September 17, 2005
Landscapes at the SLAM
Early this month, I checked out "Nature and the Nation: Hudson River School" at the St. Louis Museum of Art. An exhibit of American Landscapes from the Wadsworth Athenaeum in Connecticut. I went not for the landscapes, which don't do much for me, but because it was from the Wadsworth, the first art museum I ever visited on my own in the late 70's near where I grew up in Connecticut. The Wadsworth at that time made a big impression on me. It's not a big museum but it has an interesting collection, with the surrealist items making the biggest impression at the time. The thought of surrealists was ironic since practically the first picture I saw in the SLAM landscape show was this curious piece of proto-surrelaism in the midst of the dour landscapes - "Gremlin in the Studio II" by Martin Johnson Heade
This is a trompe o'eil with a typical Heade marsh landscape above and below a view of the sawhorse type things holding up the landscape and a crudely draw stick figure of a 'gremlin' doing a little jig underneath the landscape. Very odd.
All that and I still like Heade's still life paintings and bird/flower paintings much better.