Virginia Museum of Fine Arts II (2/13/2024)

Tuesday, February 13, 2024 (continued)

We are still on Level 3 of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, now in the South Asian galleries:

There was an extensive collection of Ragamalas/sets of paintings from India that depict various moods evoked by musical structures called ragas.

Megha Malar Raga: Page 25 (c 1800-1810)

An example of the raga music that goes with this painting:

Garden Pavilion (19C, from a royal garden in Rajasthan, India)

Panchama Ragaputra (c 1685, Punjab, India);
a noble is shown as a meditating ascetic with
predators and their prey drawn to his yogic power

Picture Scroll depicting events from the Legendary
History of the Gauda Caste (c 18C, by Krishnaya,
son of Pallaki Lakshmaya, Andhra Pradesh, India)
is embellished with gold 

Luxation 1 (2016, by Tsherin Sherpa, American, born Nepal)
represents the dislocation following the 2015 earthquake
in Nepal, and is based on the deity Vajrabhairava

Vajrabhairava (c 15C, Sino-Tibetan) where he is whole!

Level 2, Lewis Focus Gallery:

Wonder Working Power (2023, by 
Theaster Gates) invites you to consider
the transformative power of belief

Mid to Late 20th Century galleries:

The Former and the Ladder or Ascension and a Cinchin'
(2012, by Trenton Doyle Hancock) is said to be a self-portrait

Screaming into the Ether (2020, by
Gary Simmons) is based on the
stereotypical rascist figure of
the Looney Tunes character, Bosko 

Synopsis of a Battle (1968, by Cy Twombly) is based
on the Battle of Issus (333 BCE)

Landscape, Villerville (Normandy) (1930,
by Raoul Dufy, French, in Fauvist style)

Schlumberger Gallery:

Pigeon on a Perch (1930, by Pablo Picasso, Spanish)

Pair of Birds (1964, by Jean Schlumbeger,
French) expresses the flamboyance of the
artist's design of decorative objects

European galleries:

The Three Orders: The Castle, The Church,
The Land (1944, by Gaston Duchamp,
known as Jacques Villon, French)

Tropical Landscape: American Indian Struggling with
a Gorilla (1910, by Henri Rousseau, French) is said to
exploit racial stereotypes and yet show sincere curiosity
for "poetic and exotic" non-European cultures

Daisies, Arles (1888, by Vincent van Gogh, Dutch); van Gogh
is said to have squeezed tube paint directly onto the canvas

Julie Burtey (c 1867, by Edgar Degas, French)
features a Parisian dressmaker with a
delicately painted face giving her a dignity
Degas denied to other female subjects

Field of Poppies, Giverny (1885, by Claude Monet, French)

The Artist's Son, Jean, Drawing (1901,
by Pierre-Auguste Renoir)

On the Beach, Les Petits-Dalles, Fecamp (1873, by Berthe
Morisot, French) with emphasis on the figures on the beach

Landscape, St Thomas (1856, by
Camille Pissarro, French); at last, a
painting of his homeland

Fabergé galleries (the largest public collection of Fabergé outside of Russia):

Cane Handle (c 1900)

French Bulldog (attributed to Cartier Co)

Sailor (c 1900) with sapphire eyes and
lapis lazuli tie 

Detail of the Imperial Pelican Easter Egg
(1898, by Mikhail Perkhin)

Imperial Tsarevich Easter Egg (1912, by Henrik Wigström)

Bratina/Brother Cup (c 1900, by Julius Rappoport)
would be filled with mead and passed from
the oldest brother to the youngest

Dandelion (19-20C) uses asbestos fiber
and diamonds

Ozeryanskaya Mother of God, of Kharkov, St Prince
Alexander Nevsky, and St Mary Magdalene Triptych
(1891, by Ovchinnikov Firm)

We may have explored half of this great fine arts museum, but it was time to leave.