This blog introduces the current exhibition Fables, Allegories, and Aestheticism: The Art of the Message. The exhibition compares two modes of art making; a mode which prioritizes the art itself as “the message of form” and a mode that prioritizes “the message of content.” Artists who follow the “message of form” create art without an […]
Aesthetic Autonomy Read More »
What is a Permanent Collection? A way to study History. And Art. Certainly a permanent collection can be used to study art history. The study of form and stylistic change. To study how new technologies inform and change the style and content of art. This blog compares Tradition and Innovation as themes in the Cedarhurst
What is a Permanent Collection? Read More »
We explore in this post, the family, friends, education, and art of Thomas Eakins in relationship to his social contexts and highlight key events and paintings. As many readers know, Cedarhurst cares for four paintings by Eakins — Samuel Murray, 1889; Professor Barker, 1886 (and the excised canvas fragment of Barker’s hand turned into a separate painting);
The Life of Thomas Eakins Read More »
This blog introduces the exhibition Rural Avant Garde: The Mountain Lake Experience showing at Cedarhurst October 18 through January 3, 2021. The exhibition was organized by the Longwood Center for the Visual Arts in Farmville, Virginia. In 2018, the companion book was published as The Mountain Lake Symposium and Workshop: Art in Locale. Edited by Ray Kass and Howard Risatti. The
The Mountain Lake Experience Read More »
John Cage is not a household name, though his music influenced Frank Zappa, Yoko Ono, Laurie Anderson, David Bowie, Sonic Youth, Radiohead, Stereolab, the Kronos Quartet and reached well into the visual arts. The occasion for my blog post is the traveling exhibition Rural Avant Garde: The Mountain Lake Experience now showing at Cedarhurst until January 4. If you
Space has long been explored as a metaphor for the transcendental, the mystical, and the entity we call by various names, the spiritual. It would difficult to find a better metaphor for all those subjects, because as we’ve longed known, science determined outer space to be infinite, it never ends. Space shows up, no pun
The Spiritual in Art Read More »
The word “object” can be associated with art through three related, though differing, meanings. For this essay, I use it to mean first and foremost, the actual work of art itself. The term will also employ the second, and related meaning, to mean the “goal” of art; what does art strive to accomplish? Third,
The Myth of Icarus & The Object of Art Read More »
This exhibition explores the product design and evolution of some of our most cherished tools, the telephone, the clock, and the camera. And many others. Along the way, we discover that some of our most important, like the smartphone, though incredibly well-designed, and without a doubt, now indispensable, may not be the most sustainable and best
Smithsonian’s “Things Come Apart” Read More »
What could the 18th-century and the 21st-century possibly have in common? Two things: a love of knowledge, and a love of takings things apart to see how they work. See Things Come Apart and Jefferson & Diderot blogs. The Encyclopédie gathered current knowledge in written essays and illustrations to make it available beyond aristocrats and scholars. A side-by-side comparison; left,
Encyclopédie, Smithsonian, & Cedarhurst Read More »
To ‘read’ a work of art, we study WHAT is said in terms of HOW it is said. We will look at these ways of reading art with the art of book designer Ken Botnick and the collage/assemblage artist John Fraser. First, signs can be read in two ways— literally and symbolically. A sign can
Reading with Ken Botnick & John Fraser Read More »
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grounds & gate close daily at 5 pm
CLOSED:
each Monday and National Holidays
Cedarhurst Center for the Arts
2600 Richview Road
P.O. Box 923
Mount Vernon, IL 62864
(618) 242-1236
mitchellmuseum@cedarhurst.org
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