Tag Archives: Monet

The Rosetta Stone

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2016-03-18Rosetta0960

While travelling the inner depths of Capitol Reef National Park we stumbled on to what we believe is one of the most significant finds in recent history as it relates to the progression of artistic skill in Anasazi rock art. This discovery is bound to shake the art world to its very core and set Art historians on a new path of understanding as to how the Anasazi went from being rock pounders to major artists.

If you remember your history you know that the smartest minds in the archaeology world could not begin to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics. It was like Chinese arithmetic, really hard and it made their brains hurt, so many just gave up, feeling dumb and ashamed. They just went home, defeated. It wasn’t until some lucky guy found this stone called the Rosetta stone that had three different languages on it translating the same off-color joke into all the other languages. If we remember correctly the languages were Greek, a form of Inuit called “Inuktitut”, and of course hieroglyphics itself. That made it easy. A group of guys and one woman made up of Greek, Inuit and Egyptian scholars soon had the hieroglyphics translated and now practically anybody can just pick up something written in hieroglyphics and read it like it was yesterday’s obits. Because that was what most hieroglyphics were, stuff about dead kings, kings that were already dead, kings that were about to be dead, people who wanted to be king but changed their minds because they didn’t want to become dead, and so on. The obituaries of the day.

So what does this have to do with the art world you ask. Plenty. People who study petroglyphs, Anasazi rock art, have wondered for years “Why didn’t these guys ever get any better ?” Look at any rock depiction of Bighorn sheep. They all look exactly the same no matter when they were created. For like a hundred years these Anasazi petroglyph makers never changed how they created an image of a Bighorn sheep, or any other subject for that matter. You would think with all that practice they’d have gotten better by accident. But they didn’t. They just hammered away in the same old style.

Then the image above was taken showing what was to become the Rosetta Stone of the art world. On this newly discovered rock panel you can see there is a petroglyph in the upper right hand corner of one of the Anasazi’s favorites subjects, an undefined lump or something, maybe the start of another Bighorn sheep that they screwed up and just abandoned, (there is no erasing in Petroglyphs) and this splendid but remarkable painting of foliage in the style of Monet, Renoir, Mr. van Rijn, O’Keeffe. This was a quantum leap forward for the Anasazi, as it showed that at least one of them got sick to death of painting sheep.

*The Institute immediately sent in its crack team of art historians, restoration-ists, and gawkers to secure this painting and to analyze how it was done. They have slowly been taking this image apart piece by piece, picking at it with sharp things, rubbing it gently with 36 grit sandpaper to see what’s underneath, asking themselves “How did they do it? How did these Anasazi’s go from no-talent rock chippers to this level of  sophistication without attending some prestigious art school?” The questions kept building the more they reduced this image to a mere shadow on the wall.

Some new facts were gleaned from this process. One was that the painting was done with brushes made of wooly mammoth hair wrapped onto a slender willow switch, and another was the paint was analyzed and found to be a combination of crushed berries which were used to create the Alizarin Crimson seen in the leaves, acrylic paint from the Artist Den, some off-brand oil paint of the type found at Hobby Lobby all bound together in a matrix of Toad fat. Our experts are still trying to come up with an explanation for the inconsistencies that this brings up, but these are smart people and they’ll come up with some plausible answers. After all their jobs depend on it.

While we are hard at work figuring out all this stuff so that you don’t have to, take a moment to study the image. See how wonderfully clear the artist created the leaves and stems. Look how every leaf conforms to the rock surface it was painted onto, yet shows the brilliant colors that make this image come alive. It ‘s hard to believe that this was painted 1100 years ago.

The Institute will be studying this image plus any more we find, to discover just what new stage in the art of the Ancients this led to. We’ll have those answers and more as this story unfolds. Stay tuned.

* Note: For those of you unfamiliar with The Institute and what it does, please see the page labeled The Institute on the Menu Bar above. That should explain everything. You shouldn’t have one single question remaining regarding The Institute after reading it. None. For those of you favored few who already know about the Institute, Nevermind. Return to your daily activities. Thank you for your support.

Christmas Gift Selection # 8

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MonetsBridge1079Monet’s Bridge France                                               click to enlarge

Monet’s Bridge

Here it is, the gift you’ve been waiting for. Monet’s Bridge. Yeah, the painter guy. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to own a piece of French history that coincidentally is architecture and also has utilitarian uses. It’s a triple threat all rolled into one big chunk of masonry beauty. This bridge is located on the Little Loire river near the small French village of Beau en Valle in the heart of the famous Loire valley. Paris is just a hop, skip and a baguette up the le road. Once the haunt of visitors wanting to escape the summer heat of Paris it has lately fallen on hard times with a greatly reduced tourist count.

This is the actual bridge that Monet and his friends used to jump off of, stark naked, to skinny dip when he was a kid. The bridge where he was fascinated by the reflected colors that blended and swirled on the surface of the slowly moving Little Loire river that led him to create a brand new art style. This architectural beauty is perfect for that garden pond, French inspired walking garden, Mall entrance, or simply used for access to that lower forty (wide enough  for a John Deere model B tractor and hay wain to cross with room to spare). It can be yours if you move fast. This bridge in all its uniqueness is being sold first come, first served.

The Institutes antiquities department has been working on this deal for years, and now that the French government finds itself in a similar position financially that the U.S. is in, they too have begun selling off less popular items in their architectural catalog. So after many nights of wining and dining some minor French bureaucrats we got them hammered enough or as the French say “se soûlant” that they agreed to sell it to us lock stock and river water. Their loss is your gain.

The bridge is complete with included guard rails and natural patina you see in the image above. Another lucky break for us came when we discovered that the French, again due to budgetary constraints, were discontinuing the Little Loire river as well. Unfortunately we didn’t find out about this until the river was mostly discontinued but we were able to salvage enough of the actual river water to make a 5½’ diameter pond 4′ deep on either side of the bridge plus some flowage between the two. Also included but not pictured are two road signs, the round white ones with the red circle around the outside with the number 45 in the middle.

Monet’s Bridge 104,953.00 FRF *

Bridge is to be sold intact and must be moved as one piece, includes 50′ of roadway on either side of bridge. Buyer responsible for transportation and permits to allow structure to be moved through the French countryside to the Port of Marseille a distance of 904 km or 562 miles. Any costs of dismantling or razing of French buildings or rerouting phone and power lines to allow transport is the sole responsibility of buyer, as is damage to the French highway system and security to protect workers from angry French citizens. Buyer must post bond equaling $80.00 American and surrender passports until move completed. Buyer must sign agreement not to make fun of French language or make impertinent remarks about local food or culture. Buyer must adhere to strict three-day work week.

* $16,000.00 U.S.

Monet’s Coyote

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MonetsCoyote4454Click to enlarge

It is a little known secret that I was a frustrated wannabe painter. In fact for years when I was sculpting I used to tell people that I was a sculptor because I couldn’t paint. Later on in life when I had reached a stage where I made grandma Moses look like a freshman cheerleader I went and took lessons from a well known plein air painter. She told me that after she trained me to hold the brush with the bristles towards the canvas and how to get the cap off the paint tube with out redoing the walls, that I might have potential. I defined potential as “No way in Hell” but I persevered. But in my persistence a funny thing happened, not funny in a grab your sides, milk coming out of your nose kind of way, but strange. Funny strange. The more I painted the more I loved paintings as an art form and the less I liked actually doing it. It turned out that I really loved sculpting after all but because of the lifelong dreaming of painting thing I viewed it more as a job rather than a soul satisfying art form that occasionally made me money. That realization however, did not diminish my obsession with the 2D art world. We artists talk like that, 2D, paintings or flatwork, as opposed to 3D, sculpture, it makes us look a lot smarter at parties and stuff. I had traipsed through most of the big museums and galleries here and in Europe and had a catalog of my favorite painters and their work in my head, and when I began photographing in earnest I was always looking for that Monet shot or the light in Rembrandt’s chiaroscuro work. It is surprisingly hard to find in real life. Rarely does chiaroscuro jump out at you when you turn the corner or the subtle light of Monet’s gardens happen every time you get ready to take a picture. But sometimes it does. And when it does, and you get to shoot it, it is like when someone comes up to you and says “I think you are quite the splendid fellow, here’s several million bucks. Take the rest of the day off”, that kind of feeling. That may not have happened to you yet but when it does, are you going to be happy. This image of a coyote in a meadow at Sheep lake in Rocky Mountain National Park was one of those times when Monet’s spirit was at work. If he had been a wildlife artist he would have painted this and been a happy man, just as I was for being able to have seen it.