Johnson Museum of Art (1/8/2023)

Sunday, January 8, 2023

Now on our way home from Buffalo, with a stop in Ithaca, NY at the Herbert F Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University. This is a Tyler Arboretum membership reciprocal museum, but has free admission.

Herbert F Johnson Museum of Art (1973, by
I M Pei & Partners) has works of art spanning
6,000 years and from most world cultures

We started on the fifth floor with Asian Art, the largest floor of galleries.

Rock Eagle Owl's Drawer (2018, by
Takumi Kama from Japan)

Buddha Seated under the Naga (c13-14C,
from Thailand)

The museum's 5th floor offers views in all directions;
looking SW at the city of Ithaca (KSS)

Looking NW toward Cayuga Lake (KSS)

Jar with painted designs (c 2400-1900 BCE,
from China, Gansu Province)

Nail and Wood (2008, by Jaehyo Lee from Korea)
where nails were partially pounded into wood, then
somehow bent and flattened into a smooth surface

View SE toward Stone Row, the first three buildings
of Cornell University, from the left: White Hall (1866),
McGraw Hall (1868), and Morrill Hall (1866),
all in Second Empire style; plus Uris Library (1888-1891)

Looking NE toward Olive Tjaden Hall (1880), the first
asymmetrical building at Cornell University, the domed
Sibley Hall (1870-1902), and far right is
Baker Laboratory (1921, in Neoclassical style)

Bowl with design of three figures and naskhi inscriptions
(late 12C-early 13C) is Kashan ware from Iran

Spouted vessel with handle and painted decoration
(c 800-6000 BCE, from Iran) (KSS)

An ancient jade plant with 3-inch diameter branches (KSS)

Stag figurines (1000-900 BCE) plus one tiny goat
[8-7C BCE, in front of the spouted vessel in the shape of
a stag (1000-550 BCE)] from Northwest Iran (KSS)

Kavad/portable shrine bearing images of Rama,
Lakshmi, and Sita (20C from India, Rajasthan)

Gourd-form spouted bottle (late 15C-
early 16C from Vietnam, Lê dynasty)

Âu Cơ/Snow fairy (c 18C from Vietnam) with a headdress
like those portrayed for monarchs of the Hồng Bàng period

Slendang/women's shoulder cloth with
patola style pattern (late 19C-early 20C
from Indonesia, east Sumatra)

Slendang detail; combined plangi and tritik methods of
tie-dying is common in Indonesia

Kammavaca manuscript (c 19-20C from Myanmar) is a
religious text in the Pali language, here written
on highly lacquered palm leaves

Batik fabric with megamendung/
threatening clouds motif (undated,
from Indonesia, Cirebon)

Xingtian/Adversaries Dancing (2008, by Wu Jian'an
from China, Beijing) features laser-cut paper

Twenty-one fans with Rinpa School subjects (undated,
by Nozawa Teiu from Japan) (KSS)

The Rinpa School of the late 19C refers to
visual and decorative art inspried by the
late 17C artist Ogata Korin (KSS)

This fan typifies the Rinpa School
with a vibrant gold background, yet
abbreviated forms of natural motifs (KSS)

Two Samurai (1977, by Mori Yoshitoshi
from Japan, a printmaker)

Goldfish (undated, by Chun Kyung-ja from Korea) (KSS)

Now to the second floor and Art before 1800, with less than half the space as Asian Art.

Mosaic depicting a rooster (450-550 CE, from roman Syria) (KSS)

Corinthian hoplite/citizen soldier helmet
(c 550 BCE, from Greece)

Kinesias and Myrrhine (1934, by
Pablo Picasso) was included in
Ancient Greek and Roman Art...

...as was The Calypso Episode (1935,
by Henri Matisse)

St George Slaying the Dragon
(c 1450-1500, from Germany) was
part of Medieval and Renaissance Art

The Rat Catcher (1632, by Rembrandt van Rijn) is an
etching in the 17th Century Dutch Art collection

Down one more floor for Art after 1800, with mostly American and European Art.

This is the way art used to be displayed

View of Triphammer Falls, Ithaca, NY
(undated, by John Frederick Kensett, American)

Three works by Roy Lichtenstein that were unfinished at
the time of his death in 1997; left to right: Brushstroke
Still Life with Lamp, Brushstroke Still Life with
Coffee Pot, and Brushstroke Still Life with Box

Untitled rayograph (1922, by Man Ray, American)

Mobile (c 1930s-1940s, by Alexander Calder, American)

Tamiko & Kent with L'homme qui
marche II/Walking Man II (1960, by
Alberto Giacometti from Switzerland)

Continuing down, we passed the ground level lobby and lower level 1 (installing a new exhibition), to lower level 2.

75 Years of Consequence: The Partition
of India featured photographs by
Margaret Bourke-White, including
Great Migration, India (1947)

A "learning gallery" for children featured masks,
including Sunflower Seeds (2020, by Ai Weiwei)
on a commercially-manufactured face mask

Background Story, a series by Cornell
Professor-at-Large Xu Bing, now exhibits
his re-creation of Woodcutter in Winter
Mountains by Yang Xun, except that
Xu Bing manipulated light and shadow
on a translucent surface

Behind the "copy" of Woodcutter in
Winter Mountains, Xu Bing combined natural
and man-made elements to convey
modern society's destructive disregard
for the natural world, as a warning of
the broken balance between humans
and the environment

Ganradaisgowah/Peace Tree (undated, by
Samuel Thomas of the Lower Cayuga Band,
Iroquois Nation) is created with tiny beads

Now that the sun is out, another look at the
Johnson Museum of Art (KSS)

Next: Milton, PA.