Mark Moran
Prof. Elizabeth Marlowe
Masterpieces of Western Art
November 8, 1999 Formal Comparison of Two Museums
The Frick Collection and The Guggenheim Museum are both museums on 5th Avenue in New York’s Upper East Side neighborhood, and they are both named for famous American tycoons from the early 20thcentury. But their similarities pretty much end there. The Frick Collection is the former residence of steel baron Henry Clay Frick who spent forty years assembling a large collection of artwork for his personal enjoyment. The Guggenheim Museum, on the other hand, was always intended as a public museum to display various art exhibits. These fundamental differences are most evident in the architectural design of the buildings
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The Guggenheim is a giant concrete and glass spiral designed with mathematical curves and no right angles. The surfaces are all completely smooth and there is no decoration or ornamentation inside or out. The bizarre structure conjures up images of alien civilizations and challenges the viewer with its unusual shape. The Guggenheim resembles and upside-down wedding cake, which gives it a much more vertical feeling than the Frick, even though it is also shorter than the surrounding buildings.
There are no living areas inside the Guggenheim, just one huge chamber with a long spiral that visitors are intended to wind down and view all the artwork from. Artwork is primarily installed along the large spiral, although there are also small rooms which come off the spiral ramp. Because visitors take the elevator to the top, they have nowhere to go but to follow the spiral down. This ensures that they see the artwork in a specific order and provides the satisfying feeling that the viewer has seen all there is to see. The Frick, however, has no set order. Even though some modifications were made by architect John Russell Pope in the 1930’s to convert it for public use, the building largely retains the feeling of a house. Just as one would expect of a house, it is a mixture or narrow hallways, living areas, large banquet rooms, and outdoor courtyards which sprawl out in various directions from the entryway. The rooms are
Never before have I seen a museum as grand as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. From its architecture to its massive art collection, The Met has a little bit of everything and one is sure to find something that captures his or her interest. Considering that The Met is the United States' largest art museum, it is easy to get lost within its many corridors and wings. My visit to The Met took place during the last week of July. Despite the almost unbearable heat and humidity that hung in the air, visiting museums under these climate conditions is a welcome respite from a suffocating, yet bright summer afternoon.
The Carnegie Museum of Art was a museum created to focus on the art of tomorrow rather than already popular art and artists of today. A necessary part for that dream of Andrew Carnegie to become a reality is having a place to house these art pieces. While of course he could have just found an empty warehouse and placed all the art there that would neither have given the pieces of art justice nor would anyone want there personal collection to be placed on display there. Instead, in order to have a successful art museum you have to house the art in a place that does it justice. Museums heavily rely on their architecture to accurately portray and supplement the showpieces within the museum. Carnegie’s art museum
This museum is the first time Johnson started to move away from the influence of Mies and the International Style. The international style of architecture emerged in the 1920’s and 1930’s. You can see this style of architecture in photo A. Common characteristics of International Style buildings are said to be rectilinear forms, ligh taut plane surfaces that have been completely stripped of applied ornamentation and decoration, and open interior spaces. The typical materials of this style are glass and steel usually combined with less visible reinforced concrete. In picture number four you can see Munson Williams Proctor museum has opaque stone-clad walls, and uses luxuriant materials such as granite and statuary bronze, and a very balanced and symmetrical design. These aspects were all part of Johnson’s growing new interest in neo classical typologies, or what would be known as New Formalism in modern architecture. Neo formalism emerged in the 1950s and really took off in the 1960s, it remained popular in the third quarter of the twentieth
The Frick Collection and The Metropolitan Museum of Art are both very distinct art museums. If you visit the museums or their online websites, it becomes very apparent that they differ in historical backgrounds, in their curatorial departments, in the way in which they were founded and then funded and in the collections of art that they house. I visited both museums and it was evident to me that they bore many differences, and at the same time, they were also similar in some aspects.
The painting work done by C. Bertram Hartman was the first piece of art I observed inside the Dallas Museum. This painting, completed in 1930, consists of a campanile-type tower, most likely a representation of a historic skyscraper (Walker 73). The painting applies a fractured perspective blended on an urban look with muted color palettes accompanied by harsh shadows (MacDonald & Brettell 117). The painting is a reflection of the dynamism and energetic expansion of the current New York City. The geometrical arrangement of the buildings in the painting resemble the current scenes witnessed in New York, championing a fast pace and a
The Heard Museum conveys the life and culture of Native Americans in the Southwest, with the help of pre-Colombian to contemporary art and a variety of traditional artifacts. Something that caught my eye was Rosie Yellowhair’s “Emergency Story” sandpainting. It depicts the Navajo creation story and how there were five worlds and what made the people move from the first world to the next. I thought that this was interesting because in class we talked about creation stories about Native Americans and I found those intriguing. So, seeing this sandpainting and knowing that its purpose was to tell its story of creation was astonishing because I’ve never seen a sandpanting that depicted a creation story.
One of the finest French artists of the 19th century thought of by many is William Bouguereau. He was well known for his traditional
As I walked up to The Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) for the first time, I was overwhelmed with amount of visitors that occupied the steps to the entrance and wondered if this visit was the best choice. I opened the front doors to the museum and stepped inside; my immediate impression of the place reminded me of my first experience at Grand Central Station. Initially, I was overwhelmed and distracted by the hustle and loud noise around me, yet at the same time, I found myself mesmerized by the architectural beauty and layout of the place.
The Guggenheim Museum is a form of abstract art which has no separate floor levels but uses a spiral ramp. This was his ideal of continuous space and most significant building. His principles
The Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 damaged the old de Young museum building located in Golden Gate Park and uncovered severe seismic flaws in the building and hence a comprehensive plan to rebuild the building in stages was overtaken to make the de Young museum up to date. In January 1999 the Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron were chosen to rebuild the De young museum, due to their willingness to engage in an extended process of architectural design and also because their prior work demonstrated a drive to explore new building solutions for each client. Each of Herzog & de Meuron’s prior buildings were known for their strikingly different façade treatments and the use of uncommon
The Museum of Modern of Art was the first to use the words “International Style”, which was a fitting term to introduce modernist arts to the world. Johnson and another renowned architect Henry-Russell Hitchcock organized a major show under the title “Modern Architecture: International Exhibition”. There they described the International Style that expresses several design principles, that concerns with volume rather than mass and solidity, regularity instead of axial symmetry, and the proscription of “arbitrary applied decoration”. Exhibits featured leading European and American architects, especially the likes of Le Corbusier and Ludwig Mies van der
Different architects have different styles because they are trying to get at different things. Architecture is not just about making something beautiful anymore, it is about trying to get across a set of ideas about how we inhabit space. Two of the most famous architects of the twentieth century, one from each side, the early part and the later part up until today each designed a museum with money donated by the Guggenheim foundation. One of these is in New York City, it was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The other is in bilbao, Spain, and it was designed by Frank Geary. My purpose of this paper is to interrogate each of these buildings, glorious for different reasons, to show how each architect was expressing their own style.
Art gallery and art museum are two different types of structure. The major difference between them is that the purpose of the art gallery is to go to discover the artist’s work and with an interest in buying their art. So it's basically a small business to promote and sell art.
This was actually my first visit to this museum since I have gone to Kennesaw. My expectations were pretty high initially upon going, because I have heard so many things about it from my peers. Just by their opinions, and my love for art I have myself, I was actually excited about going in to take a look. I must say, I was not disappointed by any of the art work I saw in there. I really enjoyed the exhibit of work from some students from a high school around this area. It really shows that the college really supports the youth of the future and their passion for art as a whole.
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is a museum that represents modern and contemporary art. Its story first begins when Thomas Krens the director of Solomon R. Guggenheim foundation in New York City, was looking for a museum location in Europe. He chose the industrial wasteland in the middle of the city on a curve of the Nervion River. The site was located in the center of