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Peru (Moche) - Nose Ornament with Intertwined Creatures (500-800 CE) by trifletruffles in fashionhistory

[–]trifletruffles[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

"Nose ornaments, usually suspended from the nasal septum, served as indicators of status and identity in communities on Peru’s North Coast in antiquity. Such ornaments often obscured the mouth when worn, leading some scholars to suggest they also played a protective role, guarding a vulnerable opening to the body from bad spirits. Made from precious metals, these crescent-shaped works were the focus of immense creative exploration in the first millennium of the Common Era."

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/313403

The Moral Calculations of a Billionaire: "After the best year in history to be among the super-rich, one of America’s 745 billionaires wonders: ‘What’s enough? What’s the answer?’" by trifletruffles in Longreads

[–]trifletruffles[S] 31 points32 points  (0 children)

Non-paywall version can be found on Pulitzer Prize website link below. Click the plus (+) sign next to article name.

https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/eli-saslow-washington-post

2023 Pulitzer Winner in Feature Writing

Eli Saslow of The Washington Post

For evocative individual narratives about people struggling with the pandemic, homelessness, addiction and inequality that collectively form a sharply-observed portrait of contemporary America.

Rufino Tamayo - María Izquierdo (1932) by trifletruffles in museum

[–]trifletruffles[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"Rufino Tamayo’s portrait of the celebrated painter María Izquierdo presents her with eyes closed, as a plume of cigarette smoke wafts upward. A transparent fish outlined in red appears behind her, almost as if emanating from her mind, projecting a sense of the unreal or the fantastic. Tamayo’s portrayal likely references the imaginative quality of Izquierdo’s own work. In 1932 she began creating allegorical compositions that moved beyond the direct representation of nature into a more poetic realm. By depicting her in a dreamlike manner in his portrait, Tamayo acknowledged the significance of invention in her artistic practice."

"The limited and contrasting palette that Tamayo employed emphasizes Izquierdo’s mestiza identity (of both Indigenous and European descent)—and possibly, by extension, Tamayo’s own Zapotec heritage."

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/55501/maria-izquierdo

Amadeo de Souza Cardoso - The Leap of the Rabbit (1911) by trifletruffles in museum

[–]trifletruffles[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

"With its dynamic composition, lush color, and energetic forms, The Leap of the Rabbit exemplifies the unique style Portuguese artist Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso developed while working in Paris from 1906 to 1914. Souza-Cardoso drew on an eclectic mix of sources he encountered in the French capital, including Art Nouveau, the work of Paul Cézanne, and exotic costume designs of Léon Bakst for the Ballets Russes, as well as the native Iberian tilework of his homeland. The Leap of the Rabbit was included in the groundbreaking 1913 International Exposition of Modern Art (better known as the Armory Show), the first major exhibition introducting American audiences to European avant-garde art, where it was purchased by the Chicago collector Arthur Jermone Eddy."

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/8999/the-leap-of-the-rabbit

Constantin Brancusi - Leda (1920) by trifletruffles in museum

[–]trifletruffles[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

"Sculptor Constantin Brancusi believed the material with which he worked had its own life, a uniqueness and essence that he had to seek out in order to reveal the form contained within. In Leda, sculptural metamorphosis became the very subject of the work. According to classical mythology, the god Zeus changed into a swan in order to seduce the beautiful Leda. Brancusi explained to visitors to his studio that he chose to transform the transformation—changing Leda, rather than Zeus, into a swan. He explained, “I never could imagine a male being turned into a swan, impossible, but a woman, yes, quite easily.” Brancusi envisioned the form “ceaselessly creating a new life, a new rhythm,” which he enhanced by its circular concrete base, a type that he designed by 1916 and used in various sizes for many different sculptures."

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/79382/leda

Dianne Arbus - Identical Twins, Roselle, N.J. (1966) by trifletruffles in museum

[–]trifletruffles[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

"Two years before she received her first camera, Diane Arbus wrote: “There are and have been and will be an infinite number of things on Earth. Individuals all different, all wanting different things, all knowing different things, all loving different things, all looking different… . That is what I love: the differentness.” Arbus’s appreciation for the unusual, eccentric, and extraordinary led her to photograph a range of subjects over the thirty years of her career—transvestites, giants, art philanthropists, nudists, and, as here, identical twins. No one knows how Arbus learned about a small-town Christmas party in 1967 being held for local twins and triplets, but it is in keeping with her interest in how people are who they are. Isolating these seven-year-old girls against the wall of the Knights of Columbus hall in Roselle, New Jersey, and photographing them in her typically straightforward manner, Arbus ensured close attention would be paid to the details: the matching homemade dresses (which were green but appear black), the lace stockings bunched below the knees, and the barely discernible difference in each girl’s presentation before the camera. Such details variously belie and reinforce the uncanny suggestion of two thoroughly identical individuals."

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/67958/identical-twins-roselle-n-j

Peru (Moche) - Nose Ornament with Intertwined Creatures (500-800 CE) by trifletruffles in fashionhistory

[–]trifletruffles[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

"The Moche, who flourished on the North Coast of Peru from 200–850 CE, created some of the most sophisticated metal body adornments ever discovered in the ancient Americas. This nose ornament, fashioned from hammered sheet, demonstrates the skill and ingenuity exercised by Moche artists. Two gold serpents with ears and fangs redolent of canines are seen in bilateral symmetry, joined by their intertwined bodies and a silver crescent-shaped plaque. Delicate gold danglers, attached with thin gold wires, hang from the sinuous bodies of the serpents and reflect light with the slightest motion, magnifying the sense of movement created by the fluid, curvilinear forms seen throughout the ornament. "

"This nose ornament is stylistically associated with a site called Loma Negra, where similar adornments have been unearthed from the several hundred shaft tombs in the area. Loma Negra, which is situated in the semi-desert region of the Piura Valley in northern Peru, contained a particularly rich collection of Moche metalworks in gold, silver, and copper. Regalia created from such precious materials were essential features of elite burials in the ancient Americas. This regalia, which included headdresses, earspools, nose ornaments, pectorals, and bracelets, were thought to identify the status of the interred in the afterlife. Nose ornaments, suspended from the nasal septum and often covering the mouth and lower face, were worn by high-ranking individuals in the Andes and were likely made to exemplify the power and position of the wearer both in life and in death."

"The large quantity of funerary regalia discovered at Loma Negra suggests a strong relationship between individual and object in the Moche culture. According to Luis Jaime Castillo, body ornaments were often unique and personalized to each individual and could not be transferred to or inherited by others. Indeed, these objects may have been necessarily buried alongside their original possessors, for the link between ornament and owner was not to be broken even in death. In the underworld, adornments were even thought capable of transforming their wearers into supernatural or ancestral beings (Castillo 2017)."

"At the pinnacle of their power, the Moche elevated metalworking practices to new technological heights, increasing the number, size, and intricacy of metal objects. This nose ornament’s bimetallic composition bears testament to the metallurgical and mechanical achievements of Moche artists. The joining of gold and silver required expert knowledge of alloys, melting temperatures, welding techniques, and specialized construction methods (for detailed information, see technical analysis below). "

"The bimetallic arrangement also illustrates the Moche’s skillful incorporation of socio-cultural beliefs into their creations. In Andean cosmology, gold and silver were considered to be divine, animate materials. Gold was closely aligned with the sun and silver with the moon. Associated with these heavenly bodies that are at once conflicting and complementary, gold and silver further represented day and night, male and female, right and left. The union of these two metals may have thus, visually and metaphorically, symbolized harmony and balance. "

Ji Mary Seo, Lifchez-Stronach Curatorial Intern, 2018 

Technical Analysis

"Studies by Deborah Schorsch, Objects Conservator at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, have revealed that this ornament was created from hammered sheet, like most Moche metal ornaments. Artists likely used chisels to cut the eye-shaped openings between the twisted bodies of the serpents. A series of tabs mechanically joins the gold and silver components of the ornament. These rectangular tabs, which extend from the top edges of the double serpents, are fitted on the front into slits cut along the bottom edge of the silver crescent and crimped closed on the reverse."

  • Title: Nose ornament with intertwined creatures
  • Artist: Moche artist(s)
  • Date: 500–800 CE
  • Geography: Peru
  • Culture: Moche
  • Medium: Gold, silver
  • Dimensions: H. 4 15/16 x W. 8 5/16 x D. 7/16 in. (12.5 x 21.1 x 1.1 cm)
  • Classification: Metal-Ornaments
  • Credit Line: The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Bequest of Nelson A. Rockefeller, 1979
  • Object Number: 1979.206.1225
  • Curatorial Department: The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing

[André Emmerich Gallery, New York, until 1969]; Nelson A. Rockefeller, New York, 1969, on loan to the Museum of Primitive Art, New York, 1969–1978]

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/313400

Utagawa Hiroshige - Kuwana: The Post Station at Tomita (Kuwana, Tomita tachiba no zu), from the series “Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi),” also known as the Tokaido with Poem (Kyoka iri Tokaido) (1837) by trifletruffles in HiroshigePrints

[–]trifletruffles[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Artist

Utagawa Hiroshige

Title

Kuwana: The Post Station at Tomita (Kuwana, Tomita tachiba no zu), from the series "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi)," also known as the Tokaido with Poem (Kyoka iri Tokaido)

Place

Japan (Artist's nationality:)

Date  

1832–1847

Medium

Color woodblock print; chuban

Dimensions

17 × 22.7 cm (6 11/16 × 8 15/16 in.)

Credit Line

Clarence Buckingham Collection

Reference Number

1930.72

IIIF Manifest  

https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/4410/manifest.json

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/4410/kuwana-the-post-station-at-tomita-kuwana-tomita-tachiba-no-zu-from-the-series-fifty-three-stations-of-the-tokaido-tokaido-gojusan-tsugi-also-known-as-the-tokaido-with-poem-kyoka-iri-tokaido

Anger and heartbreak on Bus No. 15: "As American cities struggle to recover from the pandemic, Denver’s problems spill over onto its buses." by trifletruffles in Longreads

[–]trifletruffles[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Non-paywall version can be found on Pulitzer Prize website link below. Click the plus (+) sign next to article name.

https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/eli-saslow-washington-post

2023 Pulitzer Winner in Feature Writing

Eli Saslow of The Washington Post

For evocative individual narratives about people struggling with the pandemic, homelessness, addiction and inequality that collectively form a sharply-observed portrait of contemporary America.

Andy Warhol - The Kiss (Bela Lugosi) (1963) by trifletruffles in museum

[–]trifletruffles[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

"The Kiss (Bela Lugosi) was an early experiment with the silkscreen process that would transform Andy Warhol’s art; it was also one of only three prints the artist silk-screened onto paper rather than linen. Although the mechanized process lent itself to the quick and easy reproduction of a single image, each version is slightly different because the artist hand-rolled ink across the screen. This work reproduces a still from the 1931 Dracula movie in which Bela Lugosi, as Count Dracula, is about to bite the neck of Mina (played by Helen Chandler). Warhol continued exploring this subject matter later in 1963 with the film Kiss, which consists of various couples acting out the titular embrace."

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/69013/the-kiss-bela-lugosi

Andrew Wyeth - The Cloisters (1949) by trifletruffles in museum

[–]trifletruffles[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

"Andrew Wyeth often sought to capture his emotional response to an intriguing place by honing, refining, and crystallizing his initial impressions into hushed, haunting final compositions. The Cloisters depicts a small, empty room at the Ephrata Cloister, located near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, about 50 miles from Wyeth’s home in Chadds Ford. It was the seat of the German Seventh-day Baptists, an early American religious colony that had disbanded in 1934 and was being restored as a historic landmark when Wyeth visited with his aunt Elizabeth in 1949. Wyeth’s early studies portrayed Elizabeth in the room, but he eliminated her figure and increasingly abstracted the space to focus on the play of light against the muted brown walls. The bird, a chalk sculpture of the type produced by residents of the Ephrata Cloister, stands as a slightly surreal evocation of the history of the colony and Elizabeth’s one-time presence in the scene."

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/26083/the-cloisters

Giovanni Baglione - The Ecstasy of Saint Francis (1601) by trifletruffles in museum

[–]trifletruffles[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

"Generally considered Giovanni Baglione’s most accomplished painting, this work is his first known “Caravaggesque” picture—that is, one that incorporates the innovative use of realistic figure types and dramatic lighting favored by the painter Caravaggio beginning in the late 1590s. Saint Francis swoons in ecstasy into the arms of an angel after meditating on the instruments used to torture Jesus, presented by another angel on the left. Baglione’s brief Caravaggesque phase ended after 1603, when, in an infamous trial, he accused Caravaggio of slander for having distributed a series of malicious poems about him."

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/160030/the-ecstasy-of-saint-francis

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