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elfsLife, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness is the name of a traveling art exhibit appearing in major museums around the country, a collection of Yale University's Americana exhibit of great paintings and artworks from the colonial era through to the late 19th century. One of the centerpieces of the museum is a collection of John Trumbull's work. Trumbull was the artist who painted all the great color illustrations of the American Revolutionary war; it's his "The Signing of the Declaration of Independence" that appears on the back of the two-dollar bill.
Most of the paintings at the Wikipedia sight above I saw in person today, including "The Capture of the Hessians," a painting which must make the pro-torture crowd grit their teeth. That's the scene where Washington is depicted showing the Hessians mercy and declaring that doing so when "he is wounded and in your power" would be a sign of a nation's greatness.
We also saw some original Thomas Nast illustrations, an original picture of Cotton Mathur, an original Whistler (and no, not his mom), and a who bunch of chests, chairs, sofas, chifferobes, cabinets, and table settings. In fact, the one thing that came through clearly to me is that colonial America's design sensibilities were wholly in its furnishings, rather than on its walls, and translating that design sensibility into an illustration that clearly communicates "Colonial America" is a hard business.
Kouryou-chan hung on almost to the end, but she was bored before we reached the exit. Still, it was good to see, especially on Memorial Day, all of these rememberences.
Most of the paintings at the Wikipedia sight above I saw in person today, including "The Capture of the Hessians," a painting which must make the pro-torture crowd grit their teeth. That's the scene where Washington is depicted showing the Hessians mercy and declaring that doing so when "he is wounded and in your power" would be a sign of a nation's greatness.
We also saw some original Thomas Nast illustrations, an original picture of Cotton Mathur, an original Whistler (and no, not his mom), and a who bunch of chests, chairs, sofas, chifferobes, cabinets, and table settings. In fact, the one thing that came through clearly to me is that colonial America's design sensibilities were wholly in its furnishings, rather than on its walls, and translating that design sensibility into an illustration that clearly communicates "Colonial America" is a hard business.
Kouryou-chan hung on almost to the end, but she was bored before we reached the exit. Still, it was good to see, especially on Memorial Day, all of these rememberences.
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Date: 2009-05-26 06:45 am (UTC)The piece - not Trumbull's - that truly amazed me was Albert Bierstadt’s Yosemite Valley, Glacier Point Trail. I admit to having sat on the bench in front of it and just gazed at it for quite some time.