New Mexico State Museum

Georgia O'Keeffe Museum

New Hanging of European Painting, 5 French

Poussin carries forward a classical order which Picasso for one used as an armature for many paintings.

It is pretty easy to see the rhythm of the arms swinging through the painting.

The colored robes to me seem banal though work with the rest of the composition.

I like mainly how this Poussin informs much of French Painting, into Claude Lorrain, Gericault, Ingres and crossing lines into Delacroix, maybe back into a classical surface of Cezanne into Matisse and Picasso.

Art is its own entity and the same rhythm in El Greco is exhibited here, Benton knew and passed this on.  Pollock would have gotten the bug from Picasso also and his own varied lineage.

La Tour a singular artist.

Frou frou French Art-- I like Tiepelo though Watteau, Boucher, and Fragonard can be good.

Chardin seems very intellectual and cool compared to the above.

 I like these details of Claude and Poussin. Very similar and lead into Gericault and Puvis de Chavannes and Picasso early paintings.

The French were great as they spent a lot of time at the museums and their paintings led from Art.

Our own Abstract Expressionists also had a lineage-- until now have we lost a thread? This lineage is what makes art mean something. Tying all the threads together, seeing the whole thing which is Art, holding it within one's head-- feeling the satisfaction. The world's soul.

New Hanging of European Painting, 4 Spain

These are what I really like today.

I have never been to the Prado and know that I have to.

This El Greco was one of Picasso's favorites and weighs heavily into Demoiselle de Avignon at the Museum of Modern Art. The Picasso came also deeply from Cezanne and his Bathers-- the surface idea much from Medieval Spanish Manuscripts, similar to the Early Italian, Matisse was into.

One finds ones own story from a lifetime of looking.

This lineage is one of the reasons we grow to love these paintings as family. Funny that El Greco was never well liked until the Modern era. Pollock and Benton revered El Greco. Pollocks composition comes from the movement better displayed in other El Grecos.

This Portrait is great also.

El Greco himself.

A borrowed painting of Velazquez on display in its own room.

Velazquez, and a Horse Portrait I think the large version at the Prado?

A Great Goya.

New Hanging of European Painting, 3 Italian

Seems it would support the Galleries to put back the Masterpiece Idea. This Titian is the painting at the Met even if you don't exactly like it that today supports most of what we see as Art.  From the Greek and Roman Art before it which revives the ideas of surface intelligence which it supports to this day.

See how the background is contained into a shape which projects forward tying the foreground color to the back. The Nude and Cupid are one very simple shape, among other simple shapes sumptuously treated with a texture of richness.

Its completeness is a quality which has the power to center us in our viewing, and in our world. It is synonymous with Art itself and stands for Art's power.

I know that sounds funny today but I do believe it,  I don't just believe it-- it is very real exhibited right here.

Almost nothing else has this level of power. As the paintings line up and make an order, it makes who we are, were--are today, will be tomorrow, --?

These are some of the supporting characters.

A New Hanging, 2 Northern European

Had to fight through a lot of not so great stuff to find this order that has supported my Art life. I like change-- but inferior Art won't do it. The inferior quality seems to come from reading the contents.

One of the Great Paintings in the World. The curve of the Wheat field as it leads to the background, from the great figures in the fore ground. It is very detailed but flat in a Modern way as the shapes of the wheat point out.

When I was young I loved these Hals paintings. Goya and Hals seem to point to Manet in their loose bravura brush and simplicity. Manet, who I was wondering on this trip, looking at them, whether they are the first Modern paintings or the last Traditional?

Have always loved these lemon peels in Dutch Still Life painting.

I like this Rembrandt the best and reminds me of the Night Watch in Holland. Rembrandt looks old and the surface is hard to photograph. Strange how loved he was by Pollock and the Art World of the 50's. But with Art there is no liking or disliking it is all some very much more wrapped up into the whole. Rembrandt made a depth of character that Alex Katz and our world for the moment seem to render obsolete. It is an interesting question.

This is one good Ruisdael out of 10 more mediocre ones.

I copied this as a Student in 1972. The close up still does it to me. Strange for all it's realism it is very flat. Map, window, figure, foreground, and also very simple in those forms.

These seem to be in the category of Rembrandt, maybe I just have seen them to often through my life. Though the machine like quality puts me off. 

Isolated this painting is one of the Great works even if it didn't actually grab me yesterday. I've looked at it for 40 years.

A New Hanging of European Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum

I was happy to hear of this as I had grown tired of the seeming dowdy look and feel of these original rooms.

Not much has changed though. They really just added more work which in time will make things worse.

As it is I had to wade through many not great paintings to organize and pick out my favorites. Not much changed my mind except the idea that our time may prefer the lesser art. Here things are disparate and out of order. I myself would skip the whole area if that was all there was.

But it is the Art that one senses that would have one with the sense for Art fight through anything to get to it.

I think it is mainly the form.

The content issues are secondary even if they do contribute to the equation.

In the early Italian the main issues are for me the surface design, very compact and intense, where Modern to a large extent came from.

From this surface a more intricate drawing style comes through here Crivelli through Mantegna and maybe best in Botticelli.

This painting reminded me of Elena Sisto's show up now at Bookstein. She was probably thinking more of Matisse or probably more it is just apart of her aesthetic by now, but I'm sure she knows where Matisse was coming from.

I like the relation to Piero della Francesca and Philip Guston loved Piero. Guston seems far fetched but the pink was somewhat a reminder and then the wonderful shape in the lower right containing two people, is great.

This piece I never noticed but stood out in new hanging.

So the drawing I speak of is in this Crivelli below.  Seems the exaggerated expression comes from Giotto maybe.

Its hard to see in this Mantegna but the subtlety is something as the drawing leads into the background.

The compression of the hands is what I like, and Botticelli made some of the best hands in Art.