The state of today's art collectors

[Sharon Knettell]

Although we think of French portraiture and painting of the Baroque period as something quite beautiful, not all the elite were connoisseurs. Louis the 14th's choice as court painter was Pierre Mignard. He was a sloppy excutant, becoming the most fashionable portraitist of his time. He also did saccharine Madonnas and mediocre decorative work. He was so popular among the elite he became one of the richest artists in history.

He has not been restored to his former Glory.

I have posted two of his works, followed by two of Philippe de Champaigne's pieces, who labored under his shadow.

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

It really is such a pleasure to look at that last one!

[Sharon Knettell]

It seems to me that the great movements of life and art go on with or without us. There is really nothing to be done.

Manet simply got bored with classicism and decamped from Couture's studio to do his own thing. Degas classically trained, was interested in color as color and portraying life as he saw it. Tubed paint came along in 1841 and freed the artist from the studio.

Each era has it's own reasoning to do art in it's own peculiar way, good bad or indifferent.

"If you can do something about it, don't worry, If you can't do something about it, don't worry." Shantideva, 8th century Indian Buddhist sage.

[Sharon Knettell]

This discussion reminds me of a book I just read, Susan Cheever's "American Bloomsbury". It details the lives of an astonishing group of American thinkers and writers that lived in Concord, Massachusetts in the mid 1800's; Thoreau, Emerson, Louisa May Alcott and Hawthorne to name a few. This group had a profound effect on American literature and is considered to be it's genesis. Cheever goes on to speculate that somehow, groups of geniusses seem to coalesce in a particular area in a particular time; Paris in the 18-19th Century, London in the 18th century and homely Concord in the mid-eighteenth century.