MIA - What Fun!

Yesterday DH and I went to the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA) to attend an exhibit on Delacroix and his influence on modern painters. The exhibit was huge and had so many paintings by amazing artists including Van Gogh, Cezanne, Monet, and, of course, Delacroix. I hadn't been aware of how much his work had inspired and influenced artists of the latter 1800's and early 1900's and lapped it all up like a dog attacks a water dish on a sultry day. It was magnificent.

Jean Metzinger - Bond de Mer
This is a perfect example of hos his use of small
bits of color make a scene. But what you can't see in
this is how his choice of the direction of his paint strokes
also gives depth. 

One of the artists exhibited really caught my eye. I love good pointellism anyway, but I hadn't heard of Jean Metzinger before. The piece MIA had on display in the exhibit was a wonderful example of how mixing colors can create depth and movement. I fell in love. When I returned home after hours of looking at other exhibits and galleries, I pulled up his name to look at other works while listening to my Denver Broncos lose their first game of the season (boo hoo). Oh well, Denver will still be quite near the top, and now there are only three undefeated teams half-way through the season. Hopefully this will be our only speed bump this season and we can end it with just a single loss.

Jean Metzinger - Femme au Chapeau 1906
Here he still was using the pointellism style, but in
blocks of color. If you look closely, though, the blocks are
made up of so many different colors that appear throughout
the piece and lend unity to it. 

I'm peppering this post with other pointelle works by Metzinger because they're beautiful. He went on to do some of the more interesting and color blended cubist works later in his artistic life. Those are also wonderful to look at. But when I look at pointellism, as a beader, I look at something that I have the very real potential of making in a different media - glass as a beaded piece or as an enamel piece. I look at the distinct color blocks as glass, not paint. The possibilities just intrigue me.

Jean Metzinger - Paysage
This painting went up for sale not too long ago and went for almost
$200,000. That's not a lot when compared to many of his
contemporaries, but it's a lot more than I could ever afford to
spend for a piece of art. I don't really have a great reason for
loving his work except his use of color makes me happy. 

So today I'm off to the WBL YMCA for my swim, followed by my 2X a month chiropractic visit. Then I'll treat myself to breakfast and go to the shop for the day. I'm bringing my pens with me - might as well try to get some of Stage 1B underway since I won't have enough time to continue working on Stage 2A. Happy Monday, everyone. Let's start a wonderful week out with color and pattern.