"The Dance" by Henri Matisse at MoMA

On Tuesday January 15, 2008, artist Jay Rolfe posted about Matisse's two Nasturtium paintings, one at the Met in NYC and one at the Pushkin in Moscow, both of which Jay Rolfe has seen and liked, with "The Dance" in the background. Here is "The Dance" from 1909 and now at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC.

That's the latest step of artist Jay Rolfe on his Journey From Starving Artist To 21st Century Picasso. You may view some of Jay Rolfe's Unique Artistic Idea, his Hyper Representational 3-D Shaped Stretched Canvas paintings, on his website at http://www.3dssc.com/. Artist Jay Rolfe uses vibrant color, 3-D, recognizable shape, and huge size to reveal beauty, touch emotion in a positive way, and create an Uplifting Conversation Piece.

Matisse's "Nasturtiums With The Painting 'Dance' "

Yesterday artist Jay Rolfe came across a passage in the Matisse biography he's reading which expresses some of my own views about art. The interview Matisse gave which led to these comments was in 1909, 99 years ago! In Matisse The Master, Hilary Spurling tells of Matisse's interview published April 12, 1909 "in which Matisse explained that the invention of photography released painting from any need to copy nature. From now on art was free to condense and synthesize, eliminating surface detail in an attempt to penetrate rather than reproduce reality. He said that the aim of the new art was to 'present emotion as directly as possible and by the simplest means.' "

Today's photo from artist Jay Rolfe is of Henri Matisse's "Nasturtiums With The Painting 'Dance' " from 1912. This is the second version of the painting, and is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (the biggest tourist attraction in NYC!). "The Dance" painting from 1909 in the background is at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC displayed in a stairwell - which is what it was created for. The other version of "The Dance" was in Moscow in a collector's stairwell, the same collector who bought the first version of this Nasturtiums painting. You can read an interesting commentary on the museum's website at http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/collection_database/Nasturtiums_with_the_Painting_Dance_Henri_Matisse/ViewObject.aspx?depNm=all&pID=-1&kWd=Matisse&OID=210003511&vW=-1&Pg=1&St=0&StOd=1&vT=1
The first version of Nasturtiums is now in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, and artist Jay Rolfe posted a photo of it from his visit there in his September 7, 2007 post. What the heck, here it is again!

That's the latest step of artist Jay Rolfe on his Journey From Starving Artist To 21st Century Picasso. You may view some of Jay Rolfe's Unique Artistic Idea, his Hyper Representational 3-D Shaped Stretched Canvas paintings, on his website at http://www.3dssc.com/. Artist Jay Rolfe uses vibrant color, 3-D, recognizable shape, and huge size to reveal beauty, touch emotion in a positive way, and create an Uplifting Conversation Piece.

More Brancusi "Bird In Space"

Artist Jay Rolfe has also - aside from the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art mentioned in yesterday's post - communed with sculptures by Constantin Brancusi at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, and other places. The Met has a white marble "Bird In Space" from 1923 by Brancusi which is also beautiful and elegant. Here's a photo of it, and a link to the Met's website. http://www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/collection_database/Bird_in_Space_Constantin_Brancusi/ViewObject.aspx?depNm=modern_art&pID=-1&kWd=Matisse&OID=210006973&vW=-1&Pg=1&St=0&StOd=1&vT=1

Artist Jay Rolfe saw a bronze bird sculpture by Brancusi with a slightly different shape titled "Golden Bird" from 1919-20 at the Art Institute of Chicago. This polished bronze shape is also beautiful and elegant. Here's a photo of it and a link to the Art Institute's website. http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/eurptg/citi/object?id=91194&collcatid=10

Finally, the third photo is a different view of the Philadelphia Museum of Art's "Bird In Space (Yellow Bird)" from 1923-24 which was featured on yesterday's post. This view shows the bird and the base from a different angle, really showing off the base.

That's the latest step of artist Jay Rolfe on his Journey From Starving Artist To 21st Century Picasso. You may view some of Jay Rolfe's Unique Artistic Idea, his Hyper Representational 3-D Shaped Stretched Canvas paintings, on his website at http://www.3dssc.com/. Artist Jay Rolfe uses vibrant color, 3-D, recognizable shape, and huge size to reveal beauty, touch emotion in a positive way, and create an Uplifting Conversation Piece.

More painting ...

Yesterday Jay Rolfe finished painting two of his new 3-D Shaped Stretched Canvas paintings. After the paint has time to dry, I'll assemble them into finished form. Two days ago, on Monday, August 13, 2007, I posted a photo of me painting them.

Today's photo is another from my visit to the Metropolitan Museum this past Saturday, Ellsworth Kelly's "Spectrum V" from 1969. I like the vibrant color and the simplicity of this 13 panel painting.

That's the latest step of Jay Rolfe on his journey From Starving Artist To 21st Century Picasso. You may view some of Jay Rolfe's unique 3-D Shaped Stretched Canvas paintings on his website at http://www.3dssc.com/.

Inspiration!

On Saturday, Jay Rolfe went to "The Clark Brothers Collect" at the Metropolitan Museum in NYC. It was an exhibit of Impressionist and Early Modern paintings collected separately by two wealthy brothers who didn't get along. The exhibit was great and very inspiring. I really enjoyed it.

Sterling Clark had some outstanding Renoir paintings which were on display. His collection of 38 Renoirs (!) was the second largest private collection of Renoirs - to Albert Barnes 181 which are all on view at the Barnes Foundation in Merion. He also had some great Monets. Since one can't take photos of visiting exhibitions, here's a photo of a beautiful Monet from the Met's permanent collection, "Haystacks" from 1891. It was one of about 30 paintings of haystacks under different weather and lighting conditions. The Art Institute of Chicago has acquired six of them and displays them side by side for comparison.

That's the latest step of Jay Rolfe on his journey From Starving Artist To 21st Century Picasso. You may view some of Jay Rolfe's unique 3-D Shaped Stretched Canvas paintings on his website at http://www.3dssc.com/.