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Posts tagged ‘art’

Dec 5

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Cartoon Cities

Decorating with travel photography always looks sharp and certainly inspires trip day-dreaming on a daily basis.  While you can get some amazing global images from amateur and professional photographers, I find myself coming back to stylized city illustrations.  It’s fun to see a location distilled to its essential elements and I have always loved stylized graphic design.  In honor of the Holiday shopping season, here are a few of my favorites from etsy.com with links to their stores below.  (If they don’t have your favorite city, it doesn’t hurt to ask if they could do it.)

Portland, Oregon city cartoon - loosepetals
Portland, Oregon by loosepetals (Etsy.com)
Washington DC

Washington DC by albie design (Etsy.com)

San Francisco city cartoon

San Francisco by Matte Stevens (Etsy.com)

Images Credits:

Portland, OR by Loose Petals

Washington DC by albie design

San Francisco by Matte Stevens

Nov 30

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Vintage Travel Posters

Classic travel posters of the 1920-1940s have got to be some of the most gorgeous but overlooked pieces of art ever.  Combining both travel nostalgia and crisp graphic design, the images are evocative and interesting.  I want to hang one on my wall then pack up a hard case travel trunk and decorate it with stickers from each of my destinations!   Here are some of my favorite travel posters from an exhibit held last year.

vintage Marsailes to Egypt rail poster

vintage Syria and Libya travel poster

vintage Vienna travel poster

vintage cruise Alaska and Taku Glacier travel poster

All images are from the 2010 Boston Public Library exhibit, “Away We Go!”  You can view the entire exhibit on Flickr.

Nov 18

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Outdoor Context: Six of the Same Pomodoro Sculpture

On the University of Chicago campus last month, I stumbled across Arnaldo Pomodoro’s Grande Disco.  It is a looming, industrial and futuristic disk that seems to be splitting open along several seams.  When examining the details up-close, you half expect the thing to open further and start talking.  (That’s how a science fiction movie involving modern outdoor art would begin.)

Grande Disco (1968) by Arnaldo Pomodoro, University of Chicago

I was drawn to the sculpture for its design but also because I recognized it.  I thought I saw this in Milan, what was it doing next to a Medical School building on the University of Chicago campus?  Turns out there are five other “Grande Discos” throughout the world each made within the same general time frame and varying slightly in design.  Located in urban, commercial and green spaces, the pieces are enhanced by the environments they have been placed into.  See what you think of these outdoor installations.  Personally, I think the Grande Disco does the best in the two extreme environments: the rolling green sculpture park and in the shadow of North Carolina skyscrapers.

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Nov 12

Crystal Bridge Museum – Assembling a Museum

The new Crystal Bridge Museum of American Art, assembled and funded by Walmart heiress Alice Walton, opens today in Bentonville, Arkansas.  NPR Weekend Edition covered some of the controversy (or in my opinion, non-controversy) regarding the acquisition of art pieces from non-museum public and private institutions like universities and libraries.  While listening, I went browsing through the collection on-line.  I immediately recognized something on the main page of the 19th Century gallery:

That little girl with her dog was sold at Skinners Inc in Boston at the March 7, 2010 American Furniture & Decorative Arts auction!  With an auction estimate of $8-12,000, she sold for $41,475 (despite her pouty scowl).

News coverage of the museum’s opening has noted the supposed difficulty of finding quality American art pieces with which to create a new museum.  I think the above example clearly illustrates that there are beautiful pieces still in family or private collections that have not made it into museums.  I can only imagine that there was an army of art historians and curators sweeping the country looking for these undervalued pieces in American museums, commercial galleries and auctions.  Likewise, university, library or hospital collections may not attract the visitor the art deserves and so I see no problem with works being sold so that the funds can go toward the primary missions of the institutions.

I’m not sure when I’ll be in Arkansas but at least the highlights are online.

Oct 27

Mysterious Bull Legs

Four-legged winged bull in the Khorsabad Court exhibit (Photo: Oriental Institute)

I was recently in Chicago and decided to get off the beaten path and visit the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago.  It’s a great, albeit small museum covering Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt and other ancient near Eastern civilizations.

One exhibit area is domonated by pieces from the court of King Sargon II who ruled Assyria from 721-705 B.C.  In the center is a 16ft tall winged bull with a human head.  This sufficiently impressive piece along with its twin would have guarded a city entrance.

Looking more closely at the bull figure, it appears to have been made for viewing from very specific angles and not so much in the round.  In the image above, the bull has four legs when you look straight on, but if you move 90 degrees, there are two symmetrical legs under the head.  From the right angle, you can see that there are 5 legs!

This protective bull genie has an extra leg!

The Louvre also has some 5-legged Assyrian human-headed winged bulls.  It just goes to show that you should look carefully at art.

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