Hluch - Kevin A. on fri 3 may 96
Having recently visited the Freer Gallery the "Peacock Room" by Whistler
basically makes my point...Whistler stated that the dining room "was
really alive with beauty - brilliant and gorgeous while at the same time
delicate and refined to the last degree. I can assure you, youcan have no
more idea of the ensemble in its perfection gathered from what you last
saw on the walls than you could have of a complete opera judging from a
third finger exercise!"
This quote reminds me of the one about Ohr concering his submissions to
the Potters Association in Washington D.C.: He said: "I send you four
pieces, but it is as easy to pass judgment on my productions from four
pieces as it would be to take four lines from Shakespeare and guess the
rest".
Ironicially, the "Persian Room" also was the vehicle for the display his
patron's blue and white decorated porcelain. Those particular works are
quite mute on the subject of vanity and talent. Their anonymity
guarantees their silence.
Whistler's depiction of himself and his patron as peacocks suggests not
humility but vanity. The definition of "Artist", it seems to me, has
distinctly different connotations that the word than "Potter". Might the
word "ego" be involved here as well?
Kevin A. Hluch
On Fri, 3 May 1996 art_selsor@vicuna.emcmt.edu
wrote:
> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> I like the concept that potter is no less valid than painter, weaver,
> sculptor, jeweler, printmaker, etc.
> Marcia in Montana with a soda kiln to finish and one critique til the end
> of the semester.
>
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