This month’s ArtGrams features Morris Louis’s large-scale painting Seal (1959). Here are some of our favorite interactions with the work snapped by Instagrammers.
This spring, former Phillips curator Beth Turner taught an undergraduate practicum at the University of Virginia focusing on Jacob Lawrence’s Struggle series. In this multi-part blog series, responses from Turner’s students in reference to individual works from the series will be posted each week.
This panel depicts the surrender of British General Cornwallis at Yorktown, a battle which is remembered as the last major engagement of the American Revolution, effectively ending the conflict with a resounding American victory.
Unlike the more eventful scenes in the Struggle series, which depict violent interactions between people, this panel is one in which Lawrence omits figures. It is in these select panels that chaotic masses of bodies, violent interactions, and scenes of death are exchanged by a peaceful encounter between the hands of Victory and Defeat. Defeat, dressed in the British red coat, is situated above the outstretched hand of Victory which extends from a long black cloak. Victory beckons out to Defeat to relinquish its sword amidst a primarily blackened and flat background of piled cannon balls, an exchange that is ultimately respectable and diplomatic.
Although moments of violence often stand out in history, here Lawrence emphasizes the impact of the simple exchange between opposing hands through his simplistic style. While traditional depictions of Yorktown show the American general towering over the British general, here the hands are on an almost equal plane, suggesting that the violence has ended. Yet the subtle gap between Victory and Defeat also suggests a moment of tension as Defeat realizes his vision has come to an end.
Maureen O’Connor
The Phillips celebrates the fifth anniversary of its Intersections contemporary art series with Intersections@5, an exhibition comprising work by 20 of the participating artists. In this blog series, each artist writes about his or her work on view.
My original drawing for this large 30-color silkscreen print was made during a visit to Kailua, a small town on the windward side of the island of Oahu, where my wife was born and raised. The Hawaiian islands were formed by the upwelling of lava from a volcanic hotspot originating in the Earth’s mantle. Inspired by the surrounding geology, I used my imagination to peer deep into the Earth’s core; a metaphor for the way I daily peer down into my own core and allow my drawings to erupt.
Starting in 1999 and continuing to the present, I have created at least one drawing every day as a meditative self-inquiry and artistic practice. When I sit down to draw I have no image in mind and use spontaneous and improvisational movements of my hand to suggest form and content. This image was drawn on January 2, 2010 and then scanned and uploaded to my online archive. The title of the print is the text I wrote to accompany the drawing online.
John F. Simon Jr.