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November 02, 2007
An Important Announcement and a Plea for Help!
If any reader is going to be in the Washington D.C. area next Saturday 11/10, I'll be speaking at a symposium at The National Gallery of Art in conjunction with their show "The Art of the American Snapshot." Among the other speakers will be Stephen Shore (wow!) and Bill Hunt another snapshot collector who in real life runs the amazing Hasted-Hunt gallery in NYC. The symposium will run from 1-5pm and promises to be really interesting so stop by if you can. The show iteself runs through the end of the year and I'd urge anyone with an interest in snapshots to check it out (or at least pick up the catalogue). To my mind it's the best Snapshot exhibition that's been done to date and a serious must-see! Now for my plea for help- part of my presentation will deal with the influence of outside imagery in snapshots and I'd like to use the following to photos among others.
The problem is, while I know the top photo is based on a painting, I can't for the life of me remember the name of the painting or who painted it! As for the second photo- does anyone know what church this is or more importantly what's the biblical episode portrayed in the bas-relief they're imitating (or I hope they're imitating)? If I had to guess I'd say Adam's expulsion from Eden but I really don't know and would prefer not to make a fool of myself at the National Gallery! Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Posted by nick at November 2, 2007 02:37 PM
Comments
Seems like the top one is based on something called "Daily Bread"
http://www.art.com/asp/sp-asp/_/PD--10055208/SP--B/IGID--666175/Daily_Bread.htm?sOrig=CAT&sOrigID=7563&ui=AF7DB2BC305949F8A8501F579139EA0A
If I had to take a guess at the botton motif, I'd say it was Abraham dragging Isaac off on the Lord's macabre orders.
Posted by: Spidra Webster at November 2, 2007 04:36 PM
Spidra- Thanks! A friend of mine did a google search and came up with the same painting but I can't shake the feeling that there's another more famous painting both my photo and that painting are based on. I think you're almost certainly right about Abraham and Isaac which I think makes my photo a bit creepier.
Posted by: nick at November 2, 2007 04:59 PM
Hi Nick. If you see Robert Jackson, tell him hello for me and congratulations on the show. Good luck with your speech.
Posted by: Scrapatorium at November 2, 2007 06:08 PM
I think the top one is based on a painting (at least it looks like two that I know of) one is by Henry Ossawa Tanner, I can't remember the title but here's a thumb of it:
http://www.oxfordaasc.com/public/features/archive/0706/images/feature_mid.jpg
It also looks like Norman Rockwell's "Grace Before a Meal"
http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/wp-content/2006/12/NR0112~Saying-Grace-Posters.jpg
and Chardin's "Grace Before a Meal"
http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~fellows/hart206/images/chardin_grace.jpg
The bottom one looks a lot like Masaccio's "Expulsion" version of Micheal casting Adam and Eve out of Paradise.
http://www2.bc.edu/~dohertyp/web_site/images/masacc07.jpg
Posted by: Kenney Mencher at November 2, 2007 09:49 PM
It's called "The Thankful Poor"
http://www.negroartist.com/negro%20artist/Henry%20Ossawa%20Tanner/pages/Henry%20Ossawa%20Tanner%20Thankful%20Poor_jpg.htm
Posted by: Kenney Mencher at November 2, 2007 09:55 PM
The bottom one looks a bit like Ghiberti's relief sculptures too:
http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/ashp/brunelleschi_ghiberti.html
Posted by: Kenney Mencher at November 2, 2007 09:56 PM
Well, the top photo is based on "Grace" by Eric Enstrom. There's also the "Daily Bread" version, but the folk in it is afro-american. According to some source on the web, Eric was a mason.
Posted by: Adriano Sousa at November 3, 2007 03:33 AM
For what it's worth: depictions of the expulsion from the garden universally depict both Adam and Eve on their sad trek -- the two figures are usually of comparable size, and make rueful glances back at Paradise. I'd be considerably surprised if the subject in question was not Isaac's would-be sorry fate at the hands of his father, but the slaying of the innocents (or at least one of them) by a soldier on Herod's orders (Matthew 2:16ff) seems possible as well.
Posted by: oombaga at November 4, 2007 03:32 AM
Thanks for the help everybody! I agree that the top photo is most likely based on the Eric Enstrom photograph- apparently it was quite heavily reproduced esp. in the Midwest where my photo was taken. And I think the bottom photo is most likely Abraham and Isaac- as oombaga points out there's no Eve in the Bas-Relief. I'm not sure if I'll use either in my talk- I have some other photos where I'm absolutely sure of the image that's being copied but I don't like them quite as much as this pair.
Posted by: nick at November 6, 2007 01:29 AM