USA: MET: Works of art that I respond to

Please Note: This section of the blog will be changing and a work in progress. Please be patient with this as I work on this gradually.

Also I would love to return to some of these countries - I have missed some galleries in these countries due to time.

I haven't as yet been to Florence/Rome/Madrid/Amsterdam/Japan/China...

So I hope this will be added to over my lifetime.

To be able to not violate copyright laws I have added links to artworks.

I have also tried to choose artists that I have not mentioned in other blogs/countries. Comments are limited to images that were available online. 

USA:

MET:

This museum is the most amazing museum I have ever been to. I went there nearly every day over the month I was in New York. The collection of Impressionist works (Degas and Cezanne in particular) is an immense enviable resource for the New York painters. I was hoping though to see more Hans Hoffman there in NY...

My favorite works:

De Kooning: Attic
http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/210002690?high=on&rpp=15&pg=4&rndkey=20111117&ft=*&pos=50

(Made early in his life from basic material. Printed with newspaper in sections - very felt and very forceful presence)

Braque: The Billard Table

http://www.metmuseum.org/collections/search-the-collections/210010207

( there was another one like this at the MET - no image available- late Braque. Th textured areas and divisons that disappear and reappear fragmented, yet frontal is something that I would like to capture in my own work and thinking about this in the studio at the moment)

Anslem Kiefer: Bohemia Lies by the Sea
http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/210007212?high=on&rpp=15&pg=35&rndkey=20111117&ft=*&pos=525
( best of the postmodern work - forceful afn strong and direct)

Robert Motherwell : Elegy to the Spanish Repulic, 70
http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/210009638?high=on&rpp=15&pg=37&rndkey=20111117&ft=*&pos=547
( wanted to see these in flesh- but some versions of these were going through the motions- energy and urgency missing)

Vermeer: Young Woman with a Water Pitcher
http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/110002334?high=on&rpp=15&pg=39&rndkey=20111117&ft=*&pos=571
( breathtaking)

Administrative tablet with cylinder seal impression of a male figure, hunting dogs, and boars

Date:ca. 3100–2900 B.C; Geography:Mesopotamia, probably from Uruk (modern Warka); Culture:Sumerian

http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/30008828?high=on&rpp=15&pg=47&rndkey=20111117&ft=*&pos=696

( I love these clay works, small tablets that can be held in your hand. There is a sense of urgency and need to be able to communicate through scratching)

Unidentified Artist: Scholar Viewing Plum Blossoms

Period:Yuan dynasty (1271–1368); China
http://www.metmuseum.org/collections/search-the-collections/60007663
( these works make me want to go to China and learn more about Chinese painting - especially the screens, ink and calligraphy - The forms and content is mysterious/disguised, the space curves rhythmically)

Anthony van Dyck: James Stuart (1612–1655), Duke of Richmond and Lennox

http://www.metmuseum.org/collections/search-the-collections/110000692
( what a master of black..... love to be able to get these passages of black in my own work...the shape of the dog and the echo of the shape in the material ( especially the golden material at the back )amazes me in this work. Very triangle based and upward in composition).

Kano Sansetsu : The Old Plum, Japan; ca. 1645

http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/60012562?high=on&rpp=15&pg=59&rndkey=20111117&ft=*&pos=872
(Again these works makes me want to explore Asia ( go to Japan and China in particular) , there is such a richness in visual culture. West is so infatuated with illusion, progression - these works explore beauty and timelessness. Yearning to go East and understand more)

Max Beckmann: Beginning
http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/210009860?high=on&rpp=15&pg=63&rndkey=20111117&ft=*&pos=933
( what a draftsman!)

Human-headed winged bull and winged lion (lamassu); Neo-Assyrian, ca. 883–859 B.C.

http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/30009052?high=on&rpp=15&pg=65&rndkey=20111117&ft=*&pos=964
( I do love Assyrian sculpture- very commanding -more than Egyptian- the wall friezes in particular)

Arshile Gorky:Water of the Flowery Mill

http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/210009143?high=on&rpp=15&pg=72&rndkey=20111117&ft=*&pos=1080

( if only I could grasp a little of this man's talent....the open weaved spaces, colors everything. I have not seen a failed artwork/artwork that didn't speak to me by Arshile Gorky, all so authentically discovered, free flowing Kandinsky)

Georges de La Tour: The Penitent Magdalen

http://www.metmuseum.org/collections/search-the-collections/110001283
( very elegant, controlled, modern in many ways - the flatness and simplification in the shapes)

El Greco: View of Toledo
http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/110001017?high=on&rpp=15&pg=96&rndkey=20111117&ft=*&pos=1432

( best painting in the museum - very surreal, risky, perspective, lighting and pictorial rhythms)

Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes) : Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuñiga
http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/110000987?high=on&rpp=15&pg=97&rndkey=20111117&ft=*&pos=1454
( I haven't seen enough of Goya - but it seems to me that his earlier commissions with children are the most interesting - need to go to Madrid yet to fully understand him )