The Museum of Naive Art

The Croatian Museum of Naive Art has a website with some remarkable images.


According to the site, naive art goes by other names, including "the art of the modern primitives."

If you aren't going to Croatia, but you have "primitive" tastes like I do, the Museum of Naive Art is definately worth the click!

19th Century American Painter-James Whistler, born on this day (July 14th)

Photo from http://www.nndb.com/people/647/000084395/

James Whistler, the famous 19th century American painter known for his painting, "Whistler's Mother" was born on this day, July 14th in 1834 in Lowell, Massachusetts. His main style of painting as a young painter was "Realism". He painted people's portraits as close to their actual appearances. Throughout his life, he tried the "Pre-Raphaelites" and then "Impressionism". He was formally trained in Paris. He left America in 1855 and spent the rest of his life over seas, mostly in England. He died on July 17th, 1903.

To find out more information about James Whistler, you can check out a book on him from our library collection: http://mptclib.wctc.edu/vwebv/search?searchArg=Whistler%2C+James&searchCode=GKEY%5E*&searchType=0

Edward Burtynsky's Photography

Edward "Ted" Burtynsky's photos show us the ugly result of our industrial times. The genius of his work, however, is that, from a visual standpoint, Burtynsky's photos aren't ugly.

A few photos from a series Burtynsky did about oil.

Here's a link to that whole series courtesy of the Corcoran Gallery.

After seeing photos such as this one, I'm surprised that people seem to think that drilling for oil has no harmful effects on the environment.

Relatively cheap oil has allowed us to travel great distances with ease, it has allowed us to live like kings, but, as you can see here, it has also resulted in enormous amounts of waste.

Even the infrastructure that we're currently using doesn't provide us with an efficient use of our time, materials, or energy itself.

Boom and bust cycles are an inherent part of economies like ours that are based on the consumption of extracted resources like oil. This is one of a number of abandoned plants in Detroit.

*View an e-book of Burtynsky photos.

*Buy his book Oil.

Web Sites of the Day

Herb & Dorothy
www.herbanddorothy.com
This documentary tells the incredible story of the Vogels, a librarian and postal worker who built a world-class collection of Conceptual and Minimal art.

Cable in the Classroom
www.ciconline.org
The magazine Cable in the Classroom will be exclusively online after the last print issue is published this July. The site contains great resources for teachers and parents.

The Place to Find Great Paintings: smARThistory

Art historians Beth Harris and Steven Zucker were dissatisfied with large expensive art history textbooks. They found them to be difficult for many students, containing too many images, without being particularly engaging. In addition, they found existing webresources to be woefully uncreative. Their dissapointment led to the creation of a free online art institute known as smARThistory.


smARThistory features 150-plus podcasts, 220 images, and dozens of direct links to the Louvre and other world-class museums. The lectures address individual artists, specific themes, and historical movements. It is the ultimate cheat sheet for great paintings and art history in general.

Edvard Munch Exhibit

From now until April 26, an exhibition will be going on at the Art Institute of Chicago. If you aren't a big enough art fan to drive down to Chicago, the companion website still has plenty to offer you.


The title of the exhibit is
Becoming Edvard Munch:
Influence, Anxiety, and Myth

Have you ever wondered if the man behind The Scream and other iconic images of anxiety and despair was mentally unstable himself? Was he an isolated madman whose troubled visions emerged from a tortured psyche?





And who were Munch's influences? The popular French and German artists of his day, or other Scandanavians? That information, as well as links that allow you to buy tickets to the exhibit, or learn of other things going on at the Art Institute of Chicago, can be accessed at this link.

The Other Side of the Fence

The libraries of Moraine Park Technical College will host The Other Side of the Fence, an exhibit of art created by Wisconsin inmates. The exhibit features exceptional drawings and paintings collected by the Beaver Dam Arts Association (BDAA) in collaboration with the Fox Lake Correctional Institution (FLCI).

The exhibit presents just a small sample of over two hundred works of art the BDAA has collected from inmates throughout Wisconsin. Most of the exhibit art has been donated to the BDAAA by the inmates and most will be available for purchase, with all proceeds going to the BDAAA. The inmates have typically discovered their talent through self-teaching, practice, and persistence during their incarceration.

The Other Side of the Fence will be on display at the Beaver Dam campus library through February 28th. The exhibit will then be at the West Bend campus library from March 3rd to April 15th and will complete its tour at the Fond du Lac campus library from April 16th to May 25th.

Website of the Day
Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night
http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/2008/vangoghnight/

The Museum of Modern Art presents this companion to an exhibit on dispaly until January 2009. The exhibit "explores painter Vincent Van Gogh's nocturnal interiors and landscapes." The site includes paintings, drawings, and letters along with an audio commentary.