New Book | Imagined Neighbors: Visions of China in Japanese Art
I’m sorry for not posting earlier news of the exhibition, which was on view in Washington at the National Museum of Asian Art from 16 March until 15 September 2024. Fortunately, the catalogue is still available. –CH
Frank Feltens, ed., with additional contributions by Paul Berry and Michiyo Morioka, Imagined Neighbors: Visions of China in Japanese Art, 1680–1980 (Munich: Hirmer Publishers, 2024), 304 pages, ISBN: 978-3777442662, $65.
Imagined Neighbors: Visions of China in Japanese Art examines Japanese artistic understanding of China from the late 1600s, Japan’s period of seclusion, to its age of modernization after the mid-nineteenth century. It focuses on ways Japanese painters from the late 1600s to the twentieth century pictured China, both as a real place and as an imagined promised land. It features three essays by renowned Japanese art historians in addition to more than fifty catalog entries highlighting unusual artworks revealing Japanese artists’ complex responses to Chinese art, history, and culture. In recent years, a handful of scholarly studies have tried to push against the established narrative of an exclusively Western-inspired modern Japan. Imagined Neighbors challenges the established narrative of an exclusively Western-inspired modern Japan by offering a more nuanced approach to understanding the country’s struggle with reconciling the old with the new as it reinvented itself into a modern nation-state.
Frank Feltens is curator of Japanese art at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art.
Paul Berry is an independent scholar of Japanese art and cinema who has taught at the University of Michigan, the University of Washington, and Kansai Gaidai University.
Michiyo Morioka is an independent scholar of Japanese art based in Seattle.
Exhibition | A Movable Feast: Food and Drink in China
Ding Guanpeng (active 1726–1770), A Night Banquet at the Peach and Plum Garden, Qing dynasty (1644–1911), handscroll, ink, and colour on paper
(Beijing: The Palace Museum)
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From the press release and the general exhibition description:
A Movable Feast: The Culture of Food and Drink in China
Hong Kong Palace Museum, 19 March — 18 June 2025
A Movable Feast: The Culture of Food and Drink in China offers a fresh perspective centred on the concept of ‘mobility’, connecting significant aspects of Chinese food culture. Over 110 exquisite artefacts have been meticulously selected to explore the evolution of food vessels, eating practices, and related traditions, comprehensively illustrating the rich culinary culture and lifestyle throughout the history of China. Food culture encompasses the sourcing and utilisation of ingredients, the preparation and processing of food, and the consumption of food as well as the customs, etiquette, and ideologies developed around eating and drinking. It touches nearly every aspect of our material and spiritual life. According to anthropological archaeologist Kwang-chih Chang, “one of the best ways of getting to a culture’s heart would be through its stomach.”
Food culture is naturally an important element of the Chinese civilisation. This exhibition invites visitors to enjoy a multicourse feast spanning five thousand years of Chinese history. The first part, “Crossing from Life to Death”, features a ceremonial meal for the deceased. Showcasing ritual and burial objects related to food and drink dated from the Neolithic period (about 10000–2000 BCE) to the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), this section demonstrates the importance of transferring food and drink to the afterlife in Chinese beliefs. The second section “Crossing Cultures” presents a multicultural banquet, focusing on eating and drinking vessels from the Tang (618–907) to Song (960–1279) periods, such as platters and ewers introduced to China through the Silk Routes. It reveals how China and Central and West Asia embraced each other’s eating practices. The next section “Crossing Mountains and Lakes” exhibits famous scenes of literati gatherings and picnic sets produced in the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) dynasties, which demonstrates the important role food and drink played at elegant gatherings and excursions. Finally, at the “Crossing Time” multimedia table, visitors are encouraged to find out more about the past and present lives of modern eating and drinking vessels.
Accompanying the exhibition is the publication A Movable Feast: The Culture of Food and Drink in China, available in both Traditional Chinese and English. The book features six chapters written by a team of scholars and experts from the Hong Kong Palace Museum and around the world—addressing how people have traversed the culinary landscape with food and eating utensils for 5,000 years, examining preparations for the afterlife, adaptations to foreign culinary practices from other regions, and the enjoyment of outdoor picnics. The catalogue will be available at the Hong Kong Museum and later from major bookstores in Hong Kong.
Crossing from Life to Death: Feeding the Spirits
The first section features food and drink vessels used in rituals and burials from the Neolithic period to the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE). Key objects on display include the zun (wine vessel) for Father Ding and the jue (wine vessel) of Marquis of Lu from the Palace Museum’s collection, dating back to the Western Zhou dynasty (about 1100–771 BCE). These bronze ritual vessels were used for making offerings and served as a medium between people and spirits.
A dou (food vessel) with cord pattern from the Warring States period (475–221 BCE) was a container for pickles, preserved vegetables, meat sauce, gravy, and more. In a first-century Chinese dictionary, the character feng, meaning abundance, is explained by a pictograph of a dou filled with food, while some scholars further interpret it as depicting two skewers of meat on a dou. The Chinese character li, meaning ritual, also has a component of feng, a further indicator of the significance of food and food vessels in Chinese culture.
During the mid-to late Western Han dynasty (206 BCE–8 CE), earthenware burial objects in the shape of granaries, wells, stoves, pigsties, and chicken coops were prevalent, not only mirroring the way of life and the flourishing food culture of the time but also signifying people’s desire for an abundant afterlife. A model of a brazier with cicadas, from the Hong Kong Museum of Art, was fired using low-temperature lead glaze, resulting in striking colours. The roasting rack with two rows of cicadas illustrates the custom of eating cicadas during this period.
Crossing Cultures: Nomadic Eating Practices
The second section presents the intersection and integration of culinary customs between China and Central and West Asia during the Tang (618–907), Song (960–1279), and Yuan (1271–1368) dynasties, demonstrating how the richness and evolution of ‘tradition’ develops over time. The introduction of new ingredients, utensils, and tall furniture to the Central Plains via the Silk Routes significantly transformed the region’s food culture. Foods from Central Asia were given the prefix hu (roughly indicates regions beyond the Central Plains of China), as seen in terms like hujiao (black pepper), hutao (walnuts), and huma (sesame), which remain widely used today
Among the exhibits in this section is a quatrefoil cup from the Tang Dynasty (877), which traces its origins back to the Sassanian Empire (present-day Iran). Scholars believe it is associated with the term ‘poluo’, a foreign term that frequently appeared in Tang and Song poetry, referring to a drinking vessel for alcoholic drinks. The renowned poet Li Bai (701–762) wrote about it, saying “Grape wine, gold poluo, a hu girl aged 15 years was carried by a fine horse.” To this day, the term ‘gold poluo’ is used in Cantonese to describe a greatly cherished child. Another key exhibit, a phoenix-head ewer, which features a handle and spout. This vessel exemplifies how the nomadic drinking custom of pouring wine from ewers gradually replaced the tradition of spooning wine from a jar with a ladle in the Central Plains.
With the introduction of hu foods to the Central Plains, large platters emerged during the Tang dynasty to accommodate nomadic foods such as hubing (hu flatbread) and sushan (shaved ice-like dessert). By the Yuan and Ming (1368–1644) periods, large platters produced in China had become important export commodities, enjoying popularity in the Middle East. Historical records from the Ottoman Empire indicate that porcelain was frequently used for banquet serving ware during significant ceremonies, such as the sultan’s accession, birthdays, and weddings. One of the exhibits, a dish with chrysanthemum and lotus scrolls from the Ming dynasty closely resembles a 15th-century blue-and-white platter in the collection of the Ardabil Shrine in Iran, exemplifying the multidirectional nature of cultural exchange.
Crossing Mountains and Lakes: Packing the Perfect Picnic
The third section showcases the mobility of food and drink across different landscapes by presenting artworks and picnic sets of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Historically significant excursions and picnics have become a source of inspiration for numerous calligraphies, paintings, and other works of art. For example, A Night Banquet at the Peach and Plum Garden by the renowned Qing court painter, Ding Guanpeng (active 1726–1770), portrays the famous Tang poet Li Bai (701–762) and his cousins enjoying a banquet amidst a garden filled with peach blossoms.
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the custom of dining on pleasure boats became a particularly popular activity along the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Late Ming literati considered that an elegant pleasure boat should accommodate “six hosts and guests and four attendants” and allow them to brew tea during the excursion. A notable exhibit, an ivory boat from the British Museum’s Qing dynasty collection, vividly captures a leisurely outing on the water: two bearded men enjoy a chat over tea under the canopy of the boat, while others carry a food container and net freshwater fish from the lake.
The design of the paraphernalia used for these excursions was intended to keep objects organised, preventing them from colliding, and ensuring that the objects remained safe and accessible during travel. The Qing imperial court later adopted these organisational boxes to manage and store cultural artefacts accumulated in the palaces. The exhibition features a box of curiosities assembled during the Qing dynasty, intricately designed to hold a variety of antiques crafted from different materials, transforming it into a curated collection of treasures.
Crossing Time: The Heritage
The final section features multimedia interactive installations that blend ancient and modern scenes and artefacts, inviting the audience to enjoy a virtual feast that transcends time and space. Visitors can simulate ordering food at a virtual dining table while observing the cooking processes of various dishes, allowing them to discover diverse cooking techniques associated with these utensils.
The exhibition is jointly organised by the Hong Kong Palace Museum and The Palace Museum. The exhibits mainly come from The Palace Museum and the Hong Kong Palace Museum. The British Museum, the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Hong Kong Museum of Art, and the Hong Kong Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware have also provided a number of loans. The Robert Chang Art Education Charitable Foundation is the exhibition’s Supporting Sponsor.
Exhibition | The Declaration’s Journey
Looking to this fall, from the March 11 press release for the exhibition:
The Declaration’s Journey
Museum of the American Revolution, Philadelphia, 18 October 2025 — 3 January 2027
The Museum of the American Revolution today announces new details of its loan acquisitions for The Declaration’s Journey—a special exhibition commemorating the 250th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence—related to female activists and suffragists in the 18th and 19th centuries who both touted the Declaration’s progressive ideals and pushed the United States to apply the its promise of equality to women.
On the night of July 4,1776, the first copies of the Declaration of Independence were published at John Dunlap’s printing office, near Second and Market Streets in Philadelphia. The news of independence spread quickly and widely both in the United States and abroad. Though women were not mentioned in the declaration issued by the Continental Congress, they contributed to its proliferation and success. Beginning with Dunlap, printers created broadsides of the Declaration, and they published the text in their newspapers. In July 1776, Mary Katharine Goddard of Baltimore was the only woman running a newspaper under her own name in the newly declared United States. She first published the Declaration in her newspaper, the Maryland Journal, and later also printed broadside copies of the Declaration, the first version to bear the names of the men who signed the revolutionary document. The Declaration’s Journey will feature a rare surviving broadside of the Declaration of Independence printed by Goddard in January 1777, on loan from Brian and Barbara Hendelson.
Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, activists fought for women’s rights and cited the words of the Declaration of Independence to advocate for education, temperance, abolition, and especially suffrage. In Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848, 100 men and women signed a Declaration of Sentiments that looked very similar to the Declaration of Independence, with a key difference—it affirmed that “all men and women are created equal.” At the time, women in the United States had few legal, social, and political rights compared to men. Women were not allowed to vote. Only a few state laws allowed them to own property if they got married. They had limited rights in the court system and could not serve in government positions.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a skilled writer and orator for the suffrage movement, wrote the Declaration of Sentiments, borrowing its title from the American Anti-Slavery Society while retaining the structure and much of the language from the United States’ Declaration. Of the 68 women who signed the Declaration of Sentiments, only one, Rhoda Palmer, lived long enough to legally vote after nationwide women’s suffrage was achieved in 1918.
The Declaration’s Journey will feature Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s desk used in her house in Tenafly, New Jersey, where she lived from 1868 until 1887. Alongside coauthors Matilda Joslyn Gage, Ida Husted Harper, and Susan B. Anthony, Stanton likely used this desk during the writing process for their History of Woman Suffrage book, which they began working on following the suffragists’ appearance at the Centennial International Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876. At that appearance, a small group of suffragists including Stanton famously interrupted the proceedings of the Fourth of July celebration at Independence Hall to present their Declaration of Rights of the Women of the United States to Vice President Thomas Ferry. History of Woman Suffrage was later published in 1881.
Coline Jenkins, the great-great-granddaughter of Stanton, will lend the desk to the Museum for the full run of The Declaration’s Journey. Just as Stanton and her fellow activists took advantage of the attention surrounding the Centennial celebration to travel to Philadelphia and champion their cause, Jenkins said she is thrilled to have her ancestor represented through the Museum’s special exhibition celebrating the Semiquincentennial.
“The Declaration’s Journey will be the focus of the nation in 2026,” Jenkins said. “It means a lot to me and to my family to contribute this artifact at such a key time to such a key institution. It was never my family’s interest to have it stored away from the American people. Now, by its inclusion in this special exhibition, the desk can be a tool for Americans to understand where they came from and how to move forward.”
Displayed near Stanton’s desk in The Declaration’s Journey will be the earliest known printing of the Declaration of Sentiments, on loan from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. The exhibition will also include a ballot box made from blueberry crates that was used in 1868 in a protest organized by Vineland, New Jersey, resident Portia Gage. One hundred and seventy-two local white and Black women cast illegal votes in the ballot box, which will be on loan from the Vineland Historical and Antiquarian Society.
“American women have helped to shape the legacy of the Declaration of Independence over the past 250 years,” said Matthew Skic, Senior Curator at the Museum of the American Revolution. “Stories of revolutionary women such as Mary Katherine Goddard, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Portia Gage remind us of the long-standing and continuing struggle to strengthen the American nation’s commitment to equality stated back in 1776.”
Structure of the exhibition:
First Travels, 1776–1783
The exhibition begins with the story of Jonas Phillips, a Jewish merchant in Philadelphia who sent a letter, written in Judeo-German to keep its contents secret, and a Dunlap broadside of the Declaration of Independence to Amsterdam in July 1776. That copy never arrived, as the ship carrying it was captured by a British warship. The letter and Dunlap broadside will be on view along with Phillips’ notes referencing the Declaration’s promise of freedom of conscience—an early example of the emerging meanings credited to the Declaration. Other objects and documents in this introductory section convey how a July 1776 reading of the Declaration led the Mi’kmac and Maliseet communities of New Brunswick and Maine to enter into the first treaty to recognize the U.S. as an independent nation; how the French celebrated the Declaration and helped to announce the U.S. as a nation of the world, available for diplomacy and alliance; and how a small minority, all abolitionists, pioneered the use of the Declaration as an egalitarian document.
A Worldwide Journey, 1780–1830
The story moves abroad to examine how international interpretations of the Declaration of Independence pressured Americans to clarify their own understanding of the founding document, especially its language about equality. The Marquis de Lafayette borrowed language of the Declaration in his “Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen” (1789) but clarified language about equality. The Haitian Declaration of 1804, as well as the declarations adopted in Mexico and Chile, pushed and pressured Americans into conversation and conflict over the tensions within their own Declaration’s promise.
A Divided Declaration, 1831–1898
The narrative returns to the United States, exploring the Declaration’s appropriation by abolitionists, suffragists, and Confederate secessionists. Items may include Frederick Douglass’s typescript oration from 1852, best known for the line “What to the American Slave, is your Fourth of July?” and a printing of the Seneca Falls Convention’s Declaration of Sentiments, which launched the modern women’s suffrage movement with the addition of the phrase “and women” to the Declaration’s statement that “all men” are created equal.
Examples of Native American Declarations of Sovereignty and Independence, including Mashpee and Cherokee, show ways that the Declaration’s language was re-fashioned in the 1800s by people described in the original document as “savage.”
The Declaration’s Journey, 1898–Present
In this final section, visitors will see more and more people claim the legacy of the Declaration. At the end of WWI, Czechoslovakia, Korea and six other nations adopted their versions of a declaration of independence and by the mid-1900s, the Declaration was increasingly understood as a fundamental statement of human rights and equality. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 “I Have a Dream,” speech is perhaps the best-known example of this understanding of the Declaration as a far-reaching promise. Visitors will leave the exhibition with an understanding of our Declaration as part of an ongoing revolution, a continuing effort to secure fair government and individual rights for people in the United States and around the world.
The Museum is poised to play a leadership role in the upcoming 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding in 2026. As we continue to transform the nation’s relationship with its Revolutionary past by increasing awareness of the many ordinary, diverse, and little-known people who created the American nation. Through this special exhibit, digital initiatives, and educational programs, we aim to facilitate widespread conversation about the meaning of the American Declaration of Independence and its ongoing legacy.
Journal18, Fall 2024 — Craft
The latest issue of J18 (I’m sorry to be slow with this one! –CH) . . .
Journal18, Issue #18 (Fall 2024) — Craft
Issue edited by Jennifer Chuong and Sarah Grandin
When, where, and why does craft matter? Craft, by definition, is any activity involving manual skill. But in the modern western world, the term typically implies specific kinds of activities that produce specific kinds of objects: things like baskets, lace, and lacquerware. In a culture that has historically privileged rationality and innovation, craft’s commitment to tradition, reliance on haptic knowledge, and association with marginalized subjects have rendered it the minor counterpart to more ‘serious’ forms of material production. As a subsidiary to art and industry, craft has often occupied a circumscribed role in accounts of modern art and modernity’s origins in the eighteenth century. Recently, however, craft—as a more capacious category of material production—has become a crucial term in efforts to expand and diversify the study of eighteenth-century art.
This special issue builds on recent investigations while considering how craft’s ancillary role within the Anglo-European tradition has limited its capacity to transform the field. Drawing inspiration from the absence of an art/craft divide in many cultures, we are interested in exploring craft’s potential to radically reframe, reconceptualize, and globalize the history of art.
a r t i c l e s
Elizabeth Eager — Labor, Leisure, and Lost Time in Eighteenth-Century Women’s Embroidery
Yve Chavez — Eighteenth-Century Loom and Basket Weaving at the California Missions
Hampton Smith — Insurgent Tooling and the Collective Making of Slave Revolts
Natalie E. Wright and Glenn Adamson — Encyclopædia Materia: Material Intelligence and Common Knowledge
Julie Bellemare, N. Astrid R. van Giffen, and Robert Schaut — Hot Tempered: Recreating a Lost Glass Recipe
Caroline Wigginton — Reading with Indigenous Form: Lucy Tantaquidgeon Tecomwas’s Moccasins (ca. 1767)
Ellen Siebel-Achenbach — Bookbinding in Eighteenth-Century Nuremberg: Reconstructing an Edge Plough from the Hausbücher der Nürnberger Zwölfbrüderstiftungen
All articles are available for free here, along with recent notes & queries:
r e c e n t n o t e s a n d q u e r i e s
Lytle Shaw — A Pirate Primer? Review of Stan Douglas: The Enemy of All Mankind
Sofya Dmitrieva — The Art Collection of the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture: Notes on the Database
Jennifer Laffick — Lethière in Williamstown and Paris: A Transatlantic Exhibition Review
Kristina Kleutghen — Beijing to Dresden via St. Petersburg: An Early Qing Enameled Snuff Bottle in the Collection of Augustus II the Strong
Geoff Quilley — Lubaina Himid’s Naming the Money at the Entangled Pasts, 1768-now Exhibition, Royal Academy, London
Print Quarterly, March 2025
Thomas Daniell, The Old Court House and Writers’ Building, 1786, hand-coloured etching, 403 × 524 mm
(Philadelphia Museum of Art; image Thomas Primeau).
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The long eighteenth century in the latest issue of Print Quarterly:
Print Quarterly 42.1 (March 2025)
a r t i c l e s
• Jalen Chang, “‘Bengalee Work’ before Aquatint: Thomas Daniell’s Views of Calcutta”, pp. 20–30.
This article reevaluates eleven hand-coloured etchings by Thomas Daniell (1749–1840) held by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, previously presumed to be published states of his 1786–88 print series Views of Calcutta, often cited as the earliest aquatints made outside of Europe. Devoid of the rudimentary aquatinting and hand-coloured skies which characterize other extant examples, the relatively bare objects document a distinct stage of Daniell’s artistic process and are unprecedented in their survival. The article suggests that these prints were trial proofs never intended for publication or sale, meant instead to serve as colour tests for Daniell and his team of Indian copyists. Furthermore, the article considers early imperial printmaking and its ideological functions in British India.
Charlotte Bonaparte, Self-Portrait, ca. 1824–26, oil on canvas, 885 × 730 mm (Princeton University Art Museum).
• Thomas Busciglio-Ritter, “From Brussels to Point Breeze: Charlotte Bonaparte’s Lithographic Landscapes, 1821–25”, pp. 31–43.
This article discusses a series of twelve lithographs by Charlotte Bonaparte (1802–1839), niece to Napoleon I, of North American views known as the Vues pittoresques de l’Amérique dessinées par la Comtesse Charlotte de Survillier (printed 1824), which she completed and disseminated on her return to Europe. The series, published in Brussels, became the first lithographic scenic views of the United States to circulate among western European audiences. The article situates Bonaparte’s landscape views within the context of transatlantic print culture of the early nineteenth century, touching on the role of women as producers of landscape images and the introduction of lithography as a new medium for American audiences.
n o t e s a n d r e v i e w s
• Bernard Aikema, Review of the exhibition catalogue Connecting Worlds: Artists and Travel, ed. by Anita Viola Sganzerla and Stephanie Buck (Paul Holberton Publishing, 2023), pp. 64–66.
• Catherine Jenkins, Review of the exhibition catalogue Trésors en noir et blanc. Estampes du Petit Palais, de Dürer à Toulouse-Lautrec, by Anne-Charlotte Cathelineau, Joëlle Raineau-Lehuédé, and Clara Roca (Paris Musées, 2023), pp. 74–76.
• Ellis Tinios, Review of Hokusai’s Fuji, ed. by Kyoko Wada (Thames and Hudson, 2023), pp. 76–77.
• Victoria Sancho Lobis, Review of Aaron Hyman, Rubens in Repeat: The Logic of the Copy in Colonial Latin America (Getty Research Institute, 2021), pp. 99–105.
Exhibition | Lines of Connection: Drawing and Printmaking
Hendrick Goltzius, Study of a Right Hand, 1588
(Haarlem: Teylers Museum, N058)
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Recently opened at the AIC:
Lines of Connection: Drawing and Printmaking
Art Institute of Chicago, 15 March — 1 June 2025
Getty Center, Los Angeles, 1 July — 14 September 2025
Curated by Jamie Gabbarelli and Edina Adam
The first exhibition ever to focus on the multiple connections between drawing and printmaking, this presentation brings together around 90 works on paper by some of the greatest artists in the Western tradition to uncover the inner workings of their creative process and offer new ways to think about the links between the two mediums.
Joseph Wright of Derby, Self-Portrait in a Fur Cap, 1765–68, monochrome pastel (grisaille) on blue-gray laid paper, 42.5 × 29.5 cm (Art Institute of Chicago, Clarence Buckingham Collection, 1990.141).
Featuring fascinating drawings and exceptional prints from the late 15th century though the mid-19th century by artists such as Albrecht Dürer, Parmigianino, Rembrandt, Peter Paul Rubens, Maria Sibylla Merian, Francisco Goya, and William Blake, the exhibition explores the creative exchange between the two practices by showcasing preparatory drawings for prints, printed imitations of drawings, and drawn copies of prints. A selection of hybrid works also questions traditional definitions, strict boundaries, and outdated hierarchical distinctions between media.
Among the many remarkable loans enriching the exhibition are two astonishing drawings of a right hand by Hendrick Goltzius, which will be shown alongside each other for the first time in over a generation. Additionally an impressive drawing by Rembrandt of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper makes its Chicago debut. With a wealth of exceptionally beautiful works, Lines of Connection offers fresh perspectives on two intertwined mediums and lifts the curtain on the rarely foregrounded subjects of artistic training, workshop practices, and the afterlife and collecting of works on paper.
Lines of Connection: Drawing and Printmaking is co-organized by the Art Institute of Chicago and the J. Paul Getty Museum. The exhibition is curated by Jamie Gabbarelli, Prince Trust Associate Curator, Prints and Drawings, Art Institute of Chicago, and Edina Adam, assistant curator of drawings, The J. Paul Getty Museum.
Jamie Gabbarelli and Edina Adam, Lines of Connection: Drawing and Printmaking, 1400–1850 (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2025), 230 pages, ISBN 978-1606069653, $40.
Exhibition | Designing the Future of The Nelson-Atkins
Proposals by the six finalists for The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, aimed at integrating the campus, the Donald J. Hall Sculpture Park, and the two existing buildings into a cohesive experience for new wider community engagement.
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It’s not an 18th-century story per se, but interesting to see a museum engage a strong classical facade and an iconic landscape in the 21st century. From the press release (13 March) for the exhibition, which includes an online component:
Building Belonging: Designing the Future of the Nelson-Atkins
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, 15 March — 1 June 2025
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art this week revealed the concepts from six finalist teams in the competition to transform the museum with a dynamic, open, and inviting design. The expansion project’s goal is to attract new audiences by creating vibrant spaces for hosting more art, along with new immersive and interactive experiences for the community. The concepts—devised by some of the most respected designers working in museum architecture today—are now available to view in an online gallery here. They can also be seen in a free exhibition at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Building Belonging: Designing the Future of the Nelson-Atkins, until 1 June 2025. The public is invited to comment at the exhibition or through the portal available here.
The museum’s Architect Selection Committee (ASC) will meet in late spring to interview the finalists and make a recommendation to the Board of Trustees. Following ratification and the winning team’s appointment, the chosen design will be refined in close partnership with the museum and its stakeholders, including local communities. The Board of Trustees aims to broaden the conventions of the museum—which offers free general admission—so it continues evolving as a place where everyone feels they belong. The project will integrate the campus, the Donald J. Hall Sculpture Park, and the two existing buildings into a cohesive new experience. The first stage of the competition, which launched in October 2024, attracted 182 teams from 30 countries on six continents.
“These six concept designs articulate six unique visions of a new and even more dynamic Nelson-Atkins.” said Evelyn Craft Belger, Chair of the museum’s Board of Trustees and the Architect Selection Committee. “This is a thrilling moment for the museum and our community when we start to visualize an identity that will carry us through the coming decades. We encourage our community to visit the exhibition and share your thoughts—which proposal best realizes your aspirations?”
“We asked for bold, inspiring moves that also respected the existing museum campus and I’m so happy to say we’ve received them in these initial designs,’ said Julián Zugazagoitia, Director & CEO of the Nelson-Atkins, “Each is a fascinating response to a complex project brief, together they bring myriad perspectives. The teams have shone their beams of thought on our big questions: how do we synthesize our existing icons with a new proposition? How do we modernize and embrace the future but keep the best of our history? And, most of all, how do we create a museum that is transparent for all and instills a sense of belonging and well-being?”
In conjunction with this exhibition is the release of Director’s Highlights: Celebrating 90 Years of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, which captures the richness and variety of the museum’s collection told through the eyes of the curators and Zugazagoitia himself. It includes about 200 works of art organized by the decade in which they entered the museum. Engaging stories, images, and colorful anecdotes accompany each work, along with historic photos and plans. The publication is available for purchase online and in the museum store.
More information about the six finalists can be found here»
• Kengo Kuma & Associates
• Renzo Piano Building Workshop
• Selldorf Architects
• Studio Gang
• Weiss/Manfredi Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism
• WHY Architecture
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Note (added 25 April 2025) — Weiss/Manfredi will lead the expansion, as announced in the press release:
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art has unanimously selected WEISS/MANFREDI Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism as the lead architect for the museum’s upcoming expansion and transformation project. Their guiding theme united the trilogy of architecture, landscape, and community as reciprocal elements that work together while maintaining the majestic south lawn view into the Donald J. Hall Sculpture Park. WEISS/MANFREDI’s concept is aligned with the museum’s goals for a dynamic, open, and inviting design that will create more spaces to present all forms of art, as well as new opportunities for immersive and creative experiences for audiences of every age. The museum’s Architect Selection Committee made the recommendation of WEISS/MANFREDI, describing the project as the best to fulfill the museum’s aspirations, and the team as sensitive to Kansas City while being engaging, smart, creative, and curious. The choice was ratified by the Board of Trustees shortly thereafter. Having selected the lead architect, the museum will now begin the months-long process of turning the concept into more specific and detailed plans to meet the long-term needs and goals of the community. . . .
The full press release is available here»
Exhibition | The Roman Drawings of José de Madrazo
José de Madrazo y Agudo, The Dispute between Apollo and Cupid, detail, ca. 1812, pencil and grey-brown wash on wove paper, 29 × 22 cm
(Madrid: Prado, D006523)
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From press release for the exhibition:
Changing Forms: Myth & Metamorphosis in the Roman Drawings of José de Madrazo
Cambio de forma: Mito y metamorfosis en los dibujos romanos de José de Madrazo
Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, 10 March — 22 June 2025
Changing Forms: Myth and Metamorphosis in the Roman Drawings of José de Madrazo showcases the intriguing works of José de Madrazo y Agudo (1781–1859), the first artistic director of the Museo Nacional del Prado. The exhibition offers a unique glimpse into Madrazo’s fascination with classical mythology and its reflection of a turbulent era. During a time when Europe was reshaped by Napoleon and Goya captured the horrors of war, Madrazo, then in exile in Rome, explored the transformative power of myth.
José de Madrazo y Agudo, Josefa Tudó with Her Sons Manuel and Luis Godoy, in a Garden, ca. 1812, oil on panel 20 × 16 cm (Madrid: Prado).
The exhibition features a collection of drawings and portraits from the Daza-Madrazo collection, acquired by the Prado in 2006, highlighting Madrazo’s ability to interpret ancient stories through a contemporary lens. The exhibition is structured around two distinct sets of works, prompting questions about their original purpose. One set appears to be preparatory sketches for engravings, while the other, semicircular compositions, suggests they were intended for decorative purposes, possibly for the exiled court of Charles IV in Rome. Themes like the contest between Apollo and Cupid are prominent, revealing Madrazo’s personal and scholarly approach to myth.
A notable inclusion is Madrazo’s Portrait of Josefa Tudó and Her Children, where they are depicted as mythological figures. This highlights how Madrazo incorporated mythological symbolism into his portraiture, adding layers of meaning to his works. The exhibition also delves into Madrazo’s self-representation, featuring his silhouette, a lithographic portrait, and a photograph, demonstrating his interest in evolving artistic technologies. These pieces span different periods of his life, showcasing his experimental nature.
Changing Forms goes beyond a simple display of technical skill, inviting visitors to consider the historical context in which Madrazo worked, a period marked by significant change. The exhibition emphasizes how Madrazo’s exploration of metamorphosis was not just a theme in his art, but a reflection of his own ability to adapt and reinvent himself. The Daza-Madrazo collection, a key resource for understanding Madrazo’s drawing practice, is central to the exhibition. It reveals his creative process, aesthetic choices, and the complexities of his Roman period.
Madrazo’s deep engagement with classical texts and art history is evident in his detailed drawings. He combined diverse sources to enrich his narratives, demonstrating a rigorous study of both past and present artistic trends. The exhibition aims to provide a deeper understanding of José de Madrazo’s artistic vision and his ability to navigate a time of significant historical and artistic change. Visitors are encouraged to explore the connection between myth, transformation, and the artist’s own journey.
Exhibition | Wild Apollo’s Arrows
Josef Abel, Klopstock’s Arrival in Elysium / Klopstocks Ankunft im Elysium, 1805
(National Gallery Prague)
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Now on view at Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts:
Wild Apollo’s Arrows: Klopstock Cult & Ossian Fever
Die Pfeile des wilden Apollo: Klopstockkult & Ossianfieber
Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, 7 March — 25 May 2025
Curated by Alexander Roob
The exhibition Wild Apollo’s Arrows: Klopstock Cult & Ossian Fever presents significant artistic works that exemplify the epochal shift from the Enlightenment to the irrationalism of the Storm and Stress movement and Romanticism, exploring for the first time the immense influence of the poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724–1803) on the fine arts and music of his own age.
Decades before the French Revolution, the Age of Enlightenment saw a sudden outbreak of irrational sentiment, expressed in exuberant emotions, notions of spiritualistic gender switching, and a fragmented, heroic, and introspective view of art. This was the onset of an epochal shift with consequences for pictorial art: reliance on the actual appearance of things gave way to the mystical and diffuse, accompanied by a greater interest in the realm of acoustics. Nothing seems to better define this ‘acoustic turn’ than the trope of the blind prophet and lyrical poet, which functioned as a literary model for this new epoch, as seen in the figures of Homer, Ossian, and John Milton. Milton’s grand inner images were proclaimed to be the perfection of the romantic sublime, and the myth of the lost and regained paradise to which he had given literary form was associated with Mesmer’s notion of lucid dreaming. In the early 1750s, German poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock positioned himself as an heir to Milton, with his pietistic epic The Messiah: A Heroic Poem, and in this he issued a challenge to the self-proclaimed English national bard William Blake.
Motif combining works by Johann Peter Pichler after Heinrich Friedrich Füger, Homer Reciting, 1803 (Graphic Collection of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna), and Carl Wilhelm Kolbe the Elder, Ice-skating Bard (‘Braga’), 1793–94 (Hamburger Kunsthalle, Kupferstichkabinett / bpk, photo by Julia Bau), design composite motif: Beton.
For cultural philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder, ‘wild Apollo’s arrows’ were the rousing sounds of an early folk movement and the Nordic dronescapes of a budding nationalist mysticism, which was all heralded in the pseudo-Celtic poem cycle Ossian. In the visions of the superstar poet Klopstock ‘wild Apollo’ appeared in a Celtic-Germanic mix, and the bard’s song and cosmic ice-dance put the world into creative turmoil. Klopstock, a keen ice-skater, who was nowhere more popular than in Austria, became a role-model for a sentimental skating trend that saw motion as a way to transcend limitations.
The exhibition presents art works that exemplify this epochal shift from the Enlightenment to the irrationalism of the Storm and Stress (Sturm und Drang) movement and Romanticism. For the first time, Klopstock‘s immense influence on the fine arts and music of his own age is explored. With interpretations of his work in art and music by Angelika Kauffmann, Heinrich Friedrich Füger, Josef Abel, and Franz Schubert, the republican poet Klopstock was surprisingly still very present in the Habsburg Empire at the time of the Napoleonic Wars. The exhibition blends works of Austrian classicism, evidence of international early romanticism, and the narcotic imagery of the Nazarenes to the accompaniment of music by Joseph Haydn, Christoph Willibald Gluck, and Franz Schubert.
Alongside works from the Paintings Gallery and numerous loans, this exhibition draws widely on works from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna Graphic Collection. The project also integrates works by students from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, and it will be presented in the Exhibit Galerie and three rooms at the Paintings Gallery. A comprehensive publication with essays and illustrations will accompany the exhibition.
With works by Josef Abel, Edmund Aigner, Johann Wilhelm Baur, Thomas Blackwell, William Blake, Filippo Caporali, Thomas Chatterton, Daniel Chodowiecki, Edward ‘Celtic’ Davies, Josef Dorffmeister, Bonaventura Emler, Heinrich Friedrich Füger, Johann Heinrich Füssli, Hendrick Goltzius, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Johann Valentin Haidt, Joseph Haydn, Anton Herzinger, William Hogarth, Bartholomäus Hübner, Anne Hunter, Archduchess Maria Clementina of Austria, Johann Evangelist Scheffer von Leonhardshoff, Friedrich John, Owen Jones, Angelika Kauffmann, John Kay, Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, Joseph Anton Koch, Carl Wilhelm Kolbe the Elder, Simon Petrus Klotz, Leopold Kupelwieser, Johann Caspar Lavater, Johann Friedrich Leybold, William James Linton, Johann Heinrich Lips, Johann Hieronymus Löschenkohl, Josef Löwy, James Macpherson, Charles-François-Adrien Macret, Jacob Wilhelm Mechau, Heinrich Merz, Isaac Mills, Jean-Michel Moreau, Wilhelm Müller, Friedrich Olivier, Carl Hermann Pfeiffer, Johann Peter Pichler, Albert Christoph Reindel, Johan Christian Reinhart, Ferdinand Ruscheweyh, Luigi Schiavonetti, Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Ludwig Ferdinand Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Franz Schubert, Moritz von Schwind, William Bell Scott, Franz Xaver Stöber, Joseph Sutter, Johanna Dorothea Sysang, Giambattista Vico, Marianne von Watteville, Josef Wintergerst, Franz Wolf, Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, Felice Zuliani, and others.
Works after William Blake, Asmus Jakob Carstens, Johann Nepomuk Ender, Heinrich Friedrich Füger, Bonaventura Genelli, Gerdt Hardorff, G. W. Hoffmann, William Hogarth, Angelika Kauffmann, Nicaise de Keyser, Giuseppe Longhi, Johann Friedrich Overbeck, Raffaello Santi, genannt Raffael, Bertel Thorvaldsen, Angiolo Tramontini, Richard Westall.
Contemporary works by students of the Academy such as Christian Azzouni, Ina Ebenberger, Hicran Ergen, Eginhartz Kanter, Julia Kronberger, Prima Mathawabhan, Amar Priganica, Liese Schmidt, Pia Wilma Wurzer, and Ancient Britons Team (ABK Stuttgart).
Alexander Roob, with Sabine Folie, Die Pfeile des wilden Apollo: Klopstockkult & Ossianfieber (Hamburg: Textem Verlag), 248 pages, ISBN: 978-3864853340, €32.
Exhibition | The Most Formidable Weapon against Errors
View of the exhibition The Most Formidable Weapon against Errors: The Sid Lapidus ’59 Collection and the Age of Reason, as installed at Princeton’s Firestone Library, 2025.
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Now on view at Princeton:
The Most Formidable Weapon against Errors
The Sid Lapidus ’59 Collection and the Age of Reason
Firestone Library, Princeton University, 19 February — 8 June 2025
Curated by Steven Knowlton
Thinking of the start of his long career as a collector of rare books, Sid Lapidus recalled, “My first antiquarian book was purchased in 1959. In a bookseller’s dusty window, I noticed a small book, a 1792 edition of Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man. The principal theme of my collection was even embedded in the title of [this first purchase].”
That principal theme is the documenting of new conceptions of human liberty, political order, and scientific reasoning that emerged in the Anglo-American intellectual world between the 17th and 19th centuries. It resulted in a large book collection now dispersed in libraries on the East Coast. This exhibition attempts to provide an overview of Sid Lapidus’s overall achievement.
• Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
• Thomas Paine, Rights of Man
• The Stamp Act Crisis
• Slavery and Emancipation
• Jewish Oppression and Liberation in England and the United States
• Medicine
• Astronomy and Atomic Science
A dedicated philanthropist, Lapidus has donated his books to several libraries, including Princeton University Library, the American Antiquarian Society, the Wolf Law Library at William & Mary Law School, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the Center for Jewish History, the New York Historical, and the New York University Health Sciences Library. His contributions have strengthened the existing collections at those libraries, helping create collections of research value, with works that often are in conversation with one another.
The entire Sid Lapidus ’59 Collection on Liberty and the American Revolution in Princeton University Library has been digitized. You’re invited to browse or search within the collection here»
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