25 videos on YouTube

We've just realized that we've reached 25 video uploads on YouTube.

It's time to organize a bit.

Here is how we suggest to navigate Francis Cunningham YouTube channel.
Start with the top page http://www.youtube.com/user/franciscunningham where on the right hand side you'll find a series of playlists.   

1) Saints Exhibition
This was our first video project in March 2009, recorded during Dick's exhibition at St. Francis College in Brooklyn, NY.
Click here for "Saints Exhibition" playlist.

2) Still Life
This list includes videos analyzing still life paintings, from subject matter, composition and color to the viewers' reception. We've covered, so far, Dick's Summer 2009 still life from the Berkshires "Studio Interior," and an earlier painting from 1967 "Still Life with Basket, Gourds and Oranges."  We also made a very short video about "Chime Knife and the Barking Spud" (1970) regarding the choice of subject matter.
Click here for "Stil Life" playlist.

3) Portraits
In this series Dick talks about some of his models, introducing them one by one and analyzing the life-sized figures.
Click here for Portraits playlist.

4) Composition
This is the first of the general topics on painting, where Dick talks about the designs within the design, the finder and the first four lines (edges of the painting) of the composition.
Click here for Composition playlist.

5) Commentary
This is intended to contain videos on variety of topic.  So far we've done a commentary on the torn Picasso in the Metropolitan Museum, focusing on restoration.
Click here for Commentary playlist.

"Peter - Reaching": the Four Edges

Missed Exhibitions. Some Reviewed too Little or Late.

Today Dick told me about the exhibition I regret I missed at the Met, the Mourners. He only managed to see it on the last week through word of mouth, from fellow painter Ephraim Rubenstein.  So, we decided to focus on three shows Dick thinks and I agree could have received major reviews and more attention, but did not.

First, the Boldini exhibition, Giovanni Boldini in Impressionist Paris which Dick saw thanks to another fellow painter, John Leavey, in the Clark Institute, Williamstown.

The Clark Institute has a fine collection, including superb Renoir.
"Boldini is an exceptional and neglected painter whose work is rarely seen today and the show should have been seen by many more people and certainly by artists." FC

There was a good preview of the show in the NYT, but no review.
Here are good examples of the range of Boldini's works:

Giovanni Boldini "Two White Horses"

Giovanni Boldini "Highway of Combes la Ville"

Giovanni Boldini "James McNeill Whistler"

  
The Mourners, the exhibition that's just ended on Sunday was reviewed by Ken Johnson in the Times very late, in the last chance section.

“The Mourners: Medieval Tomb Sculptures From the Court of Burgundy” is a solemn processional of alabaster figures of monks and clerics at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.(NYT)

The figures, each approximately 16 in. high, explore expressions of mourning in individual postures, which suit the age and character of each particular mourner.  They do so without exaggeration and without Gothic distortions of proportion or linear rhythm in the draperies.  The naturalism never becomes caricature. The collective expression of humanity in these figures is overwhelmingly powerful. They will travel to various American cities before going back to Dijon and their architectural setting.
"The Mourners: Medieval Tomb Sculptures from the Court of Burgundy" Exhibition
Venue: The Metropolitan Museum of Art 
Schedule: From 2010-03-02 To 2010-05-23 

Finishing on June 13 at the Met, The Art of Illumination: The Limbourg Brothers and the Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry presents the unbound manuscript from The Cloisters collection.  Dick saw it at the Getty Museum about two years ago, spent time with magnifying glass (provided by the museum), examining the many pages.  The show is not to be missed.

Here is a short review in the New Yorker and a longer one in the NYT.

Designs Within the Design

Back in January we made twi video titled "Designs Within Design" and "Designs Within Design Cont." illustrated with a small landscape and a three figure painting Dick was working on at the time and is still working on. Today Dick returns to the subject of designs within design, taking as an example a nude he did in the 1990s, "Peter--Reaching" (1994-96) oil on linen 72'' x 48''.