Enjoying 19th Century Absurd at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

by Art Fag City on May 17, 2010 · 8 comments Reviews

POST BY PADDY JOHNSON

Adriano Cecioni, Boy with a Rooster, 1868, Bronze

No excuses. I’ve never been to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, so I decided to fix that on an unrelated trip to the city this weekend. The museum’s best known for its collection of Duchamps which are well worth the view, though by the time I got to that section of the museum I’d already exhausted myself. I spent most of my time  in the 19th century art wing of the Museum, enjoying amongst other works, a sculpture titled Boy with a Rooster [pictured above]. It’s a bizarre piece almost certainly not worth the amount of time I’ve spent amused by it, but whatever.

I haven’t rooted around much on google for further information (the museum provides no wall text on this work), but there’s a great wikipedia entry on the artist for those who read Italian and an Answers.com entry for us English speakers. Also, a brief image search tells me there’s more than one of these boy-and-rooster-ecstasy pieces floating around. Naturally. At least one other wide-eyed kid can be found too. Cecioni: the artist who refused to let any exaggerated child expression go unrendered.


Leon Frederic, The Source of Life, 1890, Oil on canvas

Meanwhile, Belgian symbolist Leon Frederic provides a new take on the thousands of reclining female nudes in a forest painting cited in John Berger’s Ways of Seeing. In this work Frederic countless naked kids emerge from a “fertile life giving stream”. The piece was inspired by Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony #6 so I’m embedding the Berlin Philharmonic’s performance of the first movement below for your listening pleasure. Somehow listening to this music while looking at the work makes it all the more absurd.

YouTube Preview Image

{ 8 comments }

susan May 17, 2010 at 3:47 pm

Dude – that Frederic piece looks like my living room.

susan May 17, 2010 at 11:47 am

Dude – that Frederic piece looks like my living room.

mustached May 18, 2010 at 3:00 am

nice piece, nise post

mustached May 17, 2010 at 11:00 pm

nice piece, nise post

Vera May 19, 2010 at 3:46 pm

I’ve walked thru most of the East coast L’Ecole Des Beaux Artes sections of museums, but never seen anthing like Frederic’s Source. Candidate for the Fuhersmuseum or for a postcolonial lesson on white male fears. Imagine your kid at this summer camp. Is the water or the kids the source? Where are the parents or is this a nudist colony for kids?

Vera May 19, 2010 at 11:46 am

I’ve walked thru most of the East coast L’Ecole Des Beaux Artes sections of museums, but never seen anthing like Frederic’s Source. Candidate for the Fuhersmuseum or for a postcolonial lesson on white male fears. Imagine your kid at this summer camp. Is the water or the kids the source? Where are the parents or is this a nudist colony for kids?

JP May 20, 2010 at 3:29 am

That Source of Life painting blew my friggin mind when I saw it last month.

The other WTF? painting in Philly is The Surprise by Arthur Boyd Houghton. Looks like the surprise is that someone is getting strangled. Weird stuff.

JP May 19, 2010 at 11:29 pm

That Source of Life painting blew my friggin mind when I saw it last month.

The other WTF? painting in Philly is The Surprise by Arthur Boyd Houghton. Looks like the surprise is that someone is getting strangled. Weird stuff.

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