Art Gallery Visit #1

The artwork that left the strongest impression on me was Bridget Riley’s Drift No. 2 (acrylic on canvas, 1966).  

What I was particularly impressed with was how the lines were drawn not just so that they implied movement, but really felt like they did move.  Drift felt exactly like being in water to me, and looking at the painting straight on gave the feeling and illusion of ripples and waves.  Depending on how I moved my head, the painting seemed to really move.  

There were a lot of works that left an impression on me.  One of the other favorites was James Ensor’s Le feu d’artifice (Fireworks) (oil/encaustic on canvas, 1887).  

The bold splash of warm colors right in the middle is evocative of a volcano erupting, until you see all the people painted in at the bottom.  This painting really does evoke watching fireworks erupt in the sky.  You can almost hear the boom!

To be honest, the first artwork I sought out was Monet’s.  Currently, the Albright-Knox has his Chemin de halage a Argenteuil (Townpath at Argenteuil, Winter) (oil on canvas, 1875-76) on display.  

While not my favorite Monet, I feel a great connection with him as a painter and with Impressionism in general (and to some extent Post-Impressionism).  I love the style, the way they work with color – this painting in particular is a good example of this.  Winter is a dull & grey time of year, but those are not the colors most evident in Monet’s painting.  You can see all the greens and purples, all the ways he added color which did not detract from the season he was depicting yet still gives us the same gloomy cold feeling.  

The other artwork I felt a big connection with was Frank M. Moore’s Niagara (oil on canvas, 1994-95).  

Firstly, because this is my home, and I just visited the Falls for my birthday so this painting is a stunningly beautiful tribute to that.  I really enjoyed too how he got very into the water theme – the copper pipe frame with faucet handles was poignant and the chemical strings of dihydrogen monoxide buried all in the water was fascinating to look at.

The first artwork I wanted to learn more about was a sculpture (plaster, paint & wood) by Alexander Archipenko called Walking Soldier (1917).  

Like, I got the image of a walking soldier looking at it but I need to know more.  Who is this soldier?  Was this artist a witness to the horrors of WWI?  I thought most of the fighting for that was done in like Germany and France.  Was the artist in one of those cities at the time?  Was he a soldier in the war? 

The second artwork I wanted to know more about was Frantisek Kupka’s Traits, Plans, Profonduer (oil on canvas, 1920-22). 

It’s a very blue piece, almost like someone emerging from a constricting garment (there’s what seems like a boot in the lower right of the painting) – actually I more thought of someone’s sadness emerging from themselves after a long day of holding it together.  Yet the title (the artist was Czechian) evokes the old movie Planes, Trains, and Automobiles and in some ways the looping, snake-like blue lines could be a train of some sort.  So yeah, I want to know about this painting – what it was supposed to be/about, the style it was done in, and more.