R.W. Norton Art Gallery Newsletter : December 2008


Thomas Moran, View of Philadelphia from Belmont Plateau, Fairmont Park, 1871

E. L. Henry, In the Old Stagecoach Days, 1907

Thomas Cole, The Snow Squall, 1825

FROM THE EDITOR In this issue of Around the Gallery, love and romance are the focus! Come to the Norton and view works of art inspired by great lovers, artist couples, and personal passion, and foster your and your children’s love for art. Unless otherwise noted, all articles are written by Kristi Kohl, Staff Researcher. Editor Kristi Kohl Contributors Everl Adair Gary D. Ford Jennifer DeFratis Kip DeHart

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FEATURED ARTIST: Anna Hyatt Huntington

FEATURED ARTWORK: Cybis Porcelain

FROM THE VAULTS: Vintage Valentines

Sink your teeth into scandal and scorn with February’s First Saturday Tour: Scandals and Vandals. Part of the guided tour series that occurs the first Saturday of every month, this fiend-filled tour explores the darker exploits of our artists. This Anti-Valentine’s tour showcases the bad boys (and girls!) of our permanent collection and the brilliant works that came out of bad relationships.

This particular topic was chosen for a tour because, in the words of Lord Byron, “dead scandals form good subjects for dissection.” As we were walking the fine line between gossip and history, an immeasurable amount of man hours was spent on thorough research. After all, when it comes to rumors, the truth is secondary to the sharing of information. However, after sorting through the 999th dry tome of “who said what,” it was decided it would be better to share the innuendo than analyze it, and to let the visitors decide for themselves what to repeat over coffee.

Why would we dare poke, prod, and puree the character and lifestyle of some of our most beloved artists and their subjects? Well, because it’s bloody good fun. “Show me someone who doesn’t like gossip and I’ll show you someone who isn’t interested in people,” says Barbara Walters. We talk about our neighbors, our politicians, and our artists because it is human nature to be curious. Besides, seeing someone else embroiled in scandal makes our own indiscretions look better by comparison.

Not to mention the warm, fuzzy feeling we all get when a smug, talentless celebu-tard or greasy politician living in an ivory tower gets rocketed back to terra firma through some stupid scandal. Have you heard about the politician/actor/royal member who got caught with the intern/high priced call girl/teenage boy? Are you smiling? That’s schadenfreude – feeling joy at the misfortune of others. We are all guilty of it at one point or another, and so it is better to embrace our salacious nature and indulge our need for innuendo in a safe, educational environment of the museum rather than in the check-out line of the five and dime.

Will we swoon over sex scandals in the upcoming tour? Gawk about gossip? Murmur murder? My lips are sealed (until we start talking trash!). Featured on the foray into faux pas will be stories about a vulnerable young model for artist A.A. Weinman who went from saint to sinner, a cheeky drunk, a few presidents, some overly eccentric artists, and a fetid soul who let his former lover rot in an insane asylum until her death. If you haven’t got something nice to say about someone, come stand next to us on the Scandals and Vandals Tour!

Jennifer DeFratis, Tour and Special Events Coordinator

As Valentine’s Day approaches, we find ourselves surrounded by the tokens of romantic love. Merchants tout gifts of candy, flowers, jewelry, and the occasional power tool, while restaurants line up reservations for intimate dinners for two. Men struggle to remember just which song was “ours” and whether this or that perfume was “her” fragrance – and not the ex-girlfriend’s – while women turn to Master Cleanse or South Beach in hopes of fitting back into that special dress and proving she’s still the sylph who first drew his admiring gaze. With this much cultural attention on the trappings of romance, it’s no wonder that most people expect a Romantic work of art to be about, well, romance. But Romantic with a big “R” is a big category, and many of the Romantic paintings and sculptures in the Norton are devoid of people at all, much less those indulging in frisky behavior.

The Romantic movement began as a response to and in many ways a rebellion from the tenets of the Enlightenment, a largely 18th century phenomenon that emphasized science and reason, law and the bonds of society, classical learning and emotional restraint. Academicians ruled the art world and mandated formal representations of narratives based on classical, Christian, or historical sources. Art was an intellectual pursuit, requiring both an extended education and training, as well as an apprenticeship in the craft. But Romanticism, born in the late 18th century and coming to maturity in the 19th, emphasized the individual and emotional over reason and societal standards. Romantics, believing in a “natural” wisdom that surpassed academic learning, embraced the mysticism and Gothic trappings of the medieval period and celebrated the folklore and folk music of the common people. It was an era that established the reputations of both the Brothers Grimm and William Shakespeare (Neo-classical academic critics found Shakespeare too undisciplined and fervid, mixing tragedy and comedy in the same play and frequently depicting irrational impulses as directing his characters’ actions, exactly the things that seemed natural to Romantics). Nature was venerated and the sentimental elevated. These elements manifested themselves in art in works like those of Hudson River School painters Thomas Cole (The Snow Squall), Albert Bierstadt (Yellowstone Falls), and Thomas Moran (View of Philadelphia from Belmont Plateau, Fairmont Park). Those artists saw nature as the visible manifestation of God and painted their landscapes accordingly. Romanticism also popularized genre paintings like those of E. L. Henry (In the Old Stagecoach Days) and Eastman Johnson (The Christmas Letter) which celebrated the lives of common people in ordinary pursuits. In sculpture, Romantics like Antoine-Louis Barye (Lion Crushing a Serpent) and Auguste Rodin (Jean d’Aire) abandoned neo-classical tropes and depicted the individual character and nature of both animals and people.

Nonetheless, there is something for which we should especially commemorate the Romantics on Valentine’s Day. For centuries, marriage had been regarded as a matter of property in which fathers gave their daughters to other father’s sons as a seal on an exchange of land and goods, ensuring alliances both political and profitable. Love was no part of this bargain; in fact, medieval physicians thought romantic passion a potentially fatal disease, while Neo-classical philosophers regarded it largely as a form of madness and distinctly dangerous. But the Romantics decided that romantic love was the most exalted of human emotions and everyone’s birthright. When we search for a soulmate, we are obeying their injunction. They were the first to declare love the necessary and appropriate foundation for marriage. So, if on Valentine’s Day, you happen to find yourself gazing fondly into the eyes of the woman your mother never trusted in either the kitchen or your heart, or the eyes of the man your father insisted was too young, too old, too poor, or too feckless to take on the responsibility of a family, or if even in the face of parental approval, you have chosen to make a commitment based on love, then you are both a romantic and a Romantic.

Everl Adair, Director of Research and Rare Collections

TIPS FROM KIP: Making a Fresh Bouquet

Every Valentine's Day, bunches of colorful flowers exchange hands, with red roses being the traditional favorite and most popular to give. A fresh bouquet of flowers from your home garden, however, will express your love and devotion even more! Some fresh flowers you could use include snapdragons, stock, daffodils, paperwhites, and narcissus. You may also use greenery such as ivy, evergreen fern, and boxwood. In addition, you will need the following supplies which can be found at your local nursery and craft stores:

Floral wire
Floral and stem wrap tape
Wide ribbon
Sandwich bag
Scissors
Preservation solution
Hot glue gun/glue

Once you have assembled your supplies, follow the steps below for making your bouquet, as described at the website Ayushyeda (www.ayushveda.com/homemade-crafts/fresh-floral-bouquet.htm) :

1)Soak the flowers in a preservative solution for several hours. This will keep the bouquet you make fresher for a longer period of time.
2) Trim the stems, keeping them a little longer than desired, to allow for extra length to work with.
3) Loosely wrap floral wire along the length of the stem and tape the ends to secure it.
4) Shape the flowers into your desired bouquet.
5) Wrap the ribbon around the bouquet until it is securely bound.
6) Trim the ends of the stems, making them even and smooth. Place the stem ends in a plastic sandwich bag with silicon beads and water or a damp paper towel (Remember to change the water regularly).
7) Wrap the ribbon around the sandwich bag and secure it with hot glue or a pin.

Kip Dehart, Landscape Director

OUT IN THE GARDEN: Brown Pelican by Sandy Scott

As you wander down the stone path following the stream to the first of the arched bridges, you can see one of several bronze sculptures in the Norton gardens. On a rock near the grouping of waterfalls where all the streams flow together perches a large brown pelican stretching its bronze wings above the tumbling water. The Brown Pelican sculpture is by Sandy Scott, a printmaker and animal sculptor of wild and domestic animals. She is recognized as one of the country’s leading monumental wildlife sculptors and has artwork in major collections all over the world. Scott trained at the Kansas City Art Institute and obtained a pilot’s license in 1965. After a short stint as an airline stewardess (the airline claimed she was too short to be hired as a pilot), she returned to her true passion for art and began depicting wildlife. She started out with drawing and etching, but after being inspired by a 1981 trip to China, she was determined to take up sculpture. Scott uses observation, sketching and photography to capture the natural appearance, motion and spirit of her subjects. The Norton has a second Scott sculpture whose official title is Eat More Beef but whom we have christened “Wilbur” and use as part of our tribute to the classic children’s book, Charlotte’s Web (Fairy Tale Gallery).

Museum Staff

VOICES FROM THE ARCHIVES: Lloyd Lenard, U.S. Navy Lieutenant

“Religion was so important. It gave us hope. That’s what religion does. It gives you hope for tomorrow and hope that things can be better and a hope that you can work things out and succeed in certain directions because we needed all the hope we could get from the background and the start that we had. Everybody in my family was a great Christian including my oldest sisters and my two brothers and momma and eventually papa. And boy, it stood me in good stead when I was over in the Mediterranean fighting the Germans, because the old saying is true: There are no atheists in foxholes.”

Lloyd Lenard of Shreveport served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy in the Mediterranean. He is among more than 400 men and women from the Shreveport area who graciously gave their time to tell us their life stories of service and sacrifice. We’re preserving those stories as part of our Oral History Project, an ongoing effort to interview members of the World War II generation, along with veterans of subsequent American conflicts. We also want to hear from eyewitnesses and participants in the civil rights struggle, as well as those who shaped the musical heritage of the city and the nation.

Click here to view additional photographs and to listen to the audio of the interview with Mr. Lenard.

If you or someone you know would like to share stories with us, please call (318) 865-4201, or contact ohp@rwnaf.org.

Museum Staff

BEHIND THE SCENES: Loren Culver, Oral History Project Associate

With the latest computer programs, Loren Culver preserves the life stories and vintage images of more than 400 people we have interviewed in our on-going Oral History Project (OHP). Loren, who has worked in OHP for five years, compiles written transcripts and audio versions of interviews, and copies old photographs that participants bring along. As a gift to those who share their stories with us, Loren copies to a DVD the audio of each interview and creates a slide show of cleaner, crisper copies of images of that person and his or her times--all set to the music of their era. Courtesy of the Norton, the family then has its own document of sound and sights of a loved one's life.

Those images fascinate Loren. "I love digging into old photos," she says. Often she works with crinkled snapshots that were tossed into shoeboxes, pasted into scrapbook pages, or creased into folds of wallets. In cases where the photographs are torn and faded, Loren turns to the computer program Adobe Photoshop to bring the original images back to life. After scanning the picture she uses the Photoshop to mend tears and erase water spots and tape marks. She also can add contrast and adjust the exposure to brighten or darken time-worn images. She may also crop an individual from a group shot or "blow up" a small snapshot or slide to portrait size.

We use most photographs that OHP participants provide us on our website. Copies go into our archives where the OHP preserves the thousands of images of men and women and their life stories who so positively influenced the world we live in today.

Look at Loren's work (shown below) and notice how she enhanced the originals, so that the copies look as fresh and new as when the click of the camera shutter captured a moment in time.

Museum Staff

FEATURED ARTIST IN THE COLLECTION:Anna Hyatt Huntington

Anna Hyatt Huntington was born in 1876. Her father was a noted professor of paleontology at Harvard. She often spent time at the Bronx Zoo studying the large cats and grew to love animals at a young age. At 19 she began sculpting and studied with many other famous American sculptors, including Gutzon Borglum, at the Art Student’s League of New York. In her first exhibition she displayed more than 40 pieces, a large number for her youth.

The Norton owns several Huntington pieces, including I Want All the Reins in My Hand (on display in the North Aisle of the main building). Although she is well known for her large sculptures of cats and horses captured in motion, she is most famous for her Joan of Arc statue, which earned her the Purple Rose of France.

Anna was a well-established artist by the time she met Archer Milton Huntington, a poet who specialized in Hispanic culture and literature, and heir to a vast railroad fortune. He was an honored artist in his own right, but as each partner influenced the other, their works grew even greater. When Archer opened the Hispanic Society, Anna provided two huge reliefs of Don Quixote and Boabdill at the entrance.

Anna said of Archer: “He did not marry me with the idea of asking me to sacrifice my career. In fact, he stimulated me to pursue it as I never had before.” Even well into his 80s, Archer still looked upon his wife with amazing love, as evidenced in a poem he wrote for her:

To you my heart, as might a sunlit sea
Welcome your soul, ship of my destiny!
With you in splendor past all dream’s desire,
I found a world lighted by love’s true fire.

There was nothing he would not do for her, nor she for him. Together they bought four plantations in the South Carolina low country and created an estate named Brookgreen. Anna designed a butterfly shaped garden and arranged several large sculpture pieces on the grounds. Today Brookgreen Gardens, one of the nation’s largest sculpture parks, stands as their legacy.

Museum Staff

Anna Hyatt Huntington, I Want All the Reins in My Hand

FEATURED ARTWORK IN THE COLLECTION: Cybis Porcelain

The Norton’s collection of Cybis porcelain is created in a studio founded by Boleslaw Cybis. A native of Poland, Cybis traveled to America with his wife in 1939 for the World’s Fair as a featured artist. On voyage home, Germany invaded Poland so the ship returned to the States. Cut off from home, Cybis turned to ceramics to support himself and his wife, Marja Tym, whom he met when he was an art professor at the University of Warsaw and she was a student.

Trapped in America as World War II raged in Europe, they worked side by side to establish the nation’s foremost porcelain studio. While he made the designs and figures, she painted the pieces by hand. Cybis traveled all over the country studying and sketching Native Americans with the hope of one day sculpting each of the twenty-four tribes. The Norton has 12 of the tribes represented on display in the glass courtyard of the South Wing. Today foreign dignitaries often receive Cybis porcelain as gifts of state from the United States.

Museum Staff

Apache

Choctaw

Dakota

CAN YOU GUESS THE TITLE AND ARTIST?

If you can be the first to guess the title and artist for the detail of a piece of artwork (below) at the Norton, you will receive a $25 check from the Gallery! To submit your answer, please click here. The correct answer and winner will be featured in next month’s newsletter. The same individual cannot win a prize in two consecutive months.

Answer to the January 2009 newsletter:
The painting featured in last month’s newsletter is entitled Plowing in the Nivernais (1849) by Rosa Bonheur.

Rosa Bonheur was born in Paris in 1822 to a family full of artistic talent. Because females were not allowed to attend the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Rosa settled for copying masterpieces at the Louvre by the time she was 14. Despite never having any formal artistic training, Rosa was showing at the Paris salon by age 19, where she won an award for Plowing in the Nivernais. At the time it was considered so realistic that people were quoted as being able to smell the earth being tilled.

Rosa’s first love was animals, even humble pack animals. She went to farms, stockyards, and slaughter houses to study animals, and even kept a small menagerie in her family’s sixth floor apartment. Having difficulty with her skirts under these conditions, Rosa petitioned the French government to be able to wear pants in public (it was actually illegal for women to do so). Normally exceptions were made for women with illnesses or deformities, but because Rosa’s art was already popular she was given permission despite her good health and physique.

Although she enjoyed a long and successful career, Rosa was considered ineligible for the Legion d’Honeur because she was a woman. However, when Empress Eugenie was made regent of France for a brief period while Napoleon III was out of the country, she used the opportunity to make Rosa the first female artist awarded that most prized of artistic medals.

Museum Staff

DID YOU KNOW?

The famous sculptor Auguste Rodin was notorious for his multiple love affairs that left his paramour heart-broken. One mistress happened to be fellow artist, Camille Claudel. Also a gifted sculptor, she began working in his studio as a praticien, who carved stone into the statues based on models Rodin created in clay. Claudel was an enormous influence on her lover. During their affair, Rodin’s work began to take on a more romantic flair. An example is Rodin’s Eternal Spring (1884). Originally titled “Cupid and Psyche,” he renamed it to reflect the spring-like spirit of all true lovers. The relationship of Rodin and Camille did not end well. Because he refused to leave Rose Beuret, who had been his mistress for several decades, Camille left him. After she suffered a nervous breakdown, her family decided that her love affair had dishonored them and had her committed to an insane asylum for the rest of her life.


Auguste Rodin, Eternal Spring, 1884

FOR THE KIDS: Where's the Love?

On Valentine’s Day this year on Saturday, encourage your children to think outside the candy box and bring them for a tour through the Norton. Ask them to look for portrayals of love in artwork and discover stories of romance, friendship, and affection. Remind them of the “Frog Prince”tale while viewing Puffed Up Prince (Fairy Tale Gallery).

Thomas Sully’s Blanche and Rosalie Sully (East Aisle of the Main Building) emphasizes his depiction of familial affection. Frederic A. Bartholdi’s sculpture of Lafayette and George Washington (American History Gallery) reveals the friendly bond between America and France that began in the Revolutionary War. Bartholdi would later create the Statue of Liberty as a gift to America from France.

William Ranney’s Virginia Wedding (Olla Podrida Gallery) ties the legal and spiritual bonds of matrimony. It’s the perfect outing to remind family and friends of all ages of the importance of affection and unconditional love!

Thomas Sully, Blanche and Rosalie Sully, 1842

William Ranney, Virginia Wedding, 1844

FROM THE VAULTS: Vintage Valentines

Among the many wonderful items in the Aladdin's cave that is the Norton's storerooms, are a number of 19th and early 20th century scrapbooks. Several of these contain greeting cards, including early versions of Valentine’s Day cards. According to legend, Valentine’s Day began when Emperor Claudius II decided that men without families made better soldiers and decreed that no young man could marry. A priest, by the name of Valentine thought this was horribly unjust, and so began to marry couples in secret. He was caught, however, and eventually executed. Some legends even say that while Valentine was imprisoned, he sent the first Valentine “card” to a woman who came to visit him (probably the jailer’s daughter). He fell in love, wrote a letter to her, and signed it “From Your Valentine.”

Valentine greetings emerged in the Middle Ages when romantic verses were recited or sung. The first written valentines appeared in the 1400s and are on display in the British Museum in London. These are attributed to the imprisoned Charles, Duke of Orleans. Confined to the Tower of London after the Battle of Agincourt he penned love letters to his wife in France.

By the end of the 18th century, improvements in printing technology led to printed cards replacing hand-written notes. In the 1840s, Esther A. Howland sold the first mass-produced valentines in America. Only Christmas cards outnumber Valentine cards in the United States each year. Valentine’s Day is celebrated not only in America, but also in Canada, Mexico, Australia, the United Kingdom, and France.

Museum Staff

Note: Items featured in From the Vaults are currently not on display.

QUERIES FOR KRISTI

What does vanitas mean?

Curious in Bossier City

Vanitas, Latin for “emptiness,” is a style of still life painting which uses flora and fauna to send a message about the meaninglessness and transience of life. Commonly executed by Northern European painters in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, vanitas style paintings serve as reminders of the certainty of death. Although not quite as dark as many vanitas painters, Severin Roesen depicts a typical vanitas symbol of a wilting flower in his painting Flower Piece (1862) (on display in the North Wing Corridor). One dying peony among the bouquet is a reminder of the transience of life.

If you have an art-related question you would like answered in a future newsletter, submit it by clicking here .

WORTH QUOTING:

In art the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can inspire.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

WORTH THE TRIP: Louisiana State Exhibit Museum

A small collection of Clementine Hunter (1886-1988) paintings and newspaper clippings about the artist are currently on display at the Louisiana State Exhibit Museum. The private collection demonstrates Hunter’s vibrant use of color and simple portrayals of plantation life in Louisiana in the early 1900s until her death in 1988. If you have the opportunity to visit the museum, make sure to see these charming works of art by the most famous folk artist in the state of Louisiana.

In addition, the Louisiana State Exhibit Museum highlights 18 world-renowned beeswax dioramas, large murals of Louisiana scenes, and an American Indian gallery. The museum will showcase 64 of John James Audubon large bird prints February 8-April 30, 2009, along with letters and personal artifacts of the artist. An opening reception is scheduled for February 8 from 2-4pm with guest speaker Danny Heitman, author of A Summer of Birds. Heitman’s presentation will highlight “Audubon in Louisiana.”

Louisiana State Exhibit Museum: 3015 Greenwood Road, Shreveport, LA. Admission: Free. Hours: Weekdays - 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday - noon to 4 p.m. Call (318) 632-2020. See http://sos.louisiana.gov./museums.

Kristi Kohl, Staff Researcher

EDUCATIONAL TOURS, PROGRAMS AND PROJECTS

FIRST SATURDAY TOURS

Regularly scheduled tours are offered on the first Saturday of every month at 2:00 p.m. No reservation is required for these First Saturday Tours. Groups of 10 or more are asked to call ahead so preparations may be made to accommodate the group on these particular tours. All tours, like admission to the Gallery, are free to the public. The next First Saturday Tour on February 7th is Scandals and Vandals Tour. Heartbreaking tales of jilted lovers and the bad boys we all feel guilty for loving are focused around the works of art that reveal the good things that can come out of bad relationships.

GROUP TOURS
Eighteen group tours are offered at the Norton ranging from the 19th Century French Art History Tour to the Cowboy Artists Tour. Group tours are available by appointment year-round for groups of 10-30 and last approximately 45 minutes.

OUTREACH PROGRAM
The purpose of the community Outreach Program is to take art and art education to people through interactive presentations. Community presentations consist of power point presentations to civic groups and schools.

For more information on the programs offered or to schedule a tour or presentation, click here.

ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
The R.W. Norton Art Foundation is pursuing interviews with those who were involved in America's effort to win World War II, whether in the military or on the home front. Each interview will be digitally recorded by the Gallery to be stored and used for historical purposes, and each interview subject will also be given a copy of this recording to share and preserve his or her memories for family and friends.

If you are interested in participating in or would like more information about the Oral History Project, please click here.

SUGGESTIONS AND IDEAS?
To offer us feedback or to suggest what you’d like to see in upcoming issues, please click here.

GALLERY LOCATION AND HOURS:
4747 Creswell Avenue
Shreveport, LA 71106
318-865-4201
www.rwnaf.org
Tuesday through Friday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday 1 - 5 p.m.
Closed Mondays and National Holidays