DidYouKnow…ART

Religion has played an important part in the creation of art since the beginning of time - i.e. several thousand years BCE Egyptian women carved small fertility statues devoted to the gods and of course, there are thousands of famous paintings and sculptures devoted to every theologic entity from Greek gods and goddesses, to Confucious, to Jesus and beyond. However, it is always interesting to learn about new ways art and religion are intertwined.

In the Western World, little is known about Jainism and Jain art - probably because most Jain art is mistakenly identified as Buddhist and because the last major American survey of Jain art was at the LACMA in 1994.

A Jain Sculpture on view at the Rubin Museum of Art in NYC

However, two shows will be on display in New York through early 2010, giving art enthusiasts a unique look at the art of a religion whose followers number nearly five million in India.  Together “Victorious Ones: Jain Images of Perfection” at the Rubin Museum of Art and “Peaceful Conquerors: Jain Manuscript Painting” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art provide a detailed examination of the great tradition of Jain art.

As a recent article from the NY Times discusses,

For all its clear-cut ethical thinking, Jainism has a highly contradictory view of the world. On the one hand, it envisions the cosmos as a precision machine, with balanced realms of heaven and hell sandwiching a thin slice of earth, and time measured out in regular and recurrent epochs of bloom and decay.

Yet creatures living in those epochs experience tremendous uncertainty. This is particularly true in periods of disintegration, one of which, by Jain reckoning, we are in now, with no end yet in sight. Violence will continue to grow. Beast will turn on beast. Hell will outweigh heaven. Is there any sound reality to rely on?…

…The story these works tell begins with a prenatal mix-up: the future jina, though expected to be of royal birth, has been conceived by a nonroyal Brahman couple. The error is soon finessed by the miraculous transfer of the fetus to the womb of a Jain queen, an event depicted with wide-eyed, almost comical verve in a tiny 15th-century manuscript painting from western India, long a Jain stronghold.

In other illustrations we see the infant Mahavira born, bathed and coddled. Then, in a flash forward, he’s a bejeweled young sovereign being carried in procession to the edge of a forest. There he strips off his princely gear, plucks out his hair by the roots and, naked or near naked, sets out on a final earthly journey. In a culminating image he stands on the moon, a kind of superman, preaching truth to the cosmos.

To read more about Jainism click here.

To read the entire NY Times article about the Jain exhibitions click here.

… A Damien Hirst piece of art is now worth about 40 per cent less than a year ago.

… The show (Frieze) features more than 150 galleries from around the world

… Artist Monica Sosnowska withdrew her giant sculpture from the fair at the last minute

… There is a steel coffin for sale (at one of the booths at Frieze)

… Frieze typically sees more than 60,000 visitors per year

Did you know that….

-The largest art collection in the world may be in Iran?

-That a drawing may be the largest artwork in the world?

-The most expensive painting ever sold was for a mere $149.6 million for a Jackson Pollock?

- The State Hermitage Museum in Russia is the largest art gallery in the world?

… In 2007, the British artist Damien Hirst created his version of the 501 jean for Levi’s as part of The Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and it’s known as Warhol Factory X Levi’s Damien Hirst. The jeans were unveiled in the fashion week of Spring 2008 at the Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea…

… Bono’s (RED) Campaign and GAP have joined forces with contemporary artists who have created a special spring collection of designed  T-shirts. Some of the artistic creators of these T-shirts include Deanne Cheuk, Stina Persson, James Jean, and Kari Moden to name a few…

…The global fashion brand Prada  is also responsible for the Fondazione Prada, where exhibitions of artworks are held every year in Milan….

…The luxury emprie of LVMH is expected to have the Louis Vuitton Foundation for Creation (to be designed by Frank Gehry) open in 2009 or 2010 near Paris, but is still in the process of development. It will show LVMH’s long term endorsement of the arts…

…The luxury brand, Cartier, also has the Fondation Cartier pour L’art Contemporain in Paris where it exhibits contemporary artists…

…The Bloomsbury Group consisted of artists, writers, and economists who greatly influenced topics in literature, aesthetics, criticism (especially in the arts), and economics (studying the relation between economics and art).

This group mostly lived near or around the area called Bloomsbury in London near russell Square, where the group got together for discussions.

The group mainly consisted of Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E.M. Forster, Lytton Stratchey, Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell, and Roger Fry. 

They were intricately linked intellectually and emotionally as well as in blood.

Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell are sisters.

Lytton Strachey and Duncan Grant are cousins.

Duncan Grant was romantically involved with Vanessa Bell, John Maynard Keynes, and  Lytton Strachey.

This intricate and close group of people were some of the most prominent figures in the 20th century artists and thinkers

The international police organization (INTERPOL) has created an online database accessible to everyone for reporting and tracking stolen artworks worldwide. This was initiated with the aim to reduce illicit traffic of goods and to protect cultural property. This is a new initiative because previously stolen works of art were only available for those who applied through an application process and then received a DVD with the relevant information.

There are currently 34,000 recorded stolen artworks worldwide.

Recently recovered artworks include:

Portrait of a Young Man by Giovanni Bellini recovered in Denmark in August 1999

Portrait of a Young Man

Aphrodite by Paja Jovanovic recovered in Serbia and Montenegro in January 2004

Aphrodite

Allegorie de la Terre by Brueghel recovered in France in June 2008

Allegorie de la Terre