Vitreosity

Documentary on "The Strangest Genius"

A 25 minute TV magazine style documentary from Ireland on the stained glass of Harry Clarke, mostly centered around the book Strangest Genius: The Stained Glass of Harry Clarke.

Documentary on Strangest Genius: The Stained Glass of Harry Clarke

It is "TV style", but there a good deal of info I'd never seen or heard of. Well worth a watch.

Whitefriar's Glassblowing Video

The last three minutes are the most interesting, showing the process of making cylinder sheet glass - small sheets which the English favor. English antique, when you can find it, is some of the very best sheet glass around.

Neal Fox flips through His Sketchbook

Iconoclastic artist Neal Fox's opens up his sketchbook!

Not of much interest except that the sketchbook is related to his stained glass windows at the exhibition Beware of the God at the Daniel Blau Gallery.

Shaare Zedek Video and Rodney Winfield Interview

Most of the videos on YouTube about specific stained glass windows in specific installations are bad. I see dozens a year and the majority are unwatchable past a few seconds. Often, the sound/photography/editing quality is poor and the speaker is inarticulate, so the stained glass comes off poorly, even if the stained glass itself is good (which usually it isn't).

This video is an exception. The Rabbi's narrative is interesting and connected with the subject, and the sound quality is good. The photography and editing is simple but well done. Mercifully, there is no cheesy music slathered over the whole thing to try and evoke a mood. It shows what can be done well, even when the budget is not big.

Rodney Winfield as a stained glass designer is best known for the Space Window at the National Cathedral, the one with the moon rock incorporated into the panel.
photos via CC, from flickrite ehpien.
click to enlarge

Also posted today by Bud Dillon, the same one who made the Shaare Zedek video - a video of a brief interview with the Rodney Winfield on the creation of the Space Window. The interview is not as well made as the Shaare Zedek video, and it's way too short (4 1/2 minutes), but it is always good to see a face associated with a name. Plus, there are a few interesting bits of information.

Thorn-Prikker Video

I think this is unrelated to the Düsseldorf Thorn-Prikker Exhibition, but its posting is fairly recent and is interesting nonetheless.

Johan Thorn-Prikker: Jugendstil to Abstraction

Today was the last day for an exhibit I just heard of... today.

Johan Thorn Prikker - Mit allen Regeln der Kunst. Vom Jugendstil zur Abstraktion
rough translation -
With All the Tricks of Art. From Art Nouveau to Abstraction, at the Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, Germany. All of the material I'm linking to is in German and German only, so maybe it's not too surprising that the word hasn't spread too quickly to the USA.

Ecce Homo, 1913, Kenstmuseen Krefield

I've mentioned Thorn Prikker here before (Johan Thorn-Prikker Video - 2007 and Thorn Prikker Picasa Pix - 2008) and noted that I tend to lean toward the Jugendstill Thorn Prikker more than the Abstraktion Thorn Prikker. What I can see of the exhibition on the web just reinforces that.

Make sure to download the very nice pdf file that is a kind of travelogue of Thorn-Prikker sites. Auf den Spuren von Johan Thorn Prikker - Kunstroute
In the footsteps of Johan Thorn Prikker - Art Route The file is 29 pages long, with a fair number of images, all making up a tour of Thorn Prikker glass sites. Very interesting.

Here is a link to a video walkthrough of the exhibit. I wish there were more of this on the web, giving at least a rough approximation of how the layout worked and what was exhibited.
Mediathek - kultiversum video on Thorn Prikker Exhibit

The name of the video is given as "Hindu-Epos im Treppenhaus", translating at Hindu Epic in the Stairwell. Is that a mistake? Mistranslation? Odd German bit of humor? I have no idea. But it is an interesting video.

Below the fold is a Google Translate German-to-English version of the main Thorn-Prikker exhibit page...

Johan Thorn Prikker

WITH ALL RULES OF THE ART. FROM ART NOUVEAU TO ABSTRACTION

26.03. until 07.08.2011
exhibition wing

The Museum Kunst Palast presents the first major retrospective in more than 30 years on the complete works of artist Johan Thorn Prikker. The show of mainly by its art nouveau works became known Dutchman includes over 130 works of all genre areas in which the various artists worked: paintings, drawings, watercolors, mosaics, murals, stained glass, furniture, design objects, textiles, book covers and carpets.

The exhibition is organized in cooperation with the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam shown.

OW HIGHLIGHT: CHAPEL WINDOWS WITH THORN Prikker

The exhibition on the life and work of Thorn Prikker presents a variety of paintings and drawings, such as The painting, The Bride 'and' Madonna in tulip country ', which are among the outstanding works of Dutch symbolism. Above all original designs for his monumental paintings as important, The Sower 'or' The dockers' (Rotterdam Town Hall) are the focus of the exhibition.
A special highlight is a chapel-like building, are let into the more than 20 light-filled windows of the original artist, etc. various ornamental windows for the former journeyman Neusser house and for the Three Kings Church in Neuss, Ecce Homo ', the glass window, Bleeding Heart' and other geometric glass work.

Even the lesser-known works are shown here: for example Thorn Prikker wonderful Neo-Impressionist landscape drawings from his anarchist Visé or leaves from the late 1890s. Various furniture and charming batik and textile designs, etc. for "Arts and Crafts" in The Hague, as well as inlaid boxes are not only vivid evidence of the creative potential of the artist, but also testify to the modernity of his craft work.
The wall mosaics, The Day 'and' The Night 'from 1925 adorn the opposite corner pavilions of the NRW-Forum and the Museum Kunst Palast. The glass window in the foyer of the wing collection was, as the mosaics in 1926 part of the artistic program for the construction of large-scale exhibition Gesolei (health care, social care and physical exercise).

ARTISTIC CAREER OF JOHN THORN Prikker

Johan Thorn Prikker (The Hague from 1868 to 1932 Cologne) career begins in 1881 at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague with the study of painting. Already in the 1890s he established himself as an artist in the Netherlands, with paintings and drawings, and later with wall and stained glass. From 1904 he teaches in Krefeld on the craft and art school (now the School of Art). In Hagen designed Thorn Prikker e.g. Hagen Central Station for a monumental window with the programmatic title, The Artist as Teacher of Trade and Industry '.
His membership in the Deutsche Werkbund, since 1909, revealed major contracts: for example, for wall paintings, mosaics and windows of the former city hall in Hagen, which include a large sample mosaic, The Lute Player 'is shown in the exhibition.
The Düsseldorf exhibition is curated by art historian and expert Thorn Prikker Christiane Heiser and Barbara Til, Head of Department Sculpture and Decorative Arts collection of the Museum Kunst Palast.
Accompanying the exhibition will find workshops, lectures and a symposium on 8 April 2011.

CATALOGUE

A lavishly illustrated catalog of essays by twelve specialists from the Netherlands, Germany and the United States has published, exhibited and is a co-production with the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. Available in German and Dutch.
Retail Price: 36 € in the Museum Shop

Loopie's at Artspace

More drawing - visited Loopie's Market, a local artist space located, appropriately, at Artspace in St. Louis.

They have a nice drawing wall.

more below the fold, with Gwyneth drawing