The PEM continues to produce exhibitions which are the rival of any of the largest museums, especially in their ability to illustrate, educate, and disturb. This is an exhibit not to be missed. It gathers some of the greatest artists and their work in landscape, and brings it into our present state of the destruction of our environment. It is a profoundly scary story, and Oliver and I came away with both elated and somber emotions.
The art should be seen in the environment of the museum, and the spectacular way in which the PEM has organized the art. It is a masterpiece of curating.
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Pacific Northwest Coast, probably Haida
Rattle, 19th. century
PEM
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Carl von Linne (Carolus Linnaeus) 1707-1778
Systema naturae (A General System of Nature,
through the Three Grand Kingdoms of Animals,
Vegetables, and Minerals, 1735
Missouri Botanical Garden Library
How incredible to see an authentic Linnaeus, one of the greatest of scientests,
and the founder of our modern classification system!
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Alexander von Humboldt 1769-1859
Geography of Equatorial Plants, Physical Tableau of the Andes
and Neighboring Countries 1807
Missouri Botanical Garden Library
And in the same exhibit (!) von Humboldt, the founder of Biogeography, or
the study of the distribution of species and ecosystems in space and time.
If I remember correctly, Aubrey and Maturin, in the great, great series of novels about
the British navy by Patrick O'Brien, were always doing research on their voyages for Humboldt.
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Diego de Vlaldes (Didacus Valades) 1533-1582
Illustration of the Great Chain of Being, in "Rhetorica Christiana" 1579
I will have to do some research on this.
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John James Audubon 1785-1851
Carolina Parrot
from "The Birds of America"
PEM
This species is extinct.
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Pemonscot artist
Powder horn, before 1815
PEM
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Oliver admiring:
Charles Willson Peale 1741-1827
George Washington at the Battle of Princeton
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Thomas Cole 1801-1848
A View of the Mountain Pass Called
the Notch of the White Mountains
(Crawford Notch)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
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Thomas Moran 1857-1925
Lower Falls, Yellowstone Park
Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma
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Frederic Edwin Church 1826-1900
Cayambe
New York Historical Society
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Martin Johnson Heade 1819-1904
Gremlin in the Studio II
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Conn.
What an unusual surprise from Heade! The great painter of detailed hummingbirds
and flowers from S. America, and now, this!
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Martin Johnson Heade
Newburyport Marshes, Approaching Storm
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Albert Bierstadt 1830-1902
Mount Adams, Washington
Princeton University Art Museum
Of course, you would hope to see, in an exhibition of this nature (pun), a good
representation of Bierstadt, who, when I was younger, was the painter I most admired above all others.
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Albert Bierstadt
Bridal Veil Falls, Yosemite
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh
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Valerie Hegarty Born 1967
Fallen Bierstadt
Brooklyn Museum
When you first see this, you are so startled! And then you realize it is intentional, and is
a pointed rebuke of Bierstadt, whose paintings (at least from the viewpoint of the curaters) invited the
surge Westward, despoiling of landscape, and destruction of the indigenous people.
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Frederick Law Olmsted 1822-1903
Calvert Vaux 1824-1895
Greensward Plan for Central Park
New York City Municipal Archives
Like the Linnaeus, how very cool to see an Olmsted original
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David Gilmour Blythe 1815-1865
Prospecting
Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Greensburg, Pennsylvania
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James Hamilton 1819-1878
Burning Oil Well at Night, near
Rouseville, Pennsylvania
Smithsonian Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
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Thomas Moran 1838-1926
Slave Hunt, Dismal Swamp, Virginia
Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa
What a stunning, and surprising piece of art by Moran, most famous for his landscapes.
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George Bellows 1882-1925
Cliff Dwellers
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Bellows' gritty art is so powerful and riveting.
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David Bradley born 1954 Ojibwe
American Dream II
PEM
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Artist in Michigan
Men Standing with Pile of Buffalo Skulls,
Michigan Carbon Works 1892
Detroit Public Library
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Lakota artist
Buffalo robe, 1882
Univ. of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology
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Georgia O'Keefe 1887-1986
The Lawrence Tree
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford
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A:shewi (Zuni Pueblo) artist
Jar, before 1900
PEM
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Morris Louis
Intrigue
Princeton Univ. Art Museum
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Alexander Hogue 1898-1994
Crucified Land
Thomas Gilcrease Foundation
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Dorothea Lange 1895-1965
Ex-Tenant Farmer on Relief Grant
in the Imperial Valley, California
Princeton Univ. Art Museum
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Three generations of Wyeths, exhibited side by side
N.C. Wyeth 1882-1945
Roping Horses in the Corral
Private Collection
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Andrew Wyeth 1917-2009
My Hound
Private Collection
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Jamie Wyeth born 1946
Portrait of Lady, Study #1
Private collection
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Alexis Rockman born 1962
Aviary
Private collection
Of all the "disturbing" art of the exhibit, this one affected me the most.
The grim landscape, the mutated creatures, all had to have been
influenced by Hieronymus Bosch, both in subject matter, and in the colors used.
I've learned that Rockman worked with Ang Lee to develop art work for
the movie "Life of Pi"
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detail of above
Somehow, this creature was the most painful to look at.
The next four photos are from Newburyport, where Jackson had an overnight at
the Unitarian church. The overnighters spent a lot of time doing art.
Some examples to follow, including Jankson's.
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