Category: ancient art

Historic Rugby Antique Street Fair

street-fair-poster-jpg-791x1024Historic Rugby is a gem in Tennessee, offering a beautifully restored Victorian village where guests can walk around and enjoy. And now, on June 21 and 22, they will be opening the grounds to thousands of visitors for their annual Antique Street Fair.

As Zachary Langley, the executive director of Historic Rugby explains,

“We welcome guests to the area each year to not only take part in the Rugby Antique Street Fair, but to learn about our ‘little hidden gem’ we call home. We hope visitors leave with an appreciation of our history and some once-in-a-lifetime treasures to begin or add to his or her cherished antique collection.”

For more information, enjoy the details here: http://www.historicrugby.org/antique-street-fair-june-21-22/

Freer Gallery Opens “The Nile and Ancient Egypt” Show

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The Freer Gallery, one of the two Smithsonian museums of Asian art, recently unveiled the new “The Nile and Ancient Egypt” show. Though the museum is generally dedicated to one specific field, the Gallery has made an exception with its newest addition.

“Most of these objects were collected by Charles Lang Freer himself,” explains Alexander Nagel, curator of the exhibit. It makes sense, therefore, to display them in his eponymous museum. Freer’s mission has been to help scholars connect between various great civilizations throughout human history, an effort that would be lacking if it did not include specimens from the Egyptian empire.

Freer made three trips to Egypt between 1906 and 1909. There, he collected more than 1,500 artifacts, including glass vessels, mosaic tiles and animal-shaped amulets. He explained that the Egyptians had a close relationship with the Nile’s waters, a fact which is reflected in the wave-like decorations on vessels as well as the amulets, which are shaped like river creatures such as crocodiles and hippopotamuses. These amulets were believed to give the wearer protection and blessings.

Freer was a self-made millionaire who retired at the age of 46. He spent the rest of his life collecting art from around the world, focusing primarily on Asian pieces. He traveled to Egypt three times as well, and when he died in 1919, his eclectic collection became the Freer Gallery.

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The Ancient Art of Bonsai Trees

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bonsaiScott Elser, a graphic designer and painter, has a collection of hundreds of bonsai specimens in his backyard. The unique display showcases the ancient art of turning trees into miniature plants.

“I’ve always been interested in the artistic aspect of trees,” Elser said, explaining that the passion was passed down to him from his grandfather. His first trees were a pine and a juniper from Arizona. “They lived despite me,” he said. “Everything changes when they get in a pot.”

Elser is not the only artist who loves to manipulate roots and tree trunks. Chas Martin, another painter, is also devoted to the process.

“You’re totally immersed in the moment,” he describes. “You observe the minute, day-to-day changes. You know what the tree wants to do, or that it’s time for you to do something. It’s very settling.”

The art of bonsai is becoming more popular, possibly because the trees are outliving their original caretakers. The trees can live for centuries with proper care. Martin recalls seeing an oak that was 2 feet tall with an 8-inch diameter trunk.

“I thought it must be 100 years old,” he said, “but it was 400 years old. Part of it is creating an illusion. But a tree well cared for can outlast their owners by a long shot.”

Martin says the process is the most important part. “You tend to them, they tend to you,” he says.

New Contemporary Art Exhibit Revives Ancient Classics

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A new ancient art exhibition in Rome is blurring the boundaries between antiquities and contemporary art. The Post-Classical: The Revival of the Ancient in Contemporary Italian Art exhibit illustrates the profiles in history of the works of 17 artists, including Jannis Kounellis, Michelangelo Pistoletto and Giulio Paolini of the Arte Povera, as well as Frank Shapell, Vanessa Beecroft, Claudio Parmiggiana and Mimmo Jodice.

Contemporary Art Rome

Vincenzo Trione, exhibition curator, said:

“What brings them together is the need to reinvent the fundamental themes of Classicism, to the point of rendering them unrecognizable. They don’t make faithful copies, they don’t out the culture of the past on a pedestal, they privilege discontinuity and margins.”

Rome Contemporary Art

 

The Honorable Company of Horners

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The Honorable Company of Horners is a group of practitioners of the ancient art of horn carving. This past weekend, the artisans gathered at an annual conference to discuss and showcase their trade. This year, the event was hosted by the Army Heritage and Education Center in Pennsylvania.

According to Art DeCamp, a member of the Honorable Company, the gathering provides an outlet for kindred spirits to share knowledge and techniques that would otherwise be lost in history.

“In the old days, it was knowledge that was passed down word-of-mouth from the shop master to his apprentice,” DeCamp explained. “It was not written down.”

The non-profit organization aims to document the trade in a way that is educational to the public while remaining loyal to the period.

“We are all artisans,” said Jeff Bibb, guild master of the Honorable Company. “We are all working to produce items that are historically significant and continue the study of the history of our country.”

Learn more about the Company:

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Exhibit Reveals Similarities Between Pablo Picasso’s Work and Prehistoric Art

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According to the British Museum, the works of Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse contain elements similar to the artwork of cavemen.

In a new exhibit called “Ice Age Art: Arrival of the Modern Mind,” the history museum presents more than one hundred works ranging from 40,000 to 10,000 years ago alongside some of the more modern artists including Henri Matisse, Henry Moore and Joseph Hecht. The ancient pieces are made primarily of ceramic or mammoth bone.

Jill Cook, the exhibit’s curator, said “The modern works are there to show that way back in time, the key concepts of drawing, sculpting and modeling were well-known and utilized.”

“The modern brain has been able to create and formulate in these ways as far back as the ice age,” she added.

Many scholars have stated that Picasso and Moore’s works were influenced by paleolithic art. The French artist owned two casts of Venus de Lespugue, which was made with mammoth ivory, and is known to have lamented the vast stores of prehistoric art that has been lost or destroyed throughout the years.

Ancient Art Center Uncovered in Rome

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A recent excavation of an ancient art center in Rome is the most monumental discovery in 80 years, according to archaeologists.

The center, uncovered beneath one of the city’s busiest streets, was built by the emperor Hadrian in 123 A.D. Featuring three enormous halls and marble terraced seating, the center hosted poetry and speech performances for Roman nobles.

“Hadrian’s auditorium is the biggest find in Rome since the Forum was uncovered in the 1920s,” Rossella Rea, the dig’s supervising archaeologist, explained.

The site was discovered thanks to recent excavations for a new subway.

Rea said: “We don’t have funds for these kinds of digs so this has come to light thanks to the new line.”

Though the discovery may hinder the subway construction, Rea believes the ruins can be left intact beside the new station.

“I believe we can run one of the exits from the station along the original corridor of the complex where Romans entered the halls,” she said.

Lahori Artist Exhibits Modern-Day Ancient Pottery

A new exhibition at the Color Art Gallery in Gulberg 2, Lahore, features seventy one pieces of antique-style pottery made over the last twenty-five years. The artist, Sheherzade Alam, uses gold leaf, inks, acrylic pigments and glazing to create handmade clayware inspired by ancient potters.

Alam, 64, explains that her art comes from a fascination with ancient pottery from all over the world.

“I have examined the claywate of every culture: Greek, Chinese, Egyptian, Harappan and Mohenjodaro,” she said. “The bulbous female figure, prominent in the clayware of many ancient cultures, was the starting point for my work…It is considered a symbol of fertility.”

Though her art has been displayed across the globe, Alam’s art has a meaningful local connection.

“I believe I am a Harrappan. I prefer colors that reflect Pakistani culture, especially the domes and minarets I saw as a Lahori. If someone asked me to create a traditional Japanese bowl, I could not, as it is not me,” she said.

Alam’s pieces were moved to the new exhibit from a displat at the Koel Art Gallery. Owner Noel Bilgrami said:

“Sheherezade’s forms are fluid… They encapsulate the essence of ‘time’ as it spans across the Indus Valley Civilization, through ancient cultures and the Islamic period to the island of extremely refined sensibilities, Japan.”

Holter Museum of Art Opens New Exhibits

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This weekend, the Holter Museum of Art opened a new exhibit featuring rare bronze pieces from over 3,000 years ago in celebration of the museum’s 25th year.

The exhibit, called “Ancient Bronzes of the Asian Grasslands from the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation” comes alongside four other new exhibits at the Holter. The 85 artifacts were created by people of the Asian steppes and used by chieftains, shamans and horsemen.

According to Holter curator Yvonne Seng, the steppe artisans were the first to domesticate the horse. They were also one of the leading parties who traded along the Silk Road through Asia and Europe.

“It’s a huge honor,” Seng said of hosting the exhibit, which features items like ancient cauldrons used by shamans, yak-shaped belt buckles, intricate swords and knives and more.

Other exhibits opening include the gallery of life-size modern-day warriors in “Wanxin Zhang: A Ten Year Survey,” as well as “Horse and Rider,” “Shifting Perspectives,” and “Invite Your Demons to Tea.”

Seng said: “It’s exciting, it’s really exciting to have all these exhibits together… it will be a feast for the eye. I think it will be a great celebration for the 25th.”

Ancient Art Studio Uncovered in South Africa

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Researchers believe they may have uncovered an ancient art studio in South Africa, having found two shells containing a primitive paint mixture from 100,000 years ago.

Found at Blombos Cave in Cape Town, the shells were found alongside various other tools, suggesting that the users were mixing flakes of ochre, an iron ore used to create red and yellow shades, with other compounds to create a liquid paste.

According to the study, “a bone was probably used to stir the mixture and to transfer some of the mixture out of the shell.”

The paint could have been ceremonial, decorative or protective, used perhaps on the body.

“Ochre may have been applied with symbolic intent as decoration on bodies and clothing during the Middle Stone Age,” explained Christopher Henshilwood, head of the study at the Institute for Human Evolution at the University of Witwatersrand.

“This discovery represents an important benchmark in the evolution of complex human cognition in that it shows that humans had the conceptual ability to source, combine and store substances that were then possibly used to enhance their social practices.”