Getty Art + Ideas

"For Blake, visionary art is not mysterious or fuzzy or soft. Visionary art is something which actually very precise and crisp."

Painter, poet, draftsman, and printmaker William Blake was born in London in 1757, a time when England’s art scene was growing and transforming dramatically. Blake trained as an engraver, eventually developing his own technique that allowed him to combine word and image in colorful works. Blake used this approach to illustrate poems he composed and began to publish limited editions of books on his own, without the assistance of publishing houses. While Blake enjoyed a small number of followers and patrons during his lifetime, he also had a reputation as an eccentric who experienced visions and was not always easy to understand or get along with. His early biographers, some of whom knew him personally, emphasized this aspect of Blake’s personality, creating a narrative of Blake as a mystic and dreamer that persists to this day.

In this episode, British art historian Martin Myrone, Convenor of the British Art Network at the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and former senior curator of Pre-1800 British art at Tate Britain, discusses Blake’s work and reputation during and after his lifetime. Myrone wrote the introduction to Lives of William Blake, a book of early accounts of Blake’s life from Getty Publications.

For images, transcripts, and more, visit https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/podcast-william-blakes-eccentric-arts/ or getty.edu/podcasts.

To buy the book, visit https://shop.getty.edu/products/lives-of-william-blake-978-1606066614.

"It was really powerful to be on the road following her footsteps. It just gave me an incredibly profound respect for her grit."

In the 1930s and ‘40s, photographer Dorothea Lange drove up and down California and across the American West, recording people and their living conditions with her camera and notepad. Eighty years later, poet Tess Taylor saw echoes of Lange’s photographs of temporary housing, migrant labor, and precarious livelihoods in contemporary California. Taylor retraced Lange’s steps, following itineraries from her notebooks. Taylor’s book-length poem Last West: Roadsongs for Dorothea Lange explores Lange’s legacy in California, combining her notes and photographs with Taylor’s lyric poetry and oral histories. The result is a poignant exploration of the social and environmental challenges facing California today.

In this episode, Tess Taylor and Getty photographs curator Mazie Harris discuss Dorothea Lange’s career, iconic images, and continuing impact. Taylor also reads excerpts from Last West.

For images, transcripts, and more, visit https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/podcast-photographer-dorothea-langes-california-then-and-now/ or getty.edu/podcasts.

To buy the book, visit https://shop.getty.edu/products/last-west-roadsongs-for-dorthea-lange.

To learn more about Tess Taylor, visit https://www.tess-taylor.com/bio.

"From what we know, the earliest form of true writing was that invented in Mesopotamia in the late fourth millennium BC. Closely followed by Egypt, not long after. It’s probably only a matter of a couple of hundred years, if that. But Mesopotamia seems to have it by a nose."

Mesopotamia, the fertile land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, was home to some of the world’s first cities. Beginning around 3400 BC, people came together in this region to build elaborately decorated buildings, form complex trade relationships, create great works of art and literature, and develop new scientific knowledge. Central to these many advancements was written language, which emerged earlier in Mesopotamia than anywhere else in the world. An exhibition at the Getty Villa, composed largely of objects on loan from the Louvre, explores the history of these first urban societies through their art and writings.

In this episode, Timothy Potts, Maria Hummer-Tuttle and Robert Tuttle Director of the Getty Museum and curator of the Villa exhibition Mesopotamia: Civilization Begins, discusses the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia.

For images, transcripts, and more, visit https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/podcast-art-and-writing-in-early-mesopotamian-cities/ or getty.edu/podcasts.

To explore the exhibition, visit https://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/mesopotamia/index.html.

To buy the book, visit https://shop.getty.edu/products/mesopotamia-civilization-begins-978-1606066492.

"They were rather shocked that we were interested specifically in restoring art by women. And I remember one specific curator said, 'Well, if you would just open your base to men as well, we would have a lot of worthy things for you to restore.'"

Where are the women artists in museums? The non-profit organization Advancing Women Artists was inspired by this simple, powerful question. Though artists like Artemisia Gentileschi and Plautilla Nelli were prolific and successful in their lifetimes, their works often languished in storage or were left in states of disrepair in Florence’s museums. Yet when Linda Falcone, director of Advancing Women Artists (AWA), began approaching these museums around 2008 looking for art by women to restore and conserve, many told her they would have some incredible candidates if only she would open up her criteria to include art by men. However, AWA maintained its exclusive focus on women, and in the years since, the importance of showcasing and preserving art by women has become widely understood in Florence and around the world.

In this episode, Linda Falcone discusses the history of AWA and shares the stories of some of the groundbreaking women who worked from the 17th to the 20th centuries and whose art can be found in Florentine collections today.

For images, transcripts, and more, visit https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/podcast-rescuing-art-by-women-in-florence/ or getty.edu/podcasts.

To learn more about Advancing Women Artists visit http://advancingwomenartists.org/.

“Schlosser could be described as the least-known famous art historian.”

In the 16th and 17th centuries, Central European nobles gathered and displayed art and natural wonders side by side in spaces known as art and curiosity cabinets, or kunst- und Wunderkammer. Viewers were awed by the spectacle of traditional fine artworks alongside objects like ostrich eggs in elaborate stands, complex mechanical clocks, suits of armor, and calligraphic manuscripts. In 1908 Austrian curator and scholar Julius von Schlosser wrote a treatise on this late-Renaissance collecting and display practice, theorizing that it was a critical precursor to the modern museum. Titled Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance (Art and Curiosity Cabinets of the Late Renaissance), Schlosser’s German text was central to the emerging field of art history and, later, to the beginning of museum studies. Despite the impact of Schlosser’s book, it has only recently been translated into English.

In this episode, Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann discusses the history of art history, the importance of late-Renaissance art and curiosity cabinets, and Schlosser’s contributions to the fields of art history and museology. Kaufmann is Frederick Marquand Professor of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University and author of the introduction to Art and Curiosity Cabinets of the Late Renaissance: A Contribution to the History of Collecting, the English translation of Schlosser’s 1908 text published by Getty Publications.

For images, transcripts, and more, visit https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/podcast-the-legacy-of-european-art-and-curiosity-cabinets/ or getty.edu/podcasts.

To buy the book visit https://shop.getty.edu/products/art-and-curiosity-cabinets-of-the-late-renaissance-a-contribution-to-the-history-of-collecting-978-1606066652.

"There is, and appropriately so, a tension between Sarnath as an archaeological monument, a historical monument, but also a highly sacred one."

After reaching enlightenment, the Buddha began attracting followers—and founding a religion—by preaching. He delivered his first sermon at Sarnath, near the banks of the Ganges in Northeast India, in the 6th century BCE. By the 3rd century BCE, it had become a site of considerable importance; the emperor Ashoka visited and erected a gleaming pillar, officially declaring it the site of the Buddha’s sermon while also referencing the flourishing monastic community. For thousands of years Sarnath has attracted monks, artists, archaeologists, and tourists from across the globe. Today, it ranks among the most prominent and most visited sites for Buddhists. Its ancient religious structures, including stupas, or reliquary mounds, and pieces of Ashoka’s pillar, can be visited in an archaeological park that is a candidate for World Heritage status.

In this episode, Fredrick Asher, professor emeritus of art history at the University of Minnesota, discusses the long history and significance of Sarnath, the site’s relationship to its local populations, and ideas for the future of the excavated area. Asher is the author of Sarnath: A Critical History of the Place Where Buddhism Began, recently released by Getty Publications.

For images, transcripts, and more, visit https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/podcast-the-buddhas-first-sermon-in-sarnath/ or getty.edu/podcasts.

To buy the book visit https://shop.getty.edu/products/sarnath-a-critical-history-of-the-place-where-buddhism-began-978-1606066164.

“The idea is that you put the scroll in the machine and it does a pirouette. And as it turns around, the x-rays see what’s inside the scroll from every possible angle, 360 degrees, all the way around. And we can invert that and recover a complete representation of what’s inside, in three dimensions.”

In 1750 well diggers discovered a villa near the ancient town of Herculaneum that had been buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Among the treasures pulled from the villa were more than 1,000 papyrus scrolls that had been turned to carbon by the volcano. Over the centuries since their discovery, many have tried to open and read these papyri in the hopes of discovering great lost works of antiquity, but they damaged these scrolls in the process. However, with modern imaging technology and artificial intelligence, it may now be possible to read these papyri without ever opening them.

In this episode, computer scientist Brent Seales and Getty antiquities curator Ken Lapatin discuss the history of these scrolls, past approaches to opening them, and the exciting opportunities presented by “virtual unwrapping.”

For images, transcripts, and more, visit https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/podcast-reading-ancient-scrolls-with-modern-technology/ or getty.edu/podcasts.

To buy the related book visit https://shop.getty.edu/products/buried-by-vesuvius-br-the-villa-dei-papiri-at-herculaneum-978-1606065921

To learn about the related exhibition visit https://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/villa_papiri/

We’ve asked members of the Getty community to share short, personal reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. These recordings feature stories related to our daily lives.

This week, Maite Alvarez, who works on exhibitions at the museum, recalls how she discovered a Baroque sculpture's true maker—Luisa Roldán. To learn more about this sculpture, visit: www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/1101/.

Transcript

JAMES CUNO: Hi, I’m Jim Cuno, president of the J. Paul Getty Trust. We’ve asked members of the Getty community to share short, personal reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. This week Maite Alvarez discusses a painted wooden sculpture by Luisa Roldán.

"One of the things I’ve heard most frequently in attending and working with and participating with ACHAC at different events, is to hear young people, and even adults, say, 'I had no idea. I did not know that back at this particular historical juncture, my ancestors were put on display in the city, in these parts, for entertainment.'"

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, France taught its citizens about its overseas territories in the Caribbean, Latin America, Africa, and Asia through commonplace, mass-produced items including postcards and board games. Through these materials, the government attempted to capture and publicize a grand image of France’s empire while also justifying colonization. These same objects are now critical for understanding the often-violent story of French colonialism and its lasting impact on immigration, race relations, and nationalism. Many such items are held in the Getty Research Institute’s collection of the Association Connaissance de l’histoire de l’Afrique contemporaine (ACHAC, the association to foster knowledge on contemporary Africa).The new book Visualizing Empire: Africa, Europe, and the Politics of Representation analyzes this fascinating archive.

In this episode, Visualizing Empire editors Rebecca Peabody, head of Research Projects and Programs at the Getty Research Institute; Steven Nelson, dean of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC; and Dominic Thomas, the Madeleine L. Letessier Professor and chair of the Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, discuss French imperialism, its legacies, and how these everyday objects might be used to reexamine and even decolonize this narrative.

For images, transcripts, and more, visit https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/podcast-reevaluating-french-colonialism-through-visual-culture/ or getty.edu/podcasts.

To buy the book visit https://shop.getty.edu/products/visualizing-empire-africa-europe-and-the-politics-of-representation-978-1606066683

We’ve asked members of the Getty community to share short, personal reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. These recordings feature stories related to our daily lives.

This week, Museum editor Lyra Kilston muses on Richard Neutra's innovative and newly relevant school designs, as seen through photographs by Julius Shulman. To learn more about these images, visit: https://primo.getty.edu/permalink/f/mlc5om/GETTY_ROSETTAIE131574.

Transcript

JAMES CUNO: Hi, I’m Jim Cuno, president of the J. Paul Getty Trust. We’ve asked members of the Getty community to share short, personal reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. This week Lyra Kilston discusses Julius Shulman’s photograph of a Richard Neutra school building.

LYRA KILSTON: My name is Lyra Kilston and I’m a senior editor at the Getty Museum.

I’ve just finished shepherding my daughter through another day of online elementary school. She’s antsy now, after hours of sitting in the same chair, with a few breaks in another chair at the kitchen table. The technical difficulties weren’t too bad today, fortunately. Her teacher is patient and trying his best to teach during a pandemic, but it’s still bizarre that she only knows him as a head and shoulders on her computer screen.

When the schools shut down in mid-March last year, we thought it would just be for a few weeks. As the months numbly passed, I paid close attention to news about how schools might reopen safely in our new reality.

I already knew a bit of history about schools during a health crisis. I had written a book that focused, in part, on how ideas about contagion, hygiene, and good health had changed architecture in Europe and the United States around the turn of the 20th century. Buildings from hospitals to housing and schools were designed to be more hygienic and to let in more fresh air and sunlight. These natural elements were believed to both strengthen the body and fight off rampant illnesses like tuberculosis and cholera. This led to what were called “open-air” classrooms that brought the outdoors inside, through lots of glass and open windows, or that let students bring their desks outside to terraces or gardens.

With the safety of school constantly on my mind, I was drawn to photographs of the Corona Avenue Elementary school, designed by modernist architect Richard Neutra. Built in the Los Angeles area in 1935, Neutra’s new wing of classrooms were called “glass-and-garden rooms,” as they each featured a glass wall that slid open onto broad patios and gardens. Students could easily push their own lightweight chairs and desks right outside for lessons on the lawn. The photographs show bucolic scenes—children sitting cross-legged on the green grass, painting at easels, or watching their teacher point to the display board she wheeled outside.

Looking into it further, I learned that while Neutra was well-versed in the latest modern European school design, he was also building on a California legacy. The state’s mild climate had made it a natural center for outdoor school experiments—from Oakland to San Diego—since the turn of the century. These quaint-seeming practices sadly gained new relevance in 2020, and I hoped for an announcement from our school district that they would try something similar. We had the ideal climate and if school yards were too small, there were now acres of empty parks and parking lots.

I’m still fascinated by the open-air school movement, but it was a bittersweet topic to research. I watched schools in the more difficult climates of Massachusetts, New York, and Arkansas forge ahead with outdoor classes while our schools remained locked for months, beneath clear blue skies.

I know the photographs of the Corona school were staged. The photographer, Julius Shulman, probably arranged the students and teacher just so to make it look extra perfect. But 85 years later, classrooms like that are needed again, and so are the forward-thinking architects and school superintendents who made it happen.

CUNO: To view Julius Schulman’s 1953 photograph of Richard Neutra’s Corona Avenue School in Bell, California, click the link in this episode’s description or look for it on primo.getty.edu.