Divine Beauty Devotional Art

Dear Art Lover,

Bouguereau

I had hoped to write about this art exhibition at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, Italy, while it was still happening, but I got sidetracked.  I am currently in Austria seeing people that I love, so I have little time at the moment.

The exhibition was titled, “Bellezza Divina / Divine Beauty” and included works from Van Gogh to Chagall and Fontana to my favorites, Antonio Ciseri (1821-1891).  While many of Adolphe Bouguereau’s works seem sappy to some art critics, the enormous painting in this exhibition is absolutely stunning.  I cannot imagine anyone walking away from it without admiring the artist who conceived and painted it. 

Anyway, here are the images.  If you want to know the artist, please leave a comment on my blog page and I will get back to you once I am home again in February.

Thank you … and enjoy the devotional art and divine beauty.  This was a wonderful exhibition!  [More images below.]

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It is January and this month I celebrate 15 years as a full-time artist! Wow.. thank you for being a part of this adventure. Your support has been invaluable. I would like to celebrate by making it easier to buy some art that moves you. Here goes:

·         15% off on all available sculptures. The pricelist is here:
http://www.borsheimarts.com/pricelist.htm#sculpture

·         15% off on all available 2-D work, from paintings and drawings in any medium to giclée fine art reproductions.

·         If you buy two or more Borsheim Art Works
before 15 February 2016,
you will also receive
a $50 framing gift certificate
to use as you like. This is a
Special Offer
from Don Elliott at
The Frame Shop/Franklin Barry Gallery in Indianapolis.

Buy Art

These offers end February 15, 2016. Prices you see on the Web site are BEFORE the 15% savings offer. Thank you for your interest!

If you would like to read the full art newsletter for January, including see a new work on the easel still, please visit:

http://www.borsheimarts.com/news/20160111_ArtNews-NitramCharcoalDrawing.htm

Thank you.  Peace,

Kelly Borsheim, artist

http://BorsheimArts.com

Ciseri

The Conversion of St. Paul

Detail of painting shown left

Chagall, apparently the Pope's favorite

Castles in the Air

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),

I find it amusing to learn which modo di dire or expressions are common between countries and cultures, compared to what is not even translatable. Here in Firenze, Italia, I find myself having friends not only from Italy and America, but also from many other countries as well. One of my dearest friends, Caroline, is a Brit. She called me on New Year’s Day (and thankfully on this particular morn, not before noon!) and invited me to meet her and our Italian friend Doria at Palazzo Strozzi. We went to see the exhibit "The Thirties. The Arts in Italy Beyond Fascism".

It was more interesting than I expected it to be and I am not even sure how to explain what my expectations were other than I did not really have much of any. Like the Frances Bacon exhibit in the side gallery Strozzina, I had been riding the fence about whether or not I wanted to bother (I have not on the latter). I like to see art of all kinds, but I have a strong drive now to do my own thing.

I was amused because Doria and Caroline decided to share an audio guide, each taking one fork of the earplug microphones, in the same way that the kids share sounds on an iPod. They found themselves often being pulled back towards the other as their interests diverged, like a leash that kept them hostage. I rarely bother with the audio guides. Granted, they serve to give someone(s) a job, but much of talk seems like rubbish to me, or information that might be interesting, but omits what I really wanted to know about a work of art. I was able to roam about more freely.

I find that I really enjoy going to museums and exhibits in a foreign country in which English is a strong second language. I could have stayed longer at the Strozzi that day because I find it interesting how the Italian is reconfigured into English. It is a great way to learn a new language as well as appreciate anew the subtle beauties in one’s own. And so I languished among the artworks that I mostly felt little connection with, until Caroline psssstted me over to see one she thought I needed to see.

Once I arrived at her side, it was obvious why. She pointed and said, “Look at the title!” This painting (shown below) by Osvaldo Licini in 1936 is titled “Castello in Aria” (Castle in the Air). It is one of our running – and affectionate – jokes between ourselves: my ability to build many “castles in the air” (envisioned improbabilities) from one phrase, sometimes even one word (Hello?), uttered by another. What DOES it all mean? Ahhaha … Doria confirmed that not only do I do this, but Italia has the same expression. [Or as my former husband use to say, “Kelly, you could ‘What if’ me to death!”]

An exciting perk about attending group exhibits is to discover an artist that you would like to learn more about. In this mostra about the 1930s art in Italy, the one who struck my curiosity most was next to the Castle. It was a painting by Tullio Crali. Not only, like my father, was the artist an avid pilot, but his art uses mathematics in a beautiful and creative way and I was hooked! Crali’s work in this exhibit at the Palazzo Strozzi was titled “Horizontal Spin” and is shown here.

I found that my favorite part of the exhibit was the collexion of side posts that contained memories of people from that time period. The world was changing so dramatically and so quickly. The black and white hands drew me in (each panel had a different image of hands) and I read quotes such as this one:

“When Hitler came to Florence I was sent off with the Avanguardisti from heaven knows where, but still, all that orchestration was impressive. Yes, the city had been heavily “made up” for the event. You still couldn’t feel it, we only realised afterwards . . . And all this showing off, there was this business with the aeroplanes, you never knew how many were flying by; it seemed like a hundred, but it was only one flying by a hundred times. It was all about hiding things which there was nothing to be ashamed of.” ~ Lapo Mazzoi (Firenze 1925)

And this one:

“It was a crystal set, or cat’s whisker receiver, which as a very odd-looking little instrument containing a pin that was moved on a stone—it was a galvanic stone—and it managed to set up a contact with radio broadcasts. So the movement of the pin on the stone made it possible to intercept radio broadcasts, which you listened to through headphones connected to this little machine. It was technologically fascinating for those days. And then of course there were the radios, which were far simpler.
But the idea was that we could partly build them ourselves, using small parts. It was lots of fun.” ~ Franco de Peverelli Luschi (Firenze 1928)

It was interesting to note that various prestigious artistic awards of this time and place (such as the Bergamo Award and various Biennale) were caught up in politics. Perhaps not unlike today, but since that world of high-end contemporary art is still so foreign to me, I hate to comment on it. I found myself revisiting the chicken-and-egg question of whether art imitates life or life imitates art. We are all a product of our times and there are so many things happening at once that I doubt we individually have much control over what influences us. For example, in my world, it seems that there is a growing interest in “realistic” art (not even sure what that means since I see everything as relative and interconnected). Can we artists help this? Should we rebel or embrace? Should we consciously worry about these things or should we just move ahead, creating art in whatever means we are inspired to do? I am inclined to think that latter – that even if we try to remain spontaneous, we will inevitably record some part of the times we live in. That is not a bad thing, in fact, is perhaps what we are intended to do!

Links of interest :

• Palazzo Strozzi: The Thirties. The Arts in Italy Beyond Fascism The site is actually pretty cool and you can get a good idea of what the exhibit was intending to demonstrate. Click here… then click on ‘English’ in the top left corner. Then on the right column, click on ‘Exhibition Walkthrough’ and scroll to your heart’s content.
• Live with Art: blog post by Nora Buñuel about this Strozzi exhibit

TASTE Florence Italy

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),
A couple of Sundays ago, I had the kind of day in Italia that makes me feel that life here is simply surreal. At least it is often spontaneous! Originally, I had thought to visit a dear friend outside of the city, but I had also received an invitation to see the current exhibit inside the Palazzo Strozzi here in Florence, Italy. What is a girl to do, but try to squeeze in both social occasions on my one day outside of the studio?

So, my friend Roberto (another artist) and I met at the carousel in Piazza della Repubblica early on the Sunday morning and together we went to see the art exhibit “Americans in Florence: Sargent and the American Impressionists” (on exhibit 3 March-15 July 2012). We also had a gander at the Strozzina.

Between Roberto's amused observation that Sunday morning by the name "Strozzina" (the Contemporary Art Section inside the Palazzo Strozzi) as a curious play on words (he believes was intended) and another friend Luca's subsequent explaining to me of the Italian language (esp. Tuscan), I am getting a fun education. The suffix "ina" means "little" -- so "Little Strozzi" is a cute way of saying "not the main gallery." But the verb "strozzare" means 'to choke' (or 'to strangle') and strozzina is also Italian slang for a (female) LOAN SHARK (someone who will cause you a lot of pain)! So, if indeed intended, is that Palazzo Strozzi's official comment on contemporary art? [Or just the stuff they exhibit? ha!] But I digress… we were not as impressed with the American Impressionist mostra as we had hoped to be, but there were several remarkable works of art in the exhibit.

Well, in any event, my other friend cancelled our visit, so Roberto and I sauntered on over to one of his favorite places for lunch – Antonio’s, near Piazza Salvemini. I have known Roberto since 2006 and he introduced me to Antonio that New Year’s Eve as we ducked under a half-closed door to buy some last minute goodies for our all-night party that night. Antonio even let Roberto take a picture of me with him behind the counter (that image is on another laptop at the moment or I would share). However, I include here a snapshot that I took of Antonio and his wife after Antonio took one of Roberto and me (see that one in my Facebook albums…). We ate quite well and Roberto even topped it all off by ordering for us this lovely cheese that is a specialty of the region outside of Firenze (but still in Tuscany). Served on a bed of rucola. Mmmm.

And then we experienced Lagniappe: Antonio told us that he and his wife had to stay there to work, but had two tickets to TASTE, a food festival that was happening that afternoon and into the early evening. He offered them to us. Roberto and I looked at each other and thought, “Perché no?” I had only intended to be out for the morning before getting ready to take the train, so we headed over to Roberto’s closer home to get some coats and caught a bus over to the event.

It was a lot of fun – free tastings of wine, cheeses, tea, (they had beers there too), meats, and foods that are all fresh and from Italy. Yum, yum, yummy! Of course, once we finally closed that place down, we decided to head to a new bar and discovered that we knew the twin bartenders from another place. Lovely to see that their dreams to own their own bar had come to fruition! Anyway, here are some snapshots from TASTE in Florence, Italy. There are more on my Facebook pages. Enjoy and happy Spring!