PHILADELPHIA'S CLASSIC CULTURE OF THE ART AND THE ARTS!

     NEMESIS INTELLECTUAL IS A LITERARY SITE FOR INTELLECTUALISM AND THE CULTURE OF THE ARTS.
-In this theme, I have taken advantage of the opportunity to visit the famed Philadelphia Art Museum, which is located on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, near Center City. Here I bring to share this experience with and for those awaiting the other portions of the Nemesis site to develop and to continue to grow intrigue in the culture of the fine Arts.


By Adetokunbo Oluwafemi Ige





A tour of Classical Art during my recent visit to the Philadelphia Art Museum   (Part I, series)
     Many people know that the Art Museum of Philadelphia holds some of the world's most extraordinary collections. This week, I had a chance to appreciate those wondrous works for myself and the opportunity to in return, share the experience with my readers and followers. I was able to see in person these remarkable works, and photograph with some of history's most famous and--important!--artists of various genre and eras. I found it fascinating to feel myself in such an environment and within my own love for the Arts. The Architecture alone of the museum itself--is amazing! Featured below is a brief run down of the connoisseurship of the likes of the incredible: Renoir; Robert Rauschenberg; Pablo Picasso; Mary Cassatt; Vincent van Gogh; Pierre Bonnard; Eduard Vuillard; Paul Cezanne; Edgar Degas; Berthe Morisot; Walter Stuemfig, Jr.--and Charles Wilson Peal. Along with many many more...  

     Take the travel with me. I'll leave you with more insight--perspectives on how the work may be viewed from my expertise. Also catch a few brief biographical informations on the work and the artist, constructed to arouse more hunger for your travels when alone.

Here's just a few. Ready? Let's Go!

Robert Rauschenberg

AMERICAN
BORN 1925, DIED 2008
FOCUS:
ESTATE (1963)
OIL AND SCREEN PRINTED INKS ON CANVAS

     One of the first artists to combine found images using the silkscreen method and process ( a method in which design is imposed on a fine-mesh screen with the blank areas coated with n impermeable substance, and then transferred on paper or canvas by pushing paint or ink through the screen). Rauschenberg crated this masterpiece of the uncanny experience of American--Reflection on fast scale. The blur of confidence, labor, faith and haptitude--for those who might ever get to know it, intimately, in summaries of mind. This one is called: Estate. 

     This piece is full of complexities in such a sphere, and many mixed politics of thought that complete an overall fashion-worthy view, to the artistic-conceptualism-inclined enthusiast.

     The artist began applying his own snapshots, newspaper photographs, art reproductions; thereby exploiting the wealth of mass media source material for expressionate and realistic existial purposes to contrition a genre. Banalism all the way to and through into the personal--this artist exceeded his way also into depth capture of the monumental and the public.

     Michelangelo's painting Last Judgment, the Statue of Liberty, a 1962 rocket launch, and a glass of water--help propel this piece of "figuratism"--works of particular facets and tastes. Which explains a little bit more about the culture. Drawing immense power from the tension between photography and painting.













MARY STEVENSON CASSATT
AMERICAN
BORN 1844, DIED 1926
FOCUS:
MARY ELLISON EMBROIDERING, (1877)

OIL ON CANVAS

     This gift to the museum from the children of Jean Thomson Thayer--captures an attractive young woman en pose from her skillful handcraft of fine-embroidering. The background is dark, and shadowy, the sitting chair shows innate solidity and well-displayed inertia. Meanthewhile, a lovely subject of assertion and innocence displays a contrast brightness, and vigor-- in a craft well-respected inside the fields of women and of the day and history. The subject, Mary Ellison, is captured in her discipline and revealed element--no doubt a characteristic molding of how she was known by those who were opportune to behold and intimate with her as a person and persona. Her smile is meek here, slightly puckered and extremely tasteful, with striking eyes-to-nose. Her choice of dress shows the dignity of such as the era--and gives the poise to her posture needed, for the craft-capture and to make this piece stand out with her keenness and simplicity intrigue.  Delicate hands and commercial intent, certainly are a fine addition to the completed piece. Maybe she even wills between conversation, huh? I posed with this one--appreciatively. Such a fine female of our artists, is Mary Cassatt.

   

WALTER STUEMPFIG, JR.

AMERICAN

BORN 1914, DIED 1970
FOCUS:
PORTRAIT OF MRS. LOUISE C. MADEIRA IV, (LATE1940'S)
OIL ON CANVAS
    
     I found this piece intriguing, while of course purposary--to the field--as if the subject dallied, (I imagined--) with the subliminal entertainment of enchanting the whole idea of being portraited, perhaps even after a long bout of rhetorical oriented conversations over cheese and slender wine. Of course,  to insinuate such a thing would surely ruin the texture of the gazer's ambiance to the finished work. But  I couldn't help it.
     It's just a whim, I suppose...--of a persona and personal environment meant to be as dis- perplexive as possible; not to mention the withdrawal of equally subliminally being forced unawares, that the friend-artist may do his work.
     This piece's (literally) glowing naturalisque color-beyond-believability, and its' fashioned aperture to the particular eye; for those who may very well appreciate art, the museum's description of the Dior-style gown, this piece may have originated "appearingly" about 1948. And is a well example of the new-style Dior new-look trend; a telling record of the sophistication of the *Tyson's lives. Crafted art Parisian chic combined with the Florentine portraits of the 1500's which were painted by the famous Renaissance artist Pontormo.
     The backdrop furniture I also found to a particular taste of mine and reminded another part of me of Grandma's (--in an extreme classical sense). Patterns scarce in ordinary fashion today, and designed to capture significant thinking and take them into various aspects of a peculiarly natural particular world.
      So, I indeed posed with this one. If you ever have the opportunity to do so, make sure you see it for what it wants to be. Then take the opportunity to learn more.

*A gift to the museum by Helen Tyson Madiera.



EDUARD MANET
FRENCH
BORN 1832, DIED 1883
FOCUS:
Departure of the Folkestone Boat, (c. 1868-72)
OIL ON CANVAS
    
 (On the left)--by treasured artist Eduard Manet, there is the Departure of the Folkestone Boat. A clever piece, captured against onlookers and those empassaged upon the steam vehicle of the roaring waters. The depiction creates a "stolen" approach (and by creates, I mean, that

this approach may often if not always look unintended, by those keen in eye and interested); where the subjects are not the ship themselves but rather a frequency that manages to give the capture a "ghostly" sort of appeal or presence (especially since steamships are no longer in fashion)--all the way through the idiom that people really do exist, and seemingly always did; on the edge of the horizons of subtlety and can in fact be still-life no matter absently intent and how. And the waters give suggestive background, and a sort of humorous irony into all this. If--my guess is right.
     the paddle steamer here is heading from the French port of Boulogne to Folkestone, across the English Channel. Passengers clamber aboard while bales of dry goods await loading (according to Manet's parallel emphasis. It seems that he could read the thoughts of the outcome.

*This one was sold by the Durand Ruel Gallery, and originally of the Mr. and Mrs. Caroll S. Tyson, Jr., Collections (--To the Philadelphia Museum). Manet signs his name on one of the bales, as if his artistic genius too were a product of export.

CLAUDE MONET

FRENCH

BORN 1848, DIED 1926

FOCUS:

The Japanese Footbridge and the Water Lily Pool, Giverny (1899)

    (On the right) In this piece by Monet one is literally swimming inside the texture of color--against the working eye. Attempting to define the piece itself--the distinctions of the trees amongst themselves, from the natural land vegetation tallish grass; even the water-lilies of the working stream which is even moving or still; and the flowers involved as their blossoms.

    The light from the sun finds several attemptable pathways into the eye of the viewer, often glancing off trees or poking holes, dancing on the "laid" bank, and reflecting from the lilies and blossoms in patterns. Highlighting the bridge but never over-striking it. The light in this one is what centralized the viewer's view. The bridge, by the way is multi colored, a decorative of flowers overlying moss.

     I photographed between these two pieces not because of the slight similarity namesake in the two prominent artists alone, which would serve to establish that there is certainly a distinction between the two as one learns more and familiarizes a pairing mind when suggesting the different tastes, which aid to solidify memory into comparison aware and in the subliminary tight form, no, not this alone. But that the two pieces actually hung together on the wall in this way and it was either take it (the picture), with my necessary learnings; or risk the disflattering accusation of art-theft--attempting to re-position what the museum already see as "fit". And also--I really liked these works, as the stance and pose proves.

*Of The Mr. and Mrs. Caroll S. Tyson, Jr., Collection.

That will complete this month's travel through Philadelphia art, with me at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In our next segment, on the continuing series, I will be focusing my efforts on an artist whom certainly much more credit than is generally given in most of the (in-person) social streams that I have encountered. He is a favorite of mine, his name is Charles Wilson Peale! As you can see by the bottom note in the photograph, I had lost much memory space, gathering hundreds and hundreds of specific photos for this project. I'll return to the library and retake the picture as soon as I can, and exchange this one for the better. The capture in this one reminds me of my end of the day from work, with a sudden visitor. Charles Wilson Peale is extraordinary, and has many-many more dynamic works.

I'll also go into some of the works that tourists might find around the town, by our famed Mural-Arts program--including a real-life depiction of Dante's--Gates of Hell. And a few more, in fine sculptures and pottery. Plus always more paintings!



For all my fans,

Signing out,


Adetokunbo Oluwafemi Ige
September 16th 2015

Nemesis Intellectual Communications