Cezanne (Phoenix Art Museum)

This was interesting and fun - the Phoenix Art Museum had a show with a number of works by Cezanne, exhibited alongside works by a group of North American artists who admired Cezanne and used elements of his style in their own work.

So PJ and I went.

Art history is pretty confusing to me. This may have helped a bit. We learned that Cezanne did exhibit some works with the Impressionists in his early days. But he was moving in a different direction - as the exhibit put it, his work is sometimes labeled "post-Impressionism", or even "Modernism" (certainly a gateway to Modernism, even I can see how his stuff might lead to Cubism). He lived in the countryside (mostly Provence), avoided Paris, gained some favorable attention, but was dead before being widely recognized.

Still life works (preferring fruit over flowers because the fruit lasted longer); landscapes (especially Monte Sainte-Victoire), portraits (impassive subjects), water colors. It was interesting to stick your face right up to the still life items in particular to see the layering.

The items from the North American influencees were also interesting, in part because so many of them were southwest (read: Santa Fe) based.

This was followed by a delightful early dinner at Postino's in Arcadia. I even liked the Dogfish Punkin Ale.

Photos top-to-bottom: 1) Cezanne late-in-life self-portrait; 2) "Five Apples;" 3) Willard Nash landscape - Santa Fe area - emulating Cezanne landscape touches, we're told.

Passport to Europe

Trip to Phoenix Art Museum is described here.

Poster Art, Clarinets, Food

PJ and I had a fun weekend over September 8-9.

Visited the Phoenix Art Museum mid-day Saturday (September 8). We had wanted to see an exhibit titled "Mexico and Modern Print-Making (1920-1950)". And really enjoyed this. Those three decades were of course pretty turbulent times, and it seems particularly so in Mexico. In addition to color, composition, etc., these folks were using this type of art for pretty overt political statements. There was a fear of Nazi-type ideology taking root in Mexico; thus, there was a poster in support of the Red Army as it fought the Nazis in Germany. There was quite a bit of sympathy for Communist principles in Mexico (as in many other places in those days). Many posters dramatized the plight of the poor, or the displaced natives. We thought it was pretty powerful stuff, and much of it just made you feel sad. The conventional understanding is that Mexico seems to lurch from one form of centralized power to the next (to this day), and the works also illustrated this.

Afterward we went to Richardson's New Mexico restaurant (16th Street and Bethany Home) - the only shortcoming for this restaurant is that it's almost impossible to get in, but we solved that problem by showing up at about 2p on a Saturday. Delightful. I had three enchiladas with a (fairly hot) red chili sauce, PJ had a dish with shrimp wrapped in bacon. Almost made us overlook the dreadful Notre Dame loss (against Penn State, which we watched at home).

On Sunday afternoon, we went to a faculty recital down at ASU (summarized on my other website). Later in the evening, had another tremendous meal at the Roaring Fork in Scottsdale. This guy named Robert McGrath came up with a bunch of wonderful SW recipes, many in reasonably-sized portions on their "saloon menu". I had a "kettle" of green chile pork; we also shared seared scallops on soft cheese grits with some type of mushroom/bacon combination. Fun all around.

Rembrandts visit Phoenix

Patricia and I are members of the Phoenix Art Museum for 2007. First time we've tried this. The museum just completed a major group of facility improvements and the place looks great.

Anyway, a few years ago the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam announced plans to undergo a renovation, and the director of the Phoenix Art Museum immediately called over and asked if PAM could exhibit some of their things while in storage. Two other U.S. museums also were chosen, so this show is pretty exclusive to Phoenix.

It so happened that Patrick was in town during our scheduled trip to the exhibit, so he came along. We much enjoyed. The show included works by various Dutch masters of the Rembrandt era (17th century). The brochure features Rembrandt's late-in-life self-portrait as the apostle Paul. My favorite was the scene showing Peter's denial (see accompanying photo, as always click to enlarge). Among other neat features, check out how the candle illuminating Peter's troubled face is behind the hand of the servant girl asking about him. I wouldn't have seen it without the audio accompaniment at the museum, but Christ is over Peter's left shoulder giving him a look.

Anyway, the exhibit gave an overview of Dutch town life shortly after independence from Spain and during a period of major prosperity. I'm a sucker to buy books of things I see, as you can see in the bottom photo. The book is a great way to recall the images, but it is amazing (though not surprising) how much larger and more vibrant the works are when seen in person.

We next drove downtown to Arizona Center and sat outside for lunch at Sam's Cafe on a glorious Arizona afternoon. Quite fun.

At night we taught Patrick pinochle. He caught on too quickly for our comfort factor.

Rembrandt is worth reading about, bio here.