Wordless Wednesday

Well not exactly a wordless Wednesday or flower pictures. The first image is from the MOMA

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

Head of a Sleeping Woman (Study for Nude with Drapery)

Oil on canvas

African period, Paris, summer 1907

New York by Gehry

8 Spruce Street

76 Stories (870 feet)

Manhattan, New York

Peace Hybrid Tea Rose

Hybrid Tea Rose 'Peace'

Synonyms: Béke, Fredsrosen, Gioia, Gloria Dei, Madame Antoine Meilland, 3-35-40

Introduced in the U.S.: 1945 by Conard-Pyle (Star Roses)

Size and Petal Count: 6 inch flowers with 43 petals

Fragrant? : Yes, strong

Well something happened to my ‘Peace’ rose and a few other varieties and they grew these enormous sized roses on small bushes. This flower was easily two or three times the size of a regular Peace. It really looked like some abnormal burst of energy had come out. I was a little afraid for the plant since the flowers were almost as big but it has seemed to settle back into its routine of producing normal sized flowers. The roses in general look good and have been holding out despite the heat and humidity. Yesterday was kind of a statistical oddity in the fact we got over an inch of rain and the temperatures were only in the high 60’s. Felt a bit more like September than July.

Here is a bonus snapshot for Saturday. Here is 28 of the 32 cans anyway.

 Campbell's Soup Cans

Andy Warhol, American, 1962

Synthetic polymer paint on canvas

32-20 by 16 inches (51 × 41 cm) canvases

Museum of Modern Art, Manhattan, NY

XVI Century Amour

XVI Century Amour
Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York City, NY

A little break from the flowers here is a couple of pictures of the full sized amour display at the Met. It is amazing and very lifelike when seen in person. I still remember seeing it for the first time when on a school field trip in the 2nd grade. I am sure I had my trusty Polaroid camera back then but all those shots from those days are lost.


For anyone visiting NYC the Metropolitan Museum of Art is a must see. Among other things the temple of Dendur in the Sakler Wing is amazing. Crated and shipped to NYC in 1967 it has been rebuilt in its own area. The last time I was at the museum there didn’t seem to be a lot of photography rules (no flash, of course) and I was pretty much left to do what I wanted.

As an extra ‘art’ picture here is Pablo Picasso’s, Studio with Plaster Head from 1925. This picture is from The Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. Again the photography only had a few restrictions and was pretty wide open as far as rules went.


Studio with Plaster Head
Pablo Picasso
Oil on Canvas
1925

Van Gogh's Postman: A Portrait of Joseph Roulin, 1889

Van Gogh's Postman: A Portrait of Joseph Roulin
Oil on canvas, 1889
Click Here for a Larger Version

This painting is from the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. It is great that you can go right up to famous canvases like this and use your camera. The only restriction that I know of is using your flash, but that is pretty much a given at any museum. There are a couple of areas that you can’t use your camera, usually the photography collection (which BTW is pretty amazing) and some of the newer exhibits.

Since this blog uses a lot of flower pictures and the winter has been very long the supply of new photos I have is dwindling. When I was at work on Tuesday there were some signs of life out in the garden, like some Crocus, Dwarf Iris and a lot of swelling buds so I feel like I just have to make it a week or two before there will be enough flowers out to get some new images. Our area is recovering from several bad storms including the one last weekend that had several inches of rain and winds as high a 75mph. There are a lot of people still out of power in the lower part of our county and driving around is an adventure a there are still trees blocking the roads, bring your chainsaw if you want to get groceries. Lucky the gardens we visited had relatively minor damage, just a couple of trees blown over but they were small. We will be picking up little sticks for a long time though.


Click Here for a Larger Version

So back to the Van Gogh painting. This painting is part of the famous series of six paintings and to 2 drawings that van Gogh made in Arles, France in a eight-month period in 1888 and 1889. It was a critical juncture of the artist’s career and Joseph Roulin became a sort of brother to the artist during the time that mental illness started to affect Van Gogh. Someone with an Art History education could probably explain this better than I have and most of this information is well documented on the net so if you want to learn more bout the postman series you can find some of it here:
MoMa.org

Passionate Kisses Floribunda Rose

Floribunda Rose
Rosa 'Passionate Kisses'

This rose was growing out on Long Island. The photo was snapped on September 21st during our winery tour. ‘Passionate Kisses’ has been featured here before. It really looked nice blooming up against the white stucco wall. The color has a nice bright effect and the blending is complex and beautiful.

On Wednesday we attended the Tim Burton exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan (aka the MoMa). Of course photography was not allowed inside the show itself but I did get a picture of this balloon.



Although it was crowded we were able to wander around and see everything. It wasn’t quite as impressive as I thought it was going to be but it has some very interesting parts. The early Tim Burton history was amazing to me. The various papers and drawings from his middle and high school days clearly showed his mind was not like other peoples right from the start. To me it was amazing how little doodles and partial stories later become big screen blockbusters.

While most of his work has a similarity to it that didn’t bother me as much as it did some of the critics in the reviews I had read prior to going. His photography, which seemed to have been done mostly with a Polaroid, was fascinating. All in all it was definitely worth attending.

We didn’t spend too much time touring the other galleries. The Monet exhibit, while grand in scope, was a little boring to me. I guess I like a little more color in artworks. We did have a quick look at the Picasso collection and some of the other paintings. The exhibit entitled ‘new photography’ was a bit of a misnomer. It was actually old photography and new to the collection of the MoMa. There were some truly amazing photographs and some that were just ‘meh’ to me.

Pablo Picasso
Spanish, 1881-1973
Three Musicians, 1921
Oil on Canvas


The forecast is for a little warmer weather. Hopefully it will be a long January thaw!

Wordless Wednesday ~ Tuesday Edition

Jackson Pollock. (American, 1912-1956)
One: Number 31, 1950


Connecticut sunrise from my driveway.

Wordless Wednesday

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