Fragonard - The Stolen Kiss

Just another simple composition analysis. Horizontal and vertical divisions into thirds and quarters and the connecting diagonals, along with the Golden Section (technically 1/ϕ = 1/.618 = .618) from each corner.

Jean Honoré Fragonard
The Stolen Kiss (1780s)
Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg
Click to enlarge

The Mourners at the Met

The Mourners: Tomb Sculptures from the Court of Burgundy at the Metropolitan through May 23,2010.

An exhibition of the thirty nine carved alabaster mourners by the artists Jean de La Huerta and Antoine Le Moiturier, each approximately 17 inches high and dating from the mid 15th Century. This is the first time that "these figures will be seen together outside of France and provides an unprecedented opportunity to appreciate each sculpture as an individual work of art." [FRAME]

The installation is a procession of two rows down the middle of the Metropolitan Medieval Sculpture Hall. Removed from their original architectural niches and now illuminated from above, these modest alabaster figures glow solemnly. They are recontextualized into the present era, to be seen as two rows of objects distilling the metaphors of grief.

A composite of four images from the Met website which I color corrected a bit to more accurately reflect what I felt was the startling luminosity of the alabaster figures.

[PR] "The Mourners from the tombs of the Dukes of Burgundy are deeply affecting works of art. Beyond their evident visual and narrative qualities, we cannot help but be struck by the emotion they convey as they follow the funeral procession, weeping, praying, singing, lost in thought, giving vent to their grief, or consoling their neighbor. Mourning, they remind us, is a collective experience, common to all people and all moments in history."
[ Sophie Jugie, Director, Musée des Beaux-Arts. Dijon http://www.themourners.org/about.html ]

Links:
The Met About the Mourners page
The Met Index to the 39 Mourners page
The FRAME website: Additional information on the Mourners 3D Photography Project

Exhibition Schedule
The Mourners: Tomb Sculptures from the Court of Burgundy will be touring the United States as follows:

March 2, 2010 - May 23, 2010: Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC, NY)
June 20, 2010 - September 6, 2010: Saint Louis Art Museum (Saint Louis, MO)
October 3, 2010 - January 2, 2011: Dallas Art Museum (Dallas, TX)
January 23, 2011 - April 17, 2011: Minneapolis Institute of Art (Minneapolis, MN)
May 8, 2011 - July 31, 2011: Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, CA)
August 21, 2011 - January 1, 2012: Legion of Honor (San Francisco, CA)
January 20, 2012 - April 15, 2012: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Richmond, VA)

Tino Sehgal at the Guggenheim

At the Guggenheim Museum, 1071 5th Avenue (at 89th Street), Exhibition dates: January 29–March 10, 2010. I liked the Tino Sehgal pieces very much but I am not interested in writing a review. Instead I am writing my responses and reactions to the piece in the comments section.

London-born, Berlin-based artist Tino Sehgal constructs situations with people that defy the traditional contexts of museum and gallery environments, focusing on the fleeting gestures and social subtleties that define lived experience rather than the material aspects of conventional art making. His singular practice has been informed by his studies in dance and economics, yielding ephemeral works that consist only of the interactions among their participants and are not visually documented. Organized as part of the Guggenheim's 50th-anniversary celebrations, Sehgal's exhibition comprises a mise-en-scène that will occupy the entire Frank Lloyd Wright–designed rotunda. One facet of the artist’s practice, quasi-sculptural choreographed movement, will transform the ground floor of the rotunda into an arena for spectatorship. On the spiraling ramp, another aspect—direct verbal interaction between museum visitors and trained participants—will predominate. Sehgal's works expand the concept of what constitutes a contemporary art object, offering the viewer an immediate engagement with the realization of the work presented.[Guggenheim PR]

A little slight of hand blogging separates this post from where it started in the comment section of the previous one.