Reorientation: The Orient Expressed at the Mississippi Museum of Art

“Disorientation is lost of the East,” novelist Salman Rushdie has written, reminding us of the original meaning of “Orient.” In The Orient Expressed: Japan’s Influence on Western Art, 1854-1918, which runs at the Mississippi Museum of Art through July 17, 2011, the curators hope to reorient us to the term Japonsime so that we can find the East, or more accurately the East of the 19^th century West, lost over time. The sense of wonder over the new world of Japan suddenly opened up in 1854 is something we today could only experience if life were found on Mars. In the catalog and exhibition itself, Japan, currently reeling from disaster, reemerges as the rich land of culture and style so influential on Western art and design. It’s a reorientation course we in the West can’t do without. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Reorientation."

[Image: Paul Gauguin (French, 1848–1903), Still Life with Onions, Beetroots and a Japanese Print, 1889. oil on canvas. 16 x 20.5 in. Collection of Judy and Michael Steinhardt, New York, New York.]

[Many thanks to the Mississippi Museum of Art for providing me with the image above and press materials for the exhibition The Orient Expressed: Japan’s Influence on Western Art, 1854-1918, which runs through July 17, 2011. Many thanks also to the University of Washington Press for providing me with a review copy of the catalog to the exhibition.]

A Is for Art Museum: Children and the Gift of Art

What do you get for the child in your life? That’s the big question for so many people around this time of year. If I can make a suggestion for a gift that keeps on giving—for a lifetime—give the gift of art. I recently took my older son to experience a child-oriented activity at our local museum and he came away from it with a new joy in the simple acts of looking and making something with his own hands. If you’re trying to teach a child the alphabet of life, you can do no better than starting with “A Is for Art Museum.” Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "A Is for Art Museum."

[Image: Pablo Picasso. Three Musicians. Oil on canvas, 80 ½ x 74 1/8 inches, 1921. Philadelphia Museum of Art: A.E. Gallatin Collection, 1952.]

From Paris With Love: Masterpieces of the Musée d’Orsay at the de Young Museum

Any art lover who has been to Paris knows what it’s like to try to see everything in a finite time frame. Cruel choices must be made, masterpieces must be missed, and croissant or two wolfed down in the name of maximizing viewing. If only the great museums of Paris could somehow travel the world and come to our doorstep. Until September 6^th, nearly 100 masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay, the preeminent art museum for Impressionism in the world, will count San Francisco and the de Young Museum as their temporary home in the exhibition Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay. Thanks to the Musée d’Orsay’s refurbishment and reinstallation in anticipation of the museum’s 25th anniversary in 2011, Americans unable to travel to Europe can stay within national borders and see works by Paul Cézanne, Gustave Courbet, Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and native son James McNeill Whistler. It’s a big, beautiful French kiss to America and a chance to see masterpieces that may never travel again as a group. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "From Paris With Love."

[Many thanks to the de Young Museum for providing me with press materials and the catalogue to Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay, which runs through September 6^th.]