art and history less accessible in Pittsburgh. This is unfortunate for the public and for Pittsburgh as it continues to grow into a thriving community of art and artists.

Sadly it may not even accomplish the intended effect of increased revenue.

Take the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Walters Art Gallery, also in Baltimore, as an example. These institutions recently converted to a "free admission" policy and have since seen about a 15 percent increase in attendance, with a more diverse and younger audience. Some members also have upgraded memberships.

A Press release from the Walters and the BMA reported that during "Free Fall Baltimore" in October and November (2006), the BMA had 44,700 visitors and the Walters had 39,194 visitors—both among the highest attendance recorded for those months during the past five years.

The Baltimore Museum of Art’s total museum attendance was 124,125 visitors from October 1, 2006 through March 31, 2007, an 8 percent increase over a two-year average of the same period. More, first-time visitors made up 37 percent of admissions.

During October 2006, the first month of free admission, the BMA recorded 24,200 visitors—the highest attended October in the past five years. The BMA also had an 89 percent increase in participation of Sunday family art activities.

The Walters Art Museum’s total museum attendance was 103,531 visitors from October 1, 2006 through March 31, 2007, a 38 percent increase over the same six months of the previous year. First-time visitors made up 43 percent of admissions, an increase from a 36 percent average. The museum’s diversity in admissions rose to 18 percent persons of color, nearly doubling from spring 2005. During October 2006, the first month of free admission, the museum recorded 21,523 visitors—the second highest October attendance in the past five years and an 80 percent increase from October 2005. The museum has also experienced triple-digit growth in children and family art activities.

The Indianapolis Museum of Art also recently went "free." Museum Director Maxwell Anderson told another publication that among the top 100 museums in America, excluding the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the average revenue from tickets to art museum budgets is about 4 percent, yet public and media focus when measuring museums is all about attendance.

No doubt, the move would seem to cost money. A lead gift of $800,000 from Baltimore City and Baltimore County allowed both museums to eliminate admission fees and become free to the public for the first time in two decades. Additional support for free admission was received.

One might suspect that if four percent of a typical museums total budget comes from admission that additional revenue in gift shops, cafe's, parking and the like might more than make up the difference.

Of course a "free" program that seems to work in Cleveland, Indianapolis and Baltimore might not for some unknown factor work at the Carnegie. Still an eighty-percent increase in admission fees would seem to put further out of reach the treasures at Mr. Carnegie's museum, making art and science less accessible to the masses. On one hand this may encourage more membership purchases, then result in more repeat visits, but how many families of four will be willing to dish out about $52 to attend? Is it enough to make them spring for the $130 family membership? Or will it make the visit to see the dinosaurs an infrequent or once in a childhood event?

What would Mr. Carnegie think?

"Mine be it to have contributed to the enlightenment and the joys of the mind, to the things of the spirit, to all that tends to bring into the lives of the toilers of Pittsburgh sweetness and light. I hold this the noblest possible use of wealth."

Nashville may be a long way from Greece, but the city’s Centennial Park may be as close as you can come without leaving the United States. Also, until the Greek ministry completes its program of restoration and reconstruction of the original Parthenon, the Nashville replica may be the closest you can come to the building as it was built by the Greeks in 400 B.C. anywhere.

The Parthenon, from the Greek word parthenos, meaning maiden or virgin, was built as a home for Athena, the protectress of Athens. While the original Parthenon was used initially as a treasury, it was later used for a variety of religious purposes. It was a Christian Church and a Mosque. In 1687, an ammunition dump inside the building was ignited. The resulting explosion severely damaged the Parthenon and its sculptures.

The structure in Nashville had a little better luck, but its survival into the present time was all but assured. Nashville’s Parthenon was originally built as a temporary structure for Tennessee's 1897 Centennial Exposition to celebrate the state’s 100th birthday. Like the World’s Columbia Exhibition in Chicago five years before to celebrate the anniversary of Columbus’s landing in the New World, the celebration was late. Tennessee became a state in 1796. Originally built of plaster, wood, and brick, Nashville’s Parthenon was rebuilt in the 1920s on the same foundations, but with concrete.

Nashville’s Parthenon replica was built at a time of a rebirth of interest in Greek and classical architecture in the United States. The 1893 World’s Columbia Exposition in Chicago gave birth to the City Beautiful Movement which saw the construction of classical buildings and grand boulevards from Cleveland to San Francisco.

Nashville’s replica is a fine surviving remnant of the movement. The bronze entrance doors on the east and west sides are the largest of their kind in the world. The pediment reliefs were created from direct casts of the originals in Athens.

While visitors to the Parthenon in Greece are treated to a construction site, visitors to Nashville’s replica can enjoy an art museum containing American landscape paintings and an expanse of green known as Centennial Park.

Once known as the “Athens of the South,” Nashville is not the only place where one can get a taste of the Parthenon in the United States. When Steel Magnate Andrew Carnegie stood on a Pittsburgh hilltop pondering an “Athens of the North” which would become Pittsburgh’s cultural center, what he had in mind was a cultural facility that would collect the old masters of tomorrow.


To house them, and perhaps to lend them some continuity from the ages, a neo-classical building in the spirit of the City Beautiful movement was erected to house an art gallery, natural science museum, library and music hall. Later the building would be adapted to include a room based on the Parthenon’s original interior space.

While the original building designed by Longfellow, Alden and Harlow was begun during the World’s Columbia Exhibition in Chicago, the Hall of Architecture, modeled on the Parthenon's cella, or inner sanctuary, was designed and added by Alden and Harlow in 1907, twelve years before Mr. Carnegie’s death.

The expansion further embraced the Greek tradition and provided halls for exhibiting casts of sculpture and architectural elements from Greece and Rome, as well as an opulent music hall foyer that rises 45 feet to an elaborate carved and gilded baroque ceiling atop colossal columns of green Tinos marble from Greece.

Moreover, the Hall of Sculpture is crafted of Pentelic marble from the same Greek quarries that supplied the stone for the Parthenon. The Hall of Architecture, which includes casts of the original Parthenon pediment friezes was created when collections of architectural plaster casts were numerous. Today the collection is unique in America and remains one of the three largest collections still on exhibit in the world. The collection also includes the largest cast in the world, the facade of the French 12th-century Abbey Church of St.-Gilles-du-Gard. While to the unknowing viewer the casts may seem like mere copies of the originals, some of the sculptures cast have deteriorated to the point where the casting actually more closely resembles the original form.

In the Hall of Architecture sits a smaller replica of the Parthenon created by students at Carnegie Mellon University, a school as endeared to Andrew Carnegie as the Museum.

Athens, of course, is named for the Goddess Athena. While a statue of Athena once stood in the Parthenon, today the only place to get a full sense of the building and the sculpture is in Nashville. Other replicas and recreations of Athena exist, but Nashville is the only place where Athena and her house are seen together.

The statue of Athena wasn’t in place for Tennessee’s late birthday in 1897, rather she was unveiled in 1990. Nashville’s Athena was created by artist Alan LeQuire and was modeled on descriptions given of the original. The modern version took eight years to complete.

The original Athena was created by Pheidias, known as the greatest sculptor of classical antiquity. The statue was unveiled and dedicated in 438 or 437 B.C. While it no longer exists, Athena appears on Athenian coins of the second and first centuries B.C. Later, Romans copied the statue in small-scale. Even today on the Acropolis you can see the outline of Athena’s base in the Parthenon.

The honor that Nashville holds may be short-lived, however. On a recent guided tour through the Hall of Architecture in the Carnegie Museum of Art, I thought I heard that a statue of Athena would soon adorn that space.

In any case, Centennial Park in Nashville and the Carnegie Museum of Art are great places to go to learn about Athena and the Parthenon, not to mention the Acropolis Museum in Athens, the British Museum in London, where the original 'Elgin Marbles' the Nashville reliefs were cast from are housed, the Louvre, where a Roman replica of Athena is on display and the Greek and Roman Galleries in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Oh, and if that’s all old hat, you might even consider a journey to see the Parthenon itself.

It was the first time I went there for figure drawing. As the event coordinator Phil said, there was no model training in the pittsburgh area and the gallery is by his acknowledgement the only one in the metro area which both provide figure drawing session and model training at the same time. "The next closest one that you can find is in UK, but they only offer cerfiticate, not training." Phil said, "here you have the artists giving you suggestions and help."

The session lasts for three hours with a break in the middle featuring complimentry food and snacks. Today's model is Myron who has been modeling for more than seven years. He talked about his first experience (always difficult as one can imagine) and his most difficult session (3 minutes gesture drawing lasting for three hours at CMU, which exhausted him as much physically as mentally). "You see someone put a price tag of 800 dollars for a painting, you think wow, that is expensive." He commented, "but you know, to get to that level, there is a long way. And the price is really not that much if you appreciate all the efforts made through years." He said that with his body straight and tight and his eyes looking down pensively as if a flash of growth of artists came into his mind.

If you are interested in figure drawing, please contact with Phil Keniston at 412-600-1664. He can also be reached through email (figuresession@verizon.net).

As with its past tradition, the Westmoreland Museum of American Art contitue its commitment to the regional artists.

From May 11, 2008 to June 8, 2008, the Juried Biennial will be hold featuring artsits from within a 100-mile radius of Greensburg.

Earlier this summer I picked up a stack of “The Arts” magazines at Wexford General Store, an antique mall on Old Route 19, north of Pittsburgh. I thought I was going for a quick diversion, and ended up in the 1920s New York art world. How wonderful antique shopping can be! I had not been familiar with the magazine and don’t know when it stopped being published. The dates I have go into the 1930s.

One item of immediate interest was the fact that Charles Sheeler took many photographs for the publication. The particular issue I am looking at now from July, 1923 has photographs of works by Constantin Brancusi by Charles Sheeler.

Sheeler’s beautiful photographs are accompanied by an article by “M. M.” about Brancusi in which the author contends that for Brancusi art doesn’t exist by itself, rather being an instrument for the propagation of the religious idea. I had admired works by Brancusi before, but never thought much about them. When reading the article in The Arts, I was immediately struck by a parallel between something as abstract as a Brancusi and painters of the Husdon River School, which flourished with the idea that god is perfect, and he having created nature, it is also perfect.

Brancusi did not seek to imitate of course, rather to “give the sensation of reality without reproducing or imitating.” The author continues “art must enter the spirit of nature and create, as does nature, beings with forms and lives of their own.” Although it may not be in the spirit of the intent, it would seem to me that sentence could translate into “art must become god, or at least commit a god-like act within nature.”

While appearing very modern, the work of Brancusi doesn’t step far from an old paradigm, just replaces Christianity or Transcendentalism with Taoism. Any appreciation for modern art does not, in the opinion of the article’s author, spread to the bulk of it in the 1920s. “Nothing has done more to harm modern art… than the avalanche of pseudo-artists who, having nothing to say, have wanted to speak a language of which they knew nothing,” he or she writes. “Let us not mistake modern art with modern artists, let us not mistake reality with appearances.”

It’s clearly the quality of art that the magazine emphasizes and it’s noticed elsewhere including in an article by Charles Downing Lay about the framing and hanging of oil paintings. After a series of guidelines for hanging paintings, including lining up the horizon lines in paintings hung side-by-side, not using wires to suspend paintings from rails, not using artificial picture lights and removing glass because of the reflections. After these “tips,” the author provides some insight into his art idea—it’s important to keep exploring art and little need to confine oneself to a period or style. “It is the quality of the picture, not the style of the time, which makes a picture valuable, and high quality is not confined to any age.”

“If we cannot buy pictures and outgrow them and pass on to something better it must be that the pictures mean little to us, and that our hearts are in the safe deposit box with the securities.” It would seem even the hanging of pictures calls upon a religious experience of sorts, not unlike Brancusi or the Hudson River painters. “Spiritually they minister to our highest desires for order, in a too disordered world, and for harmony in a life which is sometimes out of tune, and for balance when the blindfolded lady of the scales seems indeed blind to injustice and cruelty. Their influence for happiness cannot be denied no matter how little our spiritual growth has progressed.”

eBay Title: STUNNING FOREST VIEW, SENSATIONAL ATTRIBUTION! 1870's

Winning Bid: US $5,900.00
Number of Bids: 25
eBay number: 190134710763

This seller sometimes relists items that have been sold, the amount of which is high enough to wonder what's behind those "unsuccessful" transactions. From my memory, some of the paintings have been relisted more than twice. Each time there will be a few months hiatus period. The current winning bidder is from Denmark (the same as the seller) and has only 7 feedbacks. We will see whether the item will be relisted in the future.

The outcome result of Barridoff Auctioni on Aug 3 proves that there are plenty of money of investors and collectors, as long as there are quality of works in the market.

Most of the paintings were sold within estimation, with only a few expections such as the first lot (a 19th century painting of Hong Kong port with exceptional provnenance), a painting by Rackstraw Downes (Lot 148), Carmen Laffon's work (Lot 51) and in particular a sunset painting by William Henry Buck which was sold six times higher than the upper estimate.

However, works by bigger names were not quite that popular: an oil painting on board by George Inness was sold for $22,000, a study by Bierstadt was sold for $40,000. Aaron Gorson's powerful steelmill painting with several others didn't sell because the final bids were below reserved values.

But these are mostly small, in fact some can be called tiny if ones consider the normal size of Bierstadt.

In a recent Antique Digest, it was stated that with the current booming art market, collectors will pay price A for a work by a painter B because money can be accumulated fast in the strong economy while paintings by masters are only limited.

But still, results from Barridoff show that quality sells, or simply size matters, at least for some period or style.

More result can be found at here.

Finally, after four classes from "I can't draw" art class offered by Carnegie Museum of Art, I drew a picture that was satisfying, both for the picture itself and my pet

The course is compact with five sessions emphasizing on contour drawing, gesture drawing, pespective, value and figure drawing. It is fun, especially when what you draw is NOT what you do to make a living; thus even mistakes can be taken as light as the vine charcoal.

Having been taken photos for the past few years, it was quite different experience when pictures are created not through camera lens. For me, taking pictures is like finding Eden. As what Thomas Cole once said, the wall that shuts us out of the garden is our ignorance and folly, thus photographing is a process of sifting uncessary for the pure and beauty. Drawing is opposite: nothing is there on the white paper. If Eden can be found through the lens, then drawing lifts the person to the state of almighty whose power creates the paradise.

More classes can be found here.