Praeterita

Unlike most of the rest of humanity, I'm not that keen on Marc Chagall's work. But a nice little coincidence occurred after I saw this painting in the IAM: A few hours after we left the museum, we arrived in Zionsville to have dinner. I saw a small independent bookshop on the quaint old high street, and popped in to make a small purchase, as I almost always do in such situations in order to support real bookshops. The first book that I pulled off the shelf was a 1968 edition of A Coney Island of the Mind: Poems by Lawrence Ferlinghetti . I opened it up to see if it was worth buying, and the first poem I saw was this: Don't let that horse                  eat that violin     cried Chagall's mother                          But he                  kept right on               ...

I've heard about how great the Indianapolis Art Museum is, but I had to wait until October 2014 to find out for myself in person. I spent a few hours there, which is generally enough when looking at a lot of art, though I could easily have gone back a couple of times again to see all the galleries I missed. I started in the Post-Impressionist section, where they have some outstanding examples from the Pont Aven school, including a room of prints by an American member of the group, Roderic O'Connor: This painting by Emile Bernard, Breton Women with Seaweed, is extremely advanced for 1892 -- look at how abstract the shapes are: One wall with three paintings is reason enough to visit the museum: a Cezanne, Gauguin, and Van Gogh side by side, showing the common interest in landscape, use of colour, and broken brushstrokes: The Van Gogh was particularly well-lit, from above, so you could see how thickly the paint was applied: Next post: Early 1900s a...