Medieval Islamic manuscripts on display at the Morgan, NYC

by Sean McLachlan on


The Middle Ages produced some amazing works of art. Some of the best are the illuminated manuscripts from the Islamic world.

The above image, courtesy Graham S. Haber and the Morgan Library & Museum shows a woman relaxing after her bath. It was painted in Herat, Afghanistan. In many parts of the medieval Islamic world it was forbidden to create images of living things, but in other regions it was common.

The Morgan Library & Museum in New York City has an extensive collection of these works of art and now they’re on display in an exhibition called Treasures of Islamic Manuscript Painting from the Morgan. The earliest manuscript in the exhibition is a late-thirteenth century treatise on animals and their uses considered by some experts as one of the most important medieval Islamic manuscripts. There’s also a biography of the poet Rumi, several richly decorated Korans, and illustrations from the story of Majnun and Laila, the Islamic Romeo and Juliet.

There’s even a treatise on demonology, but sadly not a copy of the Necronomicon.

Treasures of Islamic Manuscript Painting from the Morgan runs from 21 October 2011 to 29 January 2012.

Caixa Forum Madrid opens major exhibitition on Eugene Delacroix

by Sean McLachlan on


Caixa Forum Madrid has teamed up with the Louvre and several other museums and galleries to host a major exhibition on French Romantic painter Eugène Delacroix.

Delacroix (1798-1863) is most famous for his painting Liberté, shown above in this Wikimedia Commons image. This masterpiece commemorates the revolution of 1830 in which French king Charles X abdicated and fled to Great Britain. Absolute monarchy was abolished and a constitutional monarchy was created.

This exhibition brings together more than 130 works of the French master from all phases of his career and explores how he was inspired by Spanish painters such as Goya and later influenced Picasso. Unsatisfied with the artistic life in Paris, Delacroix set off to see the world and paint it. He was an adventure traveler in an age when that really meant something and many of his best paintings are of (then) hard-to-get-to countries. The painting below, courtesy Wikimedia Commons, shows The Women of Algiers in their Apartment.

Caixa Forum Madrid is an amazing free art gallery with three floors of exhibition space, a large bookshop, and a cool vertical garden in front. Visiting it is one of the ten best things to do in Madrid. The show runs until January 15, 2012. It will reopen at the Caixa Forum Barcelona in February.

Milwaukee Art Museum opens major exhibition on Impressionism

by Sean McLachlan on


An exhibition at the Milwaukee Art Museum is looking at Impressionism in a new light.

Impressionism: Masterworks on Paper is the first major exhibition to explore the drawings of famous Impressionists. Previous exhibitions have always focused on their paintings, such as Renoir’s Bathers with Crab, which is also part of the show and appears here in this photo courtesy Moira Burke.

The famous Impressionist exhibitions in Paris between 1874 and 1886 changed European art. Not only was the style vastly different than traditional painting, but the Impressionists emphasized drawing as a medium equal to that of painting. The exhibit gathers together more than 100 drawings, watercolors, and pastels by important artists such as Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat, Van Gogh, and Toulouse-Lautrec.

The Milwaukee Art Museum is one of Wisconsin’s great attractions, besides all the wonderful hiking, camping, and fishing. In addition to offering major shows such as this one, it boasts a collection of more than 25,000 works of art from a variety of different movements, from German Expressionism to Haitian folk art.

Impressionism: Masterworks on Paper runs from October 14, 2011 to January 8, 2012.

Germany opens new military museum in Dresden

by Sean McLachlan on

A new military museum has opened in Dresden, Germany.

The Militärhistorisches Museum der Bundeswehr opened today and is sure to court controversy. With the shadow of the Third Reich always looming over the German historical consciousness, the design of the displays was a delicate matter. The museum’s director says that the focus is on individuals, both as perpetrators and victims, as well as the many who stood aside and did nothing.

The museum covers the entire history of armed conflict, not just World War Two, and features many graphic images of death. German war atrocities are shown with an unflinching eye. Other countries don’t get off lightly either. The American bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which killed more than 185,000 people (mostly civilians), are memorialized with an artwork showing the victims’ shadows left by the bombs’ blasts.

[Photo courtesy Bundesarchiv]

Egyptologists get back to work despite continuing tensions

by Sean McLachlan on


Egypt has been in the news again this week with more tensions between the people and the army. What has received less coverage is the fact that Egyptologists are quietly resuming their work after an unwanted vacation. You can’t keep a good Egyptologist down, and these folks are busy making discoveries and taking care of the country’s fabulous monuments. Old projects are getting back into gear, and new excavations are starting up.

An international plan to protect the fabulous temples at Luxor from ground water has resumed operations. The water is eating away at the foundations of Luxor, Karnak, and other temples and the team hopes to divert it to a nearby reservoir.

Earlier this month, construction workers stumbled upon an ancient tomb with a hieroglyphic inscription in the suburbs of Cairo. An archaeological team hurried to the site and discovered it dated to the 26th Dynasty (c.685-525 BC).

A lot of looting happened after what the Egyptian press refers to as the “events in January”. Luckily, some of it is being recovered. Egyptian Tourism and Antiquities Police recovered a painted limestone relief that had been stolen from a warehouse.

Some Egyptologists are making discoveries without even going to Egypt. Dr. Aidan Dodson of the University of Bristol, UK, walked into the Torquay Museum and realized a sarcophagus they had on display was an extremely rare one intended for royalty. Further investigation revealed that the child that had been buried with it was in fact 1,000 years younger than his casket. Elaborate coffins were expensive, so the grieving parents decided to save some money, dumped out the previous occupant, and put Junior inside.

Hopefully this field season will be a good one, and there’ll be plenty of Egyptology news to talk about here on Gadling.

[Karnak photo courtesy Sean Ellis]