 The fall season is upon us. In the Northwest, our leading cultural institutions, The Seattle Art Museum [SAM] and The Tacoma Art Museum [TAM] square off with monster exhibits of art in the hope of luring new members into their hallowed halls. The Blockbuster Exhibition was something foisted upon us by Thomas Hoving formerly Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. [Think about King Tut] So I imagine Hieronymus Bosch and Francisco de Goya in a WWF tag-team match against Asher B. Durand & Thomas Cole. Fortunately, art is not a contact sport. The exhibitions "Spain in the Age of Exploration," at the Seattle Art Museum and "Hudson River School: Masterworks from the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art" at the Tacoma Art Museum want your cultural dollars. Both exhibitions are an unique opportunity to see and learn from art of completely different cultures and eras.
 SAM offers a comprehensive new exhibition, "Spain in the Age of Exploration," organized jointly by Seattle Art Museum and the Patrimonio Nacional of Spain.The chronologically arranged exhibition begins in 1492, the famous year Columbus sailed the Atlantic looking for a new trade route to India and also the date Ferdinand and Isabel ramped up the Inquisition by expelling from Spain all Jews who refused to convert to Christianity. The time span of the exhibition ends at the date of the Adams-Onis Treaty, in which Spain gave up rights to Florida and land above the 42nd parallel.
Among the paintings are outstanding works by Hieronymus Bosch, Francisco de Goya, Titian, El Greco and Diego Velázquez. Much of the work was drawn from the vast holdings of Spain's Patrimonio Nacional, a government institution that oversees all state cultural facilities in Spain, including palaces, monasteries and world-famous museums like the Prado and the Escorial.
"Christ Carrying the Cross," by Hieronymus Bosch is a strikingly composed painting which shows Christ faltering under the weight of the cross. Painted in 1505-1507, it's now housed at the Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial. Bosch is most known for his triptych "Garden of Earthly Delights" in which he places the vessels of alchemy into the composition. His father was an Alchemist, and Bosch died insane due to the effects of exposure to lead as a child. His Christ appears to be suffering in a way that the artist could feel real empathy.
"Shipwreck" Francisco de Goya is a small oil painted around 1793. For the bold technique of his paintings, the haunting satire of his etchings, and his belief that the artist's vision is more important than tradition, Goya is often called "the first of the moderns." His uncompromising portrayal of his times marks the beginning of 19th-century realism. A serious illness in 1792 left Goya permanently deaf. Isolated from others by his deafness, he became increasingly occupied with the fantasies and inventions of his imagination and with critical and satirical observations of mankind. He evolved a bold, free new style close to caricature.
For more information about this exhibit read:
Seattle Art Museum scores a coup with exhibit showcasing paintings in the Age of Exploration
By REGINA HACKETT, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER ART CRITIC, October 15, 2004
SAM's "Spain" shares the treasures of a superpower at the height of its glory
By Sheila Farr, SEATTLE TIMES ART CRITIC, OCTOBER 10, 2004
 Hudson River School: Masterworks from the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. This exhibition of over fifty landscape paintings by Hudson River school artists presents a unique opportunity to explore works from the internationally recognized Wadsworth Atheneum collection. Works by prominent American artists of the nineteenth century such as Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, Frederic E. Church, and Albert Bierstadt will be on view. These Hudson River school painters depicted the pristine, untouched American landscape to symbolize democratic freedom and the limitless opportunities that the new nation presented. The Hudson River School was a group of landscape painters working in upstate New York and New England who used the landscape as subject matter. The school was part of an American painting era called the Luminist period which was part of the European Romantic Movement. The Luminists got their name from their great interest in the effects of light in the landscape. The Hudson River School had artists such as Thomas Cole and Asher Durand who revered the landscape as a metaphor for American Democracy. Asher B. Durand believed that the landscape was such an integral part of American identity that he proclaimed that every American family should own a painting of the American landscape which should be hung above the family Bible. This was an expression of the idea of "purity" in the untamed wilderness of America.
"The Murder of Jane McCrea" by John Vanderlyn,1804 is not an example of the Hudson River School. An American portrait and historical painter, he was under the patronage of Aaron Burr. He studied with Gilbert Stuart and at the French Academy in Paris. From 1796 to 1815 much of his life was spent in Paris and in Rome. He achieved a high reputation with such compositions as "Marius amid the Ruins at Carthage" (M. H. de Young Memorial Mus., San Francisco), which was awarded a gold medal by Napoleon, and "Ariadne" (Pa. Acad. of the Fine Arts). He was able to assist his former patron when Burr fled to Paris in disgrace. Vanderlyn returned to America in 1815. His ambitious historical compositions found no market, and his admirable portraits were so slowly executed that few had the patience to pose for him. Late in life he was commissioned to paint the "Landing of Columbus" (Capitol, Washington, D.C.), but was obliged to employ assistants to execute it. He died impoverished and embittered.
"In the Mountains", by Albert Bierstadt, 1867, An American painter of Western scenery, he practiced the theory of the "big machines" rendering large operatic canvases of the countryside. After traveling and sketching throughout the mountains of Europe, he returned to the United States. He then journeyed (1859) to the West with a trail-making expedition. His immense canvases of the Rocky Mts. and the Yosemite emphasized grandeur and drama, sometimes at the expense of clarity. His works were popular and commanded great prices during his lifetime. They include "The Rocky Mountains" (Metropolitan Mus.); "Indian Encampment, Shoshone Village" (N.Y. Public Lib.); "The Last of the Buffalo" (Corcoran Gall.); and The Settlement of California (Capitol, Washington, D.C.).
For more information about this exhibit read:
Masters of the early American landscape
By REGINA HACKETT, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER ART CRITIC, October 2, 2004
Hudson River painters contributed to myth of young America
By Sheila Farr, SEATTLE TIMES ART CRITIC, October 12, 2004
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