Inside Out: Media Artworks
2017
Paul Cezanne, Mont Sainte- Victoire
Vassily Kankinsky, Little Painting with Yellow (Improvisation)
Simon Jacobsz de Vlieger, Marine
Winslow Homer, The Life Line
Georgia O’Keeffe, Two Calla Lilies on Pink
Jacob Lawrence, The Libraries are Appreciated
Andrew Wyeth, Groundhog Day
Charles W. Peale, Portrait of Yarrow Mamout
Moe Brooker, Present Futures
Sarah Mary Taylor, “Hands” Quilt
Henri Toulouse- Lautrec, At the Moulin Rouge: The Dance
Katsushika Hokusai, Kirifuri Waterfall on Mount Kurokami
Frits Thaulow, Water Mill
Spring
Paul Cezanne, Mont Sainte- Victoire
French, 1839 - 1906
Geography:
Made in France, Europe
Date:
1902-1904
Medium:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
28 3/4 x 36 3/16 inches (73 x 91.9 cm)
Curatorial Department:
European Painting
Vassily Kankinsky, Little Painting with Yellow (Improvisation)
French (Born Russia), 1866-1944
Date:
1914
Medium:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
31 x 39 5/8 inches
Curatorial Department:
European Painting
Wassily Kandinsky's statement that "painting is like a thundering collision of different
worlds that are destined in and through conflict to create that new world called the
work"1 finds colorful expression in this dynamic painting, in which blue, red, and green
lines intersect with large areas of yellows, purples, and pinks. One of the founders of Der
Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), a group of Expressionist artists in Munich, Kandinsky was
among the first painters to produce abstract works, which he called Improvisations.
Inspired by the relationship between music and painting, he valued shapes, lines, and
colors as carriers of spontaneous emotional and spiritual expression. Kandinsky
created Little Painting with Yellow in Munich just before the outbreak of World War I,
which forced him to return to Russia. No doubt affected by the increasingly unstable
political environment and his belief in the imminence of the Apocalypse, he painted a
whirlwind of explosive lines and colors that suggest both the terror of catastrophe and
the elation of rebirth. In his influential essay Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1911),
Kandinsky linked certain colors with emotions and sounds. Little Painting with Yellow is a
moving combination of repeating rhythmic forms, colorful harmonies, and jarring
dissonances. Emily Hage, from Masterpieces from the Philadelphia Museum of Art: Impressionism and
Modern Art (2007), p. 132.
Note:
1) Wassily Kandinsky, "Reminiscences" (1913), as translated in Kandinsky: Complete Writings on Art, vol. 1,
1901-1921, ed. Kenneth C. Lindsay and Peter Vergo (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982), p. 373.
Wassily Kandinsky, one of the founders of Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) group of
Expressionist artists in Munich, is often considered to have made the earliest abstract
paintings, which he called "Improvisations," in 1910. Kandinsky valued abstract shape,
line, and color--liberated from their representational role--as carriers of spontaneous
emotional and spiritual expression. In fact, however, his early works are neither totally
abstract nor totally spontaneous, for many drawn studies exist for the paintings, and
they themselves often contain recognizable, albeit schematic, biblical imagery. Little
Painting in Yellow, although perhaps verging on complete abstraction, is often
considered one of Kandinsky's later "Improvisations." It was painted in Munich just
months before the outbreak of World War I, which forced Kandinsky to return to Russia.
Given this increasingly unstable political situation and the artist's belief in the imminence
of the Apocalypse, the painting's whirlwind of explosive line and color suggests both the
delirious and the terrifying qualities of a catastrophic event, a sublime moment of
destruction and rebirth. John B. Ravenal, from Philadelphia Museum of Art: Handbook of the
Collections (1995), p. 312.
Simon Jacobsz de Vlieger, Marine
Dutch (active Delft and Amsterdam), c. 1600 - 1653
Date:
c. 1652-1653
Medium:
Oil on panel
Dimensions:
23 5/8 x 32 11/16 inches (60 x 83 cm)
Curatorial Department:
European Painting
Winslow Homer, The Life Line
(online teacher resources)
American, 1836 - 1910
Geography:
Made in United States
Date:
1884
Medium:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
28 5/8 x 44 3/4 inches (72.7 x 113.7 cm)
Curatorial Department:
American Art
The dramatic rescue from a foundering ship shown here was made possible by a recent
innovation in lifesaving technology, the breeches buoy. Secured firmly to ship and
shore, the device permitted the transfer of stranded passengers to safety by means of a
pulley that was hauled back and forth by crews at either end. Cropped down to its
essentials, Homer's composition thrusts us into the midst of the action with massive
waves rolling past, drenching the semiconscious woman and her anonymous
savior. The Life Line was immediately recognized by critics as a major contribution to
American art, portraying a heroic, contemporary subject with both painterly virtuosity
and detailed observation.
Georgia O’Keeffe, Two Calla Lilies on Pink
American, 1887 - 1986
Geography:
Made in United States
Date:
1928
Medium:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
40 x 30 inches (101.6 x 76.2 cm)
Curatorial Department:
American Art
Georgia O'Keeffe once remarked, "What is my experience of the flower if not
color?"1 This large-scale image of two calla lilies, made of broad, sweeping waves of
subtly blended hues, is an extraordinary example of her floral paintings. The white
petals, highlighted in green and penetrated by two bright yellow pistils, reach upward
against a pink backdrop, set off by the dark green stems on the bottom left. The artist's
abstracted floral studies from the 1920s and 1930s have strong sexual overtones,
although she denied that this was her intention. O'Keeffe, who was familiar with the
photographs of Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Paul Strand, and Charles Sheeler, was
intrigued by the aesthetics of photography and adopted the compositional device of
isolating certain details and magnifying close-up angles, an approach she applied to
her abstracted, expressive paintings. In 1929, shortly after completing Two Calla Lilies on
Pink, she began spending her summers painting in New Mexico, and in 1949 she moved
permanently to the former Native American village of Abiquiu, near Santa Fe, where
she pursued her fascination with the striking forms of the natural world. Emily Hage,
from Masterpieces from the Philadelphia Museum of Art: Impressionism and Modern Art (2007), p. 212.
Note:
1) Quoted in Elizabeth Hutton Turner, Georgia O'Keeffe: The Poetry of Things (Washington, D.C.: The Phillips
Collection, 1999), p. vii.
Jacob Lawrence, The Libraries are Appreciated, From the Harlem series, No. 28
The Harlem Branch Library of the New York Public Library at 9 West 124th Street
American, 1917 – 2000
Geography:
Made in United States
Date:
1943
Medium:
Opaque watercolor over graphite on
textured cream wove paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 14 3/4 x 21 5/8 inches (37.5 x 54.9 cm)
This scene is one of thirty images of Harlem by the noted African American painter
Jacob Lawrence. Exhibited at The Downtown Gallery, New York, in 1943, the series
depicts the rich contrasts of life in that section of Manhattan during World War II, with its
poverty and its amusements, its home life and its street activities.
Andrew Wyeth, Groundhog Day
American, 1917 - 2009
Date:
1959
Geography:
Made in United States
Medium:
Tempera on panel
Dimensions:
31 3/8 x 32 1/8inches (Framed: 39 x 39 5/8 x 1 3/4 inches)
Curatorial Department:
American Art
Andrew Wyeth often is seen as existing outside his own time or any particular tradition.
In his art, however, he maintained a strong continuity with the painters of the 1930s and
1940s who focused on typically American scenes of daily life. Using the medieval
technique of egg tempera, here Wyeth created a sense of great intimacy through his
exquisite rendering of his neighbors’ light-flooded Pennsylvania farmhouse kitchen. Yet
the dryness and restraint of the demanding medium combine with the image of the
table’s solitary place setting to evoke a mood of overwhelming loneliness. Outside, the
wire fence and the steeply rising hill that cuts off any glimpse of sky compound this
sense of isolation. John B. Ravenal and Anna Vallye, from Philadelphia Museum of Art:
Handbook. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2014, p. 350.
Charles W. Peale, Portrait of Yarrow Mamout
(online teacher resources)
American, 1741 - 1827
Geography:
Made in Georgetown, Washington, DC, United States
Date:
1819
Medium:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
24 x 20 inches (61 x 50.8 cm)
Curatorial Department:
American Art
Yarrow Mamout, an African American Muslim who won his freedom from slavery, was
reputedly 140 years old in 1819, when Charles Willson Peale painted this portrait for
display in his Philadelphia Museum. Although Peale learned this was a miscalculation,
the story of eighty-three-year-old Yarrow (c. 1736–1823), a native of the West African
country of Guinea who was literate in Arabic, was still remarkable. As Peale noted,
Yarrow was “comfortable in his Situation having Bank stock and [he] lives in his own
house.”
A rare representation of ethnic and religious diversity in early America, and an
outstanding example of Peale’s late naturalistic style, the picture is distinguished by the
direct and sympathetic encounter between the artist and his subject and the skilled
rendering of the details of physiognomy and age. Yarrow’s knit cap suggests a kufi, a
hat traditionally worn by African Muslim men to assert their religion or African identity,
but Peale artfully employs its yellow band to highlight his steady gaze with its glint of
humor and wisdom.
Seventy-seven years old when he created this portrait, Peale was seeking a record of
the personal traits that he believed supported a long life. In his writings and museum
displays Peale celebrated making wise choices to maintain good health and a positive
attitude, and he perceived Yarrow’s perseverance through his difficult life as a model
of resourcefulness, industriousness, sobriety, and an unwillingness to become dispirited.
Moe Brooker, Present Futures
Just Smile)
(online teacher resources for Brooker, And Then You
American, born 1940
Geography:
Made in United States, North and Central America
Date:
2006
Medium:
Mixed media and encaustic on wood panel
Dimensions:
48 × 48 inches (121.9 × 121.9 cm)
Curatorial Department:
Contemporary Art
Known for his lyrical abstract paintings, Philadelphia artist Moe Brooker employs a
palette of bright, electric colors; zigzag lines; and collage to create spontaneous, yet
rhythmic, compositions. He finds inspiration in jazz music and draws on the work of
French artist Vasily Kandinsky (1866-1944), who believed that painting can be a form of
"visual music." In Present Futures, Brooker intersects graffiti-like scrawl and dense
scribblings with large, overlapping patches of color to suggest a series of melodies and
chords.
Sarah Mary Taylor, “Hands” Quilt
(online teacher resources)
American, 1916 - 2000
Geography:
Made in Yazoo City, Mississippi, United States
Date:
Winter 1980
Medium:
Pieced and appliquéd cotton and synthetic solid and printed
plain weave, twill, flannel, knit, dotted swiss, and damask
Dimensions:
6 feet 11 1/4 inches × 6 feet 6 inches (211.5 × 198.1 cm)
Curatorial Department:
Costume and Textiles
Inspired by the success of her aunt Pecolia Warner, whose quilts were exhibited in a
1977 Smithsonian traveling exhibition on southern folk arts, Sarah Mary Taylor of Yazoo
City, Mississippi, began making appliqué quilts in 1979. Taylor employed a bold color
palette and organized her designs to highlight the interaction of one color with another.
She created her appliqué quilts block by block, often sewing the blocks to strips of
pieced fabric. For this quilt she traced her left hand on a sheet of brown paper, which
she then used as a pattern, cutting the shapes from old dresses. Taylor later produced
other versions of this quilt, one of which was commissioned for the 1985 film The Color
Purple.
Henri Toulouse- Lautrec, At the Moulin Rouge: The Dance
French, 1864 - 1901
Geography:
Made in Paris, France, Europe
Date:
1890
Medium:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
45 1/2 x 59 inches (115.6 x 149.9 cm)
Curatorial Department:
European Painting
(online teacher resources)
A recently discovered penciled inscription, in the artist's hand, on the back of this
famous painting reads: "The instruction of the new ones by Valentine the Boneless."
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was thus not depicting an ordinary evening at the Moulin
Rouge, the fashionable Parisian nightclub but rather a specific moment when a man
now known only by his nickname (which certainly describes his nimbleness as a dancer)
appears to be teaching the "can-can." Many of the inhabitants of the scene are wellknown members of Lautrec's demimonde of prostitutes and artists and people seen
only at night including the white-bearded Irish poet William Butler Yeats who leans on
the bar. One of the mysteries, however, is the dominant woman in the foreground, the
beauty of her profile made all the more so in comparison with that of her chinless
companion. It is the latter who expresses better than nearly any other character in this
full stage of people Lautrec's profoundly touching ability to be brutally truthful but also
truly kind in his observations. Joseph J. Rishel, from Philadelphia Museum of Art:
Handbook of the Collections (1995), p. 206.
Katsushika Hokusai, Kirifuri Waterfall on Mount Kurokami
Japanese, 1760 - 1849
Geography:
Made in Japan, Asia
Period:
Edo Period (1615-1868)
Date:
c. 1832-1833
Medium:
Color woodcut
Dimensions:
Ōban tate-e: 14 13/16 x 10 1/8 inches (37.6 x 25.7 cm)
(online teacher resources)
In later years Katsushika Hokusai liked to sign himself "The Old Man Mad for Drawing," an
apt nickname for an artist who made more than thirty thousand drawings in his lifetime,
many of them sketches for a series of fifteen "how-to" manuals for aspiring artists, first
published in 1814. When the final volume appeared in 1878, twenty-nine years after his
death, Hokusai's earlier designs had already been carried to artists such as Edouard
Manet and Edgar Degas in Paris on the great wave of exports from Japan after its
harbors were first opened to European and American traders in the 1850s. At the age of
seventy, Hokusai began issuing sets of large landscape prints of cool, countryside vistas,
far removed from the urbane pleasures of Kabuki theater or geisha houses, the
customary subjects for Japanese popular color prints. No Japanese artist ever strayed
so far from classical Chinese landscape models as Hokusai in this close-up view of
tumbling waterfall and rugged rock face, shutting out both the sky and any far-off
mountain peak. John Ittmann, from Philadelphia Museum of Art: Handbook of the
Collections (1995), p. 226.
Frits Thaulow, Water Mill
Norwegian, 1847 - 1906
Geography:
Probably made in France, Europe
Date:
1892
Medium:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
32 x 47 5/8 inches, Framed: 40 1/2 × 55 3/8 × 3 inches
Curatorial Department:
European Painting