Visual Art Qua Visual Art

[Jonathan]

Michelle Kamhi on abstract visual art:

Perceptually graspable forms are the means by which content (meaning) is conveyed in visual art. Form without intelligible meaning or content does not constitute a work of art; nor can there be content in the absence of identifiable forms. And by "identifiable forms" I do not mean abstract shapes such as circles, squares, or stripes; I mean visual representations of persons, places, things, and events (whether real or imagined), representations that are meaningful in relation to human experience.

(I'm not going to ask about why music is a legitimate art form despite its not containing identifiable aural representations of persons, places, things, and events, because I've asked that a billion times already, and, frankly, I don't think that Kamhi, Torres, or any other Objectivish-types who reject abstract art have an answer, other than something like, "Uh, well, um, music is just different. It somehow reaches us through non-representational, non-figurative means, or something. It's music's nature to be art while not being intelligible by the standards that we apply to the art forms that reject because we don't like them.")

Anyway, I thought this was interesting: Objectivist artist Linda Mann has a Q&A section at her website (I like her art, incidentally) in which she answers a question about whether the objects in her paintings are "symbols of something" and if they have a "deeper meaning."

She answers that, no, the objects are not symbols, but are meant to be experienced as concretes which give the viewer a certain experience of reality.

More interesting, to me, however, are her statements:

In nearly all cases, the objects in the paintings were chosen for their shapes and sensual textures, and arranged to either harmonize or contrast these. So the stones set a harmonizing pattern across the painting, but the rough stones contrast with the smooth ones, giving variation within the pattern. The glass vase contrasts with the burlap, both in texture and in suggestion of refinement versus rudeness. And so on.

and

When I compose a painting, I have general ideas about the mood I want in it, and the kinds of objects, and then I pick and discard objects, rearrange and light them until I have a composition that entices me. This process is only partly conscious. Much of it is subconscious (though drawing on my knowledge of the principles of composition), with my conscious participation mainly being one of editor, or analyst asking why something looks good or wrong, but the creation and judgment are mainly subconscious.

and

The objects are only part of the picture. More of the theme is achieved by the composition and rendering, and here there is not only the matter of unifying and contrasting shapes and textures, but also the contrasts of empty and full spaces, the paths I lead your eye in, and the careful modulation of edges, with some of them very sharp and others very diffused. I think selective focus is very important.

It sounds to me as if Mann has been influenced by the theories behind abstract art, perhaps without knowing it, while also rejecting them elsewhere on her site.

Since the objects chosen for her paintings have no symbolic or narrative meaning, but are selected and arranged based on their abstract visual qualities -- their shapes, textures and ability to harmonize or contrast with each other, and to "entice" Mann -- how does she fail to grasp, as she does when rejecting non-objective art here, Kandinsky's (and others') view that there is no difference between, on the one hand, painting likenesses of objects which have no symbolic or representational meaning but are chosen for their color and texture according to the harmony or contrast that they can bring to a composition, and, on the other hand, painting shapes which do not mimic real objects but which, instead, directly fulfill the artist's compositional requirements of color, texture, harmony and contrast, and satisfy his "mainly subconscious" judgments, like Mann's, about "why something looks good or wrong"?

In other words, what relevance is there in going out and finding objects to mimic if the objects are being selected only for their colors, shapes and textures, etc.? Why is not acceptable to eliminate the admittedly meaningless objects and, instead, to just paint the colors, shapes and textures that are the essence of the composition as art?

Now, granted, Mann says that her paintings' "themes" are generally "Orderly Universe, Clear Perception and Value," and it might be difficult for someone who sees herself as being dedicated to Objectivist Esthetics, and to its brand of "clear perception," to visually signify or represent her specific, personal vision without showing identifiable objects in a painting. But what about artists who are not wedded to using meaningless objects from reality, but are, in fact, selective enough to eliminate from their art anything which doesn't need to be there -- anything which might be interpreted by the average viewer as potentially having symbolic or narrative meaning when it doesn't?

I don't know how many hundreds of people I've heard say that Mondrian's paintings convey (without including likenesses of objects from reality) an orderly universe, clear perception, and, therefore, value. Most fans of Kandinsky's work see it as representing a variety of ideas or emotions, including joy, chaos, conflict, harmony and order. Even a fictional two-sided Kandinsky, based on actual works of the artist, in the film Six Degrees of Separation is described by the character Louisa, as she spins it from one side to the other, as representing, "chaos, order, chaos, order."

So, getting back to Kamhi's statement at the beginning of this post, in what way are the meanings of Linda Mann's paintings more "intelligible" than abstract paintings created by Kandinsky, Mondrian, etc., when Mann admits that the objects she paints have no symbolic content and that abstract composition is the essence of her art form?

More from Mann from the same Q&A page:

However, following the philosophies of Hobbes, Descartes, Hume and Kant, intellectuals questioned the power of the human mind to comprehend reality. This anti-renaissance had two effects, both of which show up in still life of the late eighteenth century and following. First, the subject matter becomes increasingly arbitrary, signaling a growing uncertainty regarding human values. Second, the images are progressively unclear and distorted, signaling epistemological chaos. The breach between the mind and reality is increasingly reflected in art up to the present day.

No, that's not what happened. The art that Mann doesn't like, and, therefore, doesn't want to be classified as art, isn't based on epistemological chaos and uncertainty regarding human values, but on trying to hone in on the essential nature of visual art (qua visual art, one might say) and how and why the human mind responds to it. What is it about a visual composition of the shapes of stones and vases that "entices" us? That's the type of question that the pioneers in abstract art were trying to answer.

And, btw, how can a person who admits that the objects in her paintings have no symbolic meaning, and who admits that her choices of subject matter and composition are largely subconscious, gripe about subject matter becoming "arbitrary"?

J

[Jonathan]

Even a fictional two-sided Kandinsky, based on actual works of the artist, in the film Six Degrees of Separation is described by the character Louisa, as she spins it from one side to the other, as representing, "chaos, order, chaos, order."

Correction:

I don't have a copy of Six Degrees of Separation, but I've been told that I misquoted (or perhaps Valliantquoated®) Louisa's line, which I'm told is "Chaos, control, chaos, control."

J

[James Shay]

Even a fictional two-sided Kandinsky, based on actual works of the artist, in the film Six Degrees of Separation is described by the character Louisa, as she spins it from one side to the other, as representing, "chaos, order, chaos, order."

Correction:

I don't have a copy of Six Degrees of Separation, but I've been told that I misquoted (or perhaps Valliantquoated®) Louisa's line, which I'm told is "Chaos, control, chaos, control."

J

Jonathan, I agree with your statements about abstraction and like how you wrapped them into the comments of Linda Mann. The music argument - about its abstraction - is, as you say, a cliche, but compelling.

I don't understand the admiration for Linda Mann's work. She's redoing Sanchez Cotan and Zurbaran in the twenty-first century. If someone knows art history I think that person's knowledge about the psychology, emotional life, values, etc. that the sixteenth century paintings embody and represent gets in the way of responding to her art, done in our century. And her rendering isn't terrific, especially in the details. But, they are still handsome paintings in their own way. To me, though, they are too literally sixteenth century.

Excellent posting!

Jim Shay

[James Shay]

Even a fictional two-sided Kandinsky, based on actual works of the artist, in the film Six Degrees of Separation is described by the character Louisa, as she spins it from one side to the other, as representing, "chaos, order, chaos, order."

Correction:

I don't have a copy of Six Degrees of Separation, but I've been told that I misquoted (or perhaps Valliantquoated®) Louisa's line, which I'm told is "Chaos, control, chaos, control."

J

Jonathan, I agree with your statements about abstraction and like how you wrapped them into the comments of Linda Mann. The music argument - about its abstraction - is, as you say, a cliche, but compelling.

I don't understand the admiration for Linda Mann's work. She's redoing Sanchez Cotan and Zurbaran in the twenty-first century. If someone knows art history I think that person's knowledge about the psychology, emotional life, values, etc. that the sixteenth century paintings embody and represent gets in the way of responding to her art, done in our century. And her rendering isn't terrific, especially in the details. But, they are still handsome paintings in their own way. To me, though, they are too literally sixteenth century.

Excellent posting!

Jim Shay

sixteen hundreds, seventeenth century! Jim

[Jonathan]

I don't understand the admiration for Linda Mann's work. She's redoing Sanchez Cotan and Zurbaran in the twenty-first century.

Sure, but I like Cotán, and I don't mind seeing an artist's personal variations on another's compositions.

If someone knows art history I think that person's knowledge about the psychology, emotional life, values, etc. that the sixteenth century paintings embody and represent gets in the way of responding to her art, done in our century.

Yeah, I think it's interesting that Objectivish critics (like Lee Sandstead, for example), as well as average Objectivist viewers, are likely to interpret Cotán's paintings, since they are so similar to Mann's, as having the same Objectivish themes or meanings -- "orderly universe," etc. -- as hers are stated to have, that they are about having a proper, clear psycho-epistemology which declares "These are concretes as I see them!" and are about how the sensuous beauty of such clear concretes contribute to human happiness, where non-Objectivist art critics and historians would likely see both Mann's and Cotán's paintings as images of simplicity, sparseness, moderation and abstinence, and perhaps as reclusive expressions of the virtue of being a very modest servant of God.

Unlike Mann's work, Cotán's was not mostly abstract -- the objects he chose were not devoid of symbolic content. I think the settings of his most famous still lifes, for example, would most accurately be called humble, monastic niches used as larders. In borrowing his style and settings, while eliminating the context and focusing on composition, I think that Mann, and those who rave about the flow, motion, textures, harmonies and other abstract qualities of her work, are well on their way to becoming hardcore advocates of non-objective art, despite not realizing it.

And her rendering isn't terrific, especially in the details. But, they are still handsome paintings in their own way. To me, though, they are too literally sixteenth century.

Excellent posting!

Thanks, Jim. It's good to hear from you. I wish you'd post more often.

J

[James Shay]

I don't understand the admiration for Linda Mann's work. She's redoing Sanchez Cotan and Zurbaran in the twenty-first century.

Sure, but I like Cotán, and I don't mind seeing an artist's personal variations on another's compositions.

If someone knows art history I think that person's knowledge about the psychology, emotional life, values, etc. that the sixteenth century paintings embody and represent gets in the way of responding to her art, done in our century.

Yeah, I think it's interesting that Objectivish critics (like Lee Sandstead, for example), as well as average Objectivist viewers, are likely to interpret Cotán's paintings, since they are so similar to Mann's, as having the same Objectivish themes or meanings -- "orderly universe," etc. -- as hers are stated to have, that they are about having a proper, clear psycho-epistemology which declares "These are concretes as I see them!" and are about how the sensuous beauty of such clear concretes contribute to human happiness, where non-Objectivist art critics and historians would likely see both Mann's and Cotán's paintings as images of simplicity, sparseness, moderation and abstinence, and perhaps as reclusive expressions of the virtue of being a very modest servant of God.

Unlike Mann's work, Cotán's was not mostly abstract -- the objects he chose were not devoid of symbolic content. I think the settings of his most famous still lifes, for example, would most accurately be called humble, monastic niches used as larders. In borrowing his style and settings, while eliminating the context and focusing on composition, I think that Mann, and those who rave about the flow, motion, textures, harmonies and other abstract qualities of her work, are well on their way to becoming hardcore advocates of non-objective art, despite not realizing it.

And her rendering isn't terrific, especially in the details. But, they are still handsome paintings in their own way. To me, though, they are too literally sixteenth century.

Excellent posting!

Thanks, Jim. It's good to hear from you. I wish you'd post more often.

J

Jonathan, I read the critique you mentioned. I don't know about other objectivist critics, but I think that Sandstead is appreciating the art on an abstract level, and not really literally, as you mention with regard to Mann. I think that's partly philosophical (ojbectivist "concreteness" and all that) and partly based on the meaninglessness of the objects in the paintings. As subjects, they have pretty much been thoroughly beaten to death. Why doesn't she paint a toaster and a waffle iron instead of some antique chalice? The description you think of as being written by nonobjectivist art critics is quite good and more to the point of the original 17th Century works. It would be interesting to read what objectivist critics (if they are in the same vein as Sandstead) have to say when they get beyond the obvious in the paintings, which they seem to like, and confront the underlying religious symbolism and meaning in many of the paintings. Are the works essentially "evil"?

I'd like to know why paintings of objects that are nearly completely dead to us with regard to meaning are so likeable to many objectivists. The argument that they represent clear vision is off-base - it's the vision of a 17th Century Spaniard that we see, reworked by but not added to by a 21st Century artist.

Jim

[william.scherk]

Michelle Kamhi on abstract visual art:

Perceptually graspable forms are the means by which content (meaning) is conveyed in visual art. Form without intelligible meaning or content does not constitute a work of art; nor can there be content in the absence of identifiable forms.

I may be a cynic, but my first reaction to Kamhi's words above was bemusement. What possible effect on the art world will occur because of her (and Torres') opinions on art? She doesn't quite say in so many words that abstract art is not art, but that is the import . . .

'Stop making abstract "art"' -- or stop calling it "art." Rand said it's not art, so -It's Not Art.' Stomp stomp stomp.

Or . . . in the article "What art is: the esthetic theory of Ayn Rand," Kamhi and Torres proclaim their role in restoring the world to sanity. Testifying that their critique is derived from the principles of Rand's philosophy, "principles that are rooted in a scientifically sound view of human nature," they announce that they will show that "the very concept of abstract art is invalid."

This is all very fine and good and noble and wondrous and revolutionary and profound and so on . . . but what do they make of this?

One can imagine and assert that the picture above (Jackson Pollock's Number 5) is not art. But then some benighted fool paid $140,000,000 to possess it.

[Jonathan]

Jonathan, I read the critique you mentioned. I don't know about other objectivist critics, but I think that Sandstead is appreciating the art on an abstract level, and not really literally, as you mention with regard to Mann.

I don't know a lot about Sandstead, but from what I've seen of him online, he appears to be mostly Objectivist with maybe just bit more flexibility than most Objectivist Esthetic hardliners. It's hard to tell, though. I get the impression that both he and Mann are capable of appreciating art on an abstract level, but perhaps to different degrees, and with different notions of which lines may or may not be crossed in regard to their views on the necessity of including representational figuration in a work of art.

Here, OO poster "Bill Bucko" was disappointed that Sandstead committed the unforgivable sin of considering Pollock's paintings as art. I didn't see the television program that they were discussing on OO, but my guess -- and I stress that this is just speculation -- would be that Sandstead didn't have a favorable opinion of anything by Pollock, but simply neglected to specify to his viewers that it was "non-art" instead of bad art which was unworthy of taking up gallery space.

Sandstead generally seems to be very positive and enthusiastic about art, but once in a while some rage and resentment about modernist or postmodernist art comes through. I've seen him express anger that Duchamp, whom he classifies as something like "an artist who put a urinal on a wall," gets lots of attention and is seen by others as being historically significant, where Sandstead's favorite artists don't get the respect or attention that he thinks they deserve (despite the fact that their art is permanently on display in very public places and despite its being some of the most famous and recognizable art in the world). And I don't know if, in doing so, Sandstead intentionally ignores the fact that Duchamp did things in addition to placing a urinal in a gallery, and that art historians are inevitably going to be more interested in artists who altered the way that the world defines and looks at art than in artists who used established styles and techniques while aesthetically not quite reaching the level of the past masters, or at least not doing so consistently (some of the art that Sandstead seems to think of as "great" looks to me a lot like a cross between Socialist Realism what our OL pal Dragonfly calls "Objectikitsch").

Anyway, since Sandstead and Mann seem to have similar views of what her art means, and since their views mimic a lot of Randian jargon, I can't tell how much of either of their views are genuine responses to the art, as opposed to echoing each other's statements in the name of promoting a Randian vision. People often complain that modernist and postmodernist art is more about the theory than the art. I think the same is often true of the Objectivist Esthetics.

I think that's partly philosophical (ojbectivist "concreteness" and all that) and partly based on the meaninglessness of the objects in the paintings. As subjects, they have pretty much been thoroughly beaten to death. Why doesn't she paint a toaster and a waffle iron instead of some antique chalice?

Yeah. Why paint common, lowly gourds, tubers and melons rather than luxurious and exotic lobsters, chocolates and sturgeon eggs? Why plain pebbles, glass and burlap and not gems, precious metals, porcelain and silk? Why foods and objects associated with poverty and blandness rather than those associated with wealth and flavor? If a viewer doesn't know in advance that he's reviewing the work of a fellow Objectivist, how is he to know which aspects of a painting are to be overlooked as not containing symbolism or contributing to narrative and meaning?

The description you think of as being written by nonobjectivist art critics is quite good and more to the point of the original 17th Century works. It would be interesting to read what objectivist critics (if they are in the same vein as Sandstead) have to say when they get beyond the obvious in the paintings, which they seem to like, and confront the underlying religious symbolism and meaning in many of the paintings. Are the works essentially "evil"?

I would bet that any work of art that was created by a known supporter of ARIan Objectivism would be very likely to get a positive review. Other than that, I think it would come down to subjective tastes. As is true of most reviews that I've seen from Objectivists, if they love or hate a work of art, it's good or bad because it means what they want it to mean, despite all evidence (and historical context and artists' statements) to the contrary.

I'd like to know why paintings of objects that are nearly completely dead to us with regard to meaning are so likeable to many objectivists. The argument that they represent clear vision is off-base - it's the vision of a 17th Century Spaniard that we see, reworked by but not added to by a 21st Century artist.

I'd like to know precisely how much meaningless figuration must be included in a work of art before Objectivists would be willing to call it art. Which of the following are art, and which are evil attempts to deny and destroy man's proper method of cognition:

http://www.neptunefineart.com/images/wk%20...ve,%20small.jpg

http://www.studio-international.co.uk/stud..._autumn_355.jpg

http://libizblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/rothko2.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/103/292784373_396d48b57f_o.jpg

J

[Jonathan]

One can imagine and assert that the picture above (Jackson Pollock's Number 5) is not art. But then some benighted fool paid $140,000,000 to possess it.

I think that is exactly Kamhi and Torres' view -- that anyone who would value a Pollock over, say, a Frishmuth, is a fool or insane.

J

[Ellen Stuttle]

I think that is exactly Kamhi and Torres' view -- that anyone who would value a Pollock over, say, a Frishmuth, is a fool or insane.

Does anyone else see some echo of possible influence of this on the Frishmuth statue?

I've long wondered if "Dancing Shiva" -- especially the particular version linked, a version I find marvelous in its grace of movement and balance -- was among the sort of work AR decried as "Oriental monstrosit[ies]."

Ellen

PS: J, do you know how to get the images to show directly on a post, instead of having to click a link? I don't know how to do that.

___

[Dragonfly]

PS: J, do you know how to get the images to show directly on a post, instead of having to click a link? I don't know how to do that.

There is a special image button at the right of the link button. When you use that, you'll get your image directly in your post.

Another way is to put the link address between[img ]... [/img ] (but without the spaces, for some reason the codebox doesn't work in this example)

[Dragonfly]

Does anyone else see some echo of possible influence of this on the Frishmuth statue?

No, I don't think so. I think it's just some dancing pose, and any resemblance will be no more significant than a resemblance between dancing poses in general.

[Dragonfly]

I've long wondered if "Dancing Shiva" -- especially the particular version linked, a version I find marvelous in its grace of movement and balance -- was among the sort of work AR decried as "Oriental monstrosit[ies]."

She wrote somewhere something condemning about a dancer with many spider legs or something like that, I'm too lazy to look it up now. I'm sure that was about a dancing Shiva.

[Ellen Stuttle]

There is a special image button at the right of the link button. When you use that, you'll get your image directly in your post.

I don't know what you mean. What "image button"?

Another way is to put the link address between[img ]... [/img ] (but without the spaces, for some reason the codebox doesn't work in this example)

When I try using the tags, I get an error line on the post preview:

"Sorry, dynamic pages in the tags are not allowed"

(Same result for the url J posted for the Frishmuth.)

Ellen

___

[Ellen Stuttle]

She wrote somewhere something condemning about a dancer with many spider legs or something like that, I'm too lazy to look it up now. I'm sure that was about a dancing Shiva.

I don't recall the comment -- which doesn't mean she didn't write it. I would have to see it for myself in context before making any judgment as to whether or not it pertained to a dancing Shiva.

Ellen

___

[william.scherk]

PS: J, do you know how to get the images to show directly on a post, instead of having to click a link? I don't know how to do that.

This is the link for my image:

http://www.marciadamon.com/rndz/buttonbar.jpg

This is the image (The button to click is the one to the left of the 'mail' button.):

The format is imageUrl.jpg

[Dragonfly]

I don't know what you mean. What "image button"?

When I write a message on this forum, there is a series of buttons above the edit window (bold, italic, underscore, character, sub/superscript, smiley, link, image, email link, quote and code tags).

When I try using the tags, I get an error line on the post preview:

"Sorry, dynamic pages in the

or in code:

[img=http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c337/calopteryx/kikker1a.jpg]

and here it is applied to the shiva link:

and in code:

[img=http://www.pitt.edu/~asian/week-7/i-shiva3.jpg]

[Dragonfly]

I don't recall the comment -- which doesn't mean she didn't write it. I would have to see it for myself in context before making any judgment as to whether or not it pertained to a dancing Shiva.

I don't remember the exact wording, but it referred to something with a lot of legs and/or arms, as an example of the mystic/irrational/etc. view of man. I'm fairly sure she must have had Shiva in mind when she wrote that (that was immediately my association when I read the passage). I just browsed The Romantic Manifesto, but I couldn't find it there, it might be in one of the articles of The Objectivist/The Ayn Rand Letter.

[Brant Gaede]

I'd like to know precisely how much meaningless figuration must be included in a work of art before Objectivists would be willing to call it art. Which of the following are art, and which are evil attempts to deny and destroy man's proper method of cognition:

http://www.neptunefineart.com/images/wk%20...ve,%20small.jpg

http://www.studio-international.co.uk/stud..._autumn_355.jpg

http://libizblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/rothko2.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/103/292784373_396d48b57f_o.jpg

Well, I never did have "a proper method of cognition" to begin with.

(I didn't think much of any of them.)

--Brant

[Ellen Stuttle]

Test:

OK. Thanks, WSS and DF. It works for the Shiva image, but I still get the same error code for the Frishmuth one.

E-

___

[Ellen Stuttle]

I'd like to know precisely how much meaningless figuration must be included in a work of art before Objectivists would be willing to call it art. Which of the following are art, and which are evil attempts to deny and destroy man's proper method of cognition:

http://www.neptunefineart.com/images/wk%20...ve,%20small.jpg

http://www.studio-international.co.uk/stud..._autumn_355.jpg

http://libizblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/rothko2.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/103/292784373_396d48b57f_o.jpg

I'd call all of them art, with different degrees on the "good" scale. I'd rank the 3rd lowest. The 4th is a famous painting by a painter whose work tends to be praised by some O'ists, IIRC.

Ellen

___

[Dragonfly]

OK. Thanks, WSS and DF. It works for the Shiva image, but I still get the same error code for the Frishmuth one.

There I got the same error code. I fiddled a bit with the url, omitting the ?v=0, as I suspect that that is something "dynamic", and see: it works!

[Ellen Stuttle]

Goodie. Thanks, DF. Now I'll post the Shiva picture again, and there the two are for comparison.

___

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ellen,

When in doubt about images, do the following.

1. Open a Photobucket account. It's free and Photobucket links always work on OL.

2. Download the image you want to put on OL to your hard drive.

3. Upload the image to your Photobucket account.

4. Use the Photobucket link for the image in your OL post.

There are some advantages to doing this. The main one is that if you link to a photo on another site and that site gets taken off the air for whatever reason, or if the site owner takes the image off, the image on your post will go with it and your post will be deformed. It will look something like the following (if you can imagine that an image was once there):

I used a link to a nonexisting photo on an Photobucket address, that's why it says "Photobucket," but there are other forms of error message to let you know that an image is no longer available.

With your own account, you control it.

Always use "Direct Link." A dynamic link includes information that can change over time and hackers use this to invade forums and place viruses on them. So the capability of using dynamic links is disabled.

Michael

[Jonathan]

Does anyone else see some echo of possible influence of this on the Frishmuth statue?

I don't know if the dancing Shiva had any influence on Frishmuth. I wouldn't be surprised if it did. I'd imagine that, with her interest in the expressiveness of dance, she would have been quite familiar with sculptures of Shiva.

I see that Frishmuth's Wikipedia entry says that she frequently used dancer Desha Delteil as a model. Here, here and here are photos of Delteil (of course, we should keep in mind that none of these photos would qualify as art according to the Objectivist Esthetics, since they merely mechanically capture people and objects as they exist in reality).

The image that I posted earlier...

...is of a sculpture called Crest of the Wave, and is one of two of Frishmuth's works that are on display at the Como Park Conservatory in St. Paul. It's a pretty sculpture which, to me, evokes a sort of sweetness and innocence similar to that of some of Carpeaux's figures. From certain angles it's a little stiff, though, which can make it look somewhat like a hood ornament. The other sculpture of hers at Como is called Play Days...

...and I think it's the better of the two works. It doesn't photograph very well, but maintains it's charm in the round much better than Crest of the Wave.

PS: J, do you know how to get the images to show directly on a post, instead of having to click a link? I don't know how to do that.

I see that others have explained how to post images directly. I posted the images as links because I wanted to avoid increasing the loading time of the thread for images which are largely parenthetical to the thread's topic. Oh well. :-)

J