The Matter of Time

Katherine Grabowsky
Richard Serra, The Matter of Time, 2005
By KATHERINE GRABOWSKY

Richard Serra is a post-abstract expressionist artist who embraces minimalism with his large sculptures. Serra has created much controversy over the years but his sculptures are still widely popular all over the world. He is most known for working with large-scale steel panels and welding. Sculptures such as The Matter of Time created in 2005 have gained Serra much attention and have progressed his art career. It is constructed out of weathering steel, and when seen from afar, look like iron fossils from an ancient mechanic creature. The Matter of Time is an eight-part sculpture that sits in the largest gallery of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. The sculpture contains another one of Serra’s famous works, Snake. While many of Serra’s work led to harsh critiques, critics praised this one as appropriate for the particular setting.


Because this blog post is purely based off of looking at pictures, it is difficult to fully experience the sculpture how Serra intended. All parts of the sculpture are meant to be experienced through movement. Unlike typical art that is meant to be looked at and analyzed, Serra’s work should be felt through motion. He wants the sculpture to change as the viewer walks through the thin steel plates. A viewer should feel differently at the beginning of the viewing process than at the end. The movement between the eight parts develops a feeling of space in motion. The entire room is part of the sculptural field, and the negative space should also be treated as part of the art. Serra does not put a focus on just one aspect of the sculpture, but of all parts of the room that work together to create the experience. All of the pieces are deliberately placed to move the viewer throughout. They are supposed to see the evolution of the forms, moving from a simple double ellipse to a complex spiral. Serra’s sculpture creates a fascinating and changing experience from beginning to end, making it one of Serra’s most well-known works.
  • 7:00 PM

The Farm

Joan Miro
Joan Miró, The Farm, 1921
By KATHERINE GRABOWSKY

Joan Miró was best known as a Spanish Catalan artist that specialized in many different art mediums. The Farm by Miró exemplifies his time on his family’s farm in the village of Montroig as a child. Miró cherished his memories form his childhood and depicted this home as a Utopia where no wrongdoings could occur. Miró considers this work “a summary of my entire life in the countryside” with the cheerful atmosphere definitely present. This was painted between the summer of 1921 and the winter of 1922 and took as many as eight hours a day for nine months to finish. He created this on return from his trip to Paris when he was 29 years old. This work was regarded as the starting point of his years working with surrealism. Miró considers this his first masterpiece and it is evident that you spent many years in this style after the completion of The Farm.

Miró’s bright colors add a light feel to the painting to balance out the busy subject. The painting is bottom-heavy with most of the action occurring on the bottom half of the painting, though the rich blue sky still steals some of the focus. The loose leaves add an element to the sky that brings the painting together to be one. The tree seems to split the painting in two dissimilar halves with a Spanish building on each side. His Spanish roots are made clear with the Spanish-styled building on the left side of the landscape. Also, many aspects of the painting such as the animals are taken from medieval Spanish artwork. The busy landscape provokes a sense of peace apparent through the vibrant colors and cheerful subjects.

Miró said, “The Farm was a résumé of my entire life in this country,” and that he wanted to “put everything I loved about the country into that canvas - from a huge tree to a tiny snail.” This work of art uses stunning colors and a richly decorated landscape to encapsulate Miró’s life on the farm.
  • 7:00 PM

Miss Elsie Palmer

John Singer Sargent

John Singer Sargent, Miss Elsie Palmer, 1889-1890
By KATHERINE GRABOWSKY

Her graceful, rose-colored dress drapes over her as she sits poised and pretty. Yet the solemn expression on her face seems to draw all the attention of the viewer’s gaze. Maybe this was John Singer Sargent’s intention when he painted 17 year-old Elsie Palmer in 1889-1890. His work encapsulates every message conveyed through Deborah Davis’s Strapless. Just like John Singer Sargent’s Madame X, Miss Elsie Palmer makes a statement with its enormous size. Miss Elsie Palmer was born in 1873 to a wealthy family from Colorado. Her family then moved to England to be with her father's family. Just by Elsie’s outfit, it is apparent that she was born as a well-off child. Every aspect of the painting reminds the viewer that though she was born as privileged, the pains of her sadness shine through the clothing. Barbara Groseclose’s “Portraiture” addresses the idea of wealthy white women as synonymous with class definition. Elsie Palmer embodies the spirit of social division.

Elsie’s eyes seem tired and uninterested. Her mouth does not show even the smallest inkling of a smile, and her back stands up a little too straight. Sargent seems to capture the feeling of being trapped in this life of luxury. Elsie clearly has other activities she would rather be doing than to be subjected to a mere object enclosed in this canvas. Similar to Mrs. Virginie Gautreau in Madame X, Elsie’s life of leisure and luxury does not always come with happiness. Both women struggle with imprisonment to society, though Mrs. Gautreau seems to embrace the captivity of life as a socialite. Though we can only see a small sliver of the area, the tone of the painting seems to say that silence overtakes the large, empty room. Her eyes speak for themselves. The viewer can get lost in her vacant gaze that appears to hold no emotion, but actually tells a story. They tell the story of a young girl trapped between childhood and womanhood, bound inside the restraints of society. Elsie Palmer may sit and dress as the perfect portrait model, but the emotion in her face shows the viewer the hidden pain in this life of “ease.” 
  • 7:00 AM

Fêtes and Folly: Wine is a Mocker

Fêtes and Folly
Jan Steen, Wine is a Mocker, 1663
By KATHERINE GRABOWSKY

Wine is a Mocker, painted by Jan Steen in 1663, depicts a woman passed out on the floor from a night of a little too much wine, as some townspeople attempt to help her. This woman gives us a warning about what could happen when one does not adequately match up the water to wine ratio. She shows the aftermath of a fête that went a little too hard, and the folly that resulted. I imagine she started out the night in her elaborate gown and her vibrant red stockings hoping for a fun yet casual night with only a couple drinks. She probably finished two glasses of wine and wanted to be done until her friends kept giving her more, and in her drunken state, the more she drank the less judgment she had. Before she knew it, she ended up passed out on the dirt road outside a house, as she was loaded into a wheelbarrow. You really can’t get any more humiliating than that. Can’t a girl just have one night out without ending up in a wheelbarrow?!

To make this situation even worse, the townspeople laugh in her face. This is probably their entertainment for the night, and I don’t blame them for laughing. Without the stupidity of reality TV in the 17th century, what’s a guy to do for some vulgar entertainment on those boring Tuesday nights? They don’t want to laugh, but they can’t help it. Even the children giggle from afar, though they (hopefully) don’t understand the situation. The townspeople surrounding the drunkard wear dull colors and clothes that paint them as of a lower class, while the drunkard wears bright colors and a beautiful dress. Not only do they laugh at her foolishness, but also they laugh because, for them, the downfall of the wealthy is so much more satisfying. This mirrors present-day society, where tabloids would rather write about “Miley Cyrus’s Crazy Night Out” rather than “Miley Cyrus Saves a Puppy.” Above the door, reads the inscription “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise” (Proverbs 20:1). Even the writing on the door seems to mock her disheveled appearance as the dirt floor represents what she has been reduced to. Jan Steen’s Wine is a Mocker is a visual presentation of what none of us want to be, because the last play anyone wants to wake up during a hangover in is a wheelbarrow surrounded by people laughing at your downfall.
  • 7:00 AM

The Bathers at Asnieres

Georges Seurat

Georges Seurat, The Bathers at Asnieres, 1884
By KATHERINE GRABOWSKY

Georges Seurat was most well-known for his use of pointillism. One of his most famous works of art is Sunday Afternoon on the Island of la Grande Jatte was painted in 1886. This painting created conversation, not because of the style but because of the imagery. Some people hated the painting while others loved it. The painting features wealthy looking individuals in France dressed in elaborate gowns or suits, relaxing by the river. The counterpart of the painting is what makes it interesting.

The Bathers at Asnieres, painted in 1884, opposes Sunday Afternoon and brings into question the idea of class. A boat race can be seen in the river in both paintings. This seems to link the two together and suggest that they occur at the same time. Another weird aspect of the paintings that is most likely not a coincidence, is that both works of art are exactly the same dimensions. The two works of art look remarkably similar in style and ratio, but they provoke drastically different themes. While his later painting depicts wealthy individuals relaxing in a life of leisure, the earlier painting brings the themes of poverty and unemployment to the foreground. In The Bathers at Asnieres, the three men at the front of the painting relax in the grass while two more boys wade in the river. Crumpled clothes lay underneath one of the boys, which suggest that these clothes do not require extensive caretaking. Their clothes are ill fitting and simple as opposed to the elaborate outfits of the later painting. In the background, there is a bridge and factory chimneys that blow steam, suggesting industrial technology. The men in the painting are clearly from a lower class and embody poverty.


Much like day vs. night, Seurat’s paintings oppose each other. He invites the viewer to make a connection and compare the lifestyles. While the later painting attracted much attention and conversation, its themes are dependent on The Bathers at Asnieres. The earlier painting may not have as much fame, but it is necessary in comparing the two. Seurat invokes themes of class in his two pointillism paintings of the mid-1880s.
  • 7:00 AM

Factory at Horta de Ebro

Factory at Horta de Ebro
Pablo Picasso, Factory at Horta de Ebro, 1909
By KATHERINE GRABOWSKY

Picasso was never known for conventionality. His introduction of cubism in 1907 brought his paintings to life through his disregard to perspective. The idea of cubism was to emphasize the three-dimensionality of the object painted, while also promoting the idea that a canvas is two-dimensional. This unique style shown in Factory at Horta de Ebro, painted in 1909, exemplifies Picasso’s straying from the typical approach. This was painted after Picasso’s second visit to the Quiet Southern Spanish village on the Aragon border. He spent seven months with Manuel Pallares in the village for first visit in 1898. The second visit in 1909 inspired him to create this early cubist painting.

Picasso ignores perspective by placing the further buildings above the buildings in the foreground rather than behind. The paintings does not have one set viewpoint, but instead can be looked at from all different angles. It seems to move with the eye instead of representing a snapshot in time. On first glance, the land’s topography fuses together with the architecture, bringing civilization and nature together. He shows no difference in color or style between the ground and the buildings. The boxy feel continues to the sky, diluting any depth behind the mountains and buildings. The palm fronds keep relax the landscape by offering a curved pattern in contrast to the geometric shapes that occupy the rest of the canvas.

As for color, even the orange Picasso uses seems monochromatic. Black dilutes the green and gray, and brown dilutes the orange. From left to right, light slowly creeps in and brightens the landscape. The light source seems to come from the right, as gray occupies most of the left sides of the buildings. Though the light patches brighten the painting, the gray overshadow keeps the colors dark and gloomy.


Picasso’s Factory at Horta de Ebro takes an unconventional look at the already unusual cubism style. The perspective takes away any literal depth to the painting, but a viewer can get lost in the complexity for hours. From the form and the geometric shapes to dull colors mixed with fiery orange, Picasso’s painting stands out in the world of cubism. 

  • 7:00 AM

First Leaves Near Mantres

First Leaves Near Mantres
Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, First Leaves Near Mantres, 1855
By KATHERINE GRABOWSKY

Two wanderers stroll towards the village of Mantes, France, as the bare trees hang over them. Painted in 1855, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot’s First Leaves Near Mantes invokes feelings of calamity and peace. Throughout his life, Corot kept a strong relationship with his parents. Their countryside house in Ville-D’Avray inspired him to paint scenes of French country sides. During a time of political turmoil, this was just the kind of artwork the people wanted. As realism was on a steady rise, so was Corot’s artwork. In the 1850s, he shifted to dreamier paintings with lighter brushstrokes, as demonstrated in First Leaves.

The background uses soft brushstrokes and yellowish green for the trees, adding a certain warmth which follows along with the feathery grass in the foreground. In contrast with this warmth, the trees take over the painting, adding structure with a more precise brushstroke. The trees frame the wanderers into the painting and form an arch, while the laborer on the bottom right side of the painting blends in with the grass. Corot used brownish colors for the people that blend in with the trees and grass to show humans and nature as one. In the distance, the town of Mantes clearly shows civilization but the countryside seems to overtake it with trees.

The curved tree represents the beauty in nature through its imperfections. Without the curved tree, the painting would lack depth and would seem one-dimensional.  Corot invites the viewer to stop and spend time with the people in the painting. The scene seems to come to life, and without words or movement, Corot paints the people as unhurried and leisurely. Though they stay two-dimensional and unmoved on the canvas, Corot evokes these emotions to make the image come to life. He invites you to take a break from your busy life and join the pair on their unhurried journey to Mantes.
  • 7:00 AM

Art History Hotties: Self-Portrait Emile Friant

Art History Hotties
Émile Friant, Self-Portrait, 1878
By KATHERINE GRABOWSKY

As Ryan Gosling once said, “Hey girl.” That’s what I envision Émile Friant saying to me in his self- portrait painted in 1878. That bone structure, those eyes, that perfectly combed hair. If this was in the 21st century, this painting would definitely be hanging on way too many locker doors or bedroom walls. He channels a unique mix of Ryan Gosling’s face, Dave Franco’s bone structure and a runway model’s attitude. Even Zac Efron would fan girl if he was lucky enough for Friant to grace him with his presence. Not only does his face fit the part, but his suit also screams classy and confident.

Just the title Self-Portrait greatly improves the painting. Either Émile Friant was a 19th-century Vogue model, or he had an unrealistic opinion of his image. Not only does this painting win the award for the best “Art History Hottie,” Friant wins for the best artist hottie. I would spend millions on one of his paintings just to get a chance to meet him and see this beautiful face in the flesh. Forget Justin Timberlake meet and greets, I want to travel back to the 19th century simply to have the opportunity to maybe, possibly, someday pass him on the street.

Friant shows me that he knows how to capture a room, but he also that he can paint, which in my opinion means husband material. His shadows catch the light with just the right depth and delicacy. The soft browns and yellows create a texture that makes me feel as though I am touching his hair. The gray and black tones of his suit immediately highlight his face - the clear moneymaker of this painting. Overall, this painting makes me question whether it is more fitting for an advertisement in the latest issue of “Sports Illustrated” rather than hanging in a museum. Thank you to Friant for showing me that art history does not only have to study scenes of battles or landscapes and sometimes, we must appreciate the finer things in life.
  • 7:00 AM

Cherry Time

Cherry Time
Salvatore Postiglione, Cherry Time, Unknown (late 19th century)
By KATHERINE GRABOWSKY

There Is a Garden in Her Face 
by Thomas Caampion

There is a garden in her face
Where roses and white lilies grow;
A heav'nly paradise is that place
Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow.
There cherries grow which none may buy,
Till "Cherry ripe" themselves do cry.
Those cherries fairly do enclose
Of orient pearl a double row,
Which when her lovely laughter shows,
They look like rose-buds fill'd with snow;
Yet them nor peer nor prince can buy,
Till "Cherry ripe" themselves do cry.
Her eyes like angels watch them still,
Her brows like bended bows do stand,
Threat'ning with piercing frowns to kill
All that attempt with eye or hand
Those sacred cherries to come nigh,
Till "Cherry ripe" themselves do cry.

Editor's Note: Students were asked to match a poem of their choice with a painting of their choice. The relationship between the two shall be determined by the viewer/reader.



  • 7:00 AM

A Rainstorm at Sea

A Rainstorm at Sea
Joseph Mallord William Turner, A Rainstorm at Sea, 1822
By KATHERINE GRABOWSKY

To my sleep-deprived sister, Annie,

I gift you Turner’s A Rainstorm at Sea to liven up your deteriorating Naismith dorm room wall. This painting can hang right above your mini refrigerator and right below your way-too-sparkly “Kappa Alpha Theta” sign. Or maybe, this can lie above your desk, so it is the last thing you see every night before you reside to sleep at 3 a.m. in typical college fashion. I gift you this painting to give you that last spark of motivation during your college years filled with projects, papers and tests. When that Chai Tea Latte just isn’t doing the trick, and you have yet to figure out how the heck you find the acidity to titration all the while attempting to finish the paper due tomorrow, simply look into this Turner painting and I hope you feel at peace. This is for those moments when you feel as if you’re drowning in that dark, empty water where Turner showed no mercy to color and painted with stark black. You must simply take a deep breath and appreciate the pinks and the blues and the yellows.

Don’t let yourself fall into the unbounded cycle of procrastination due to self-pity and stress, and instead, rise above. The rain may seem endless, and you may feel as though surely you will never pass your finals and graduate, but I can assure you, every storm passes. So too, will your stress. Soon enough, you will be on break, sleeping more than 3 hours a night, and relying on anything other than just Costco-brand Keurig cups, and you will be okay. Don’t fret, and dive into Turner.

Let him takes you places your math homework can’t. Let him guide you through your hours and hours of work and help you make it out the other side with yes, coffee-stained clothing, tangled hair and bags under your eyes, but alive, nonetheless. Annie, I gift you this painting to help you push through the rainstorms that you have definitely experienced and will inevitably face more of during your time at KU. Let Turner’s colors overtake you, and his emotions move you.


  • 7:00 AM

Napoleon Bonaparte Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa

Antoine-Jean Gros
Antoine-Jean Gros, Napoleon Bonaparte Visiting the Plague Victims of Jaffa, 1804
By KATHERINE GRABOWSKY

At 17 feet high and 23 feet wide, Jean-Antoine Gros created a masterpiece to last for the ages. This piece of artwork was displayed at the salon in 1804 and was the first Napoleonic history painting. Gros fostered a relationship with Napoleon and his wife in 1793. In 1796, he recreated an event he witnessed of Napoleon’s army outflanking the Austrian troops at the Battle of Arcole. Napoleon enjoyed how the painting represented the French army, and allowed Napoleon to follow the army to paint future French victories. For this reason, Gros created this depiction of the army.

Because Bonaparte commissioned this painting, Gros had the task of illustrating him in a favorable way. The light illuminates the picture to draw the eye towards the scene of Napoleon. Hidden in the darker areas are the dead or dying army victims of the bubonic plague. Napoleon stands in the Jaffa mosque, which has been transformed into a military hospital. With his bare hands, he touches a plague sore on one of his troop members. This courageous act seems to suggest that Bonaparte has no fears or concerns for his own health. He appears as a man dedicated to his troops. Historians often question his motives for visiting the mosque. Was he there to boost morale because of his dedication to his troops (as Napoleon would like you to think)? Or was he simply there to assess the situation and decide whether he should abandon his troops? History suggests that sometimes Bonaparte even ordered the death of prisoners he could not afford and poisoned troops dying from the plague. Yes, Gros paints a masterpiece and symbolizes Bonaparte as a saint, but he also rewrites history. 

“Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley presents all of Napoleon’s fears. Though the painting shows him as fearless, the fact that he commissioned this to be painted presents one of his concerns. Napoleon did not want to be a figure who fades away into the never-ending cycle of history. He wanted to stand out and be remembered, years from now. The fact that I am sitting here writing this blog post attests to the fact that his goal was met—to an extent. “Round the decay; Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare; the lone and level sands stretch far away,” Shelley writes, suggesting that Ozymandias, supposed “king of kings” has not left a legacy. To the poet, he appears as a lost traveler; the kind of lost traveler that Napoleon does not want to become.

  • 7:00 AM