Art In History Art Blog
Nuggets from my Archives
by art_in_history , December 31, 2009—12:00 AM
As we approach the new year, I am realizing that it is now ten years since ArtId took birth (as MindsIsland), and just how many articles I have written and posted over that period. I took a look, and discovered that many of the older ones were not presentable, having been crudely converted from native HTML to our present platform. I have just completed a process of spiffing them up, in high hopes that someone out there might care.
This post is for those who have enjoyed my writings, and are interested in poking around among the many I have done in the past. It is a summary of the main topics I have dealt with, and some instructions on how you can find them. Because if you don't know they are there, you can't even decide whether you care or not.
If you go to the featured blogs page, there are search categories down the lefthand side of the page, letting you search for articles on business, technique, art and so on. These are helpful, but to explore the writings of a given contributor, you need to click on their name - in my case, Peter Barnett. This gives you the subset of all their posts; it also gives you the ability to do a subsearch based on "Tags". The subsearch will get you to a specific topic group.
My earliest (and longest) series is called "Image and Meaning"; there are 26 of them. Each compares works by two artists treating essentially the same subject, and talks about differnt artistic choices made to reflect a different message. You could say this group comes directly from my past life as an art historian, and includes many comparisons which I would have shown to my classes. An example is the two works shown here: balcony scenes by Goya and Manet. Manet made a regular practice of referring to earlier works of art, but transforming them to totally change their content.
Another series of posts has the topic "Plein-Air Tips". These are practical tips from my own experience as a plein-air artist. Since these build upon each other to a degree, I suggest that someone calling up this group begin at the bottom of the list and work up to the top. I can imagine that an artist beginning to work out doors might be interested in reading through the whole set.
A third series I called "Favorite Artists". Each post deals with the works of a single artist, or in a few cases a group like "the little Dutch Masters". Of course, if your interest is to find comments on a particular artist, you can find him and call him up by name from within the list of Tags.
The rest are either smaller series, or posts without a clear group. There is a small series on famous patrons in the arts, another on the nature and appeal of landscape as a subject. The way to see if there is anything you might enjoy looking at is to browse through the list of tags; there are dozens of them. I would like to think there are a few of you out there who might enjoy an hour of browsing through my attic.
COMMENTS
( homepage )
01/07/2010 * 09:14:36
Hi Sonya! Thanks for the warm and fuzzy. There is one thing I forgot to say: if you (or anybody else) wants to leaves comments about an older blog, put them in my guestbook, otherwise I'll never find them. Happy New Year!
( homepage )
12/31/2009 * 22:18:56
Peter, every since joining the Artid site have been an avid reader of yours. Thank you for a walk down memory lane with you...am off to cover what have missed! Happy New Year to you and yours!
ArtId Staff ( homepage )
01/13/2010 * 15:33:20
Peter~
Not only do you have a magical paint brush, you have a very magical way with words! Our members, and the staff here at ArtID, are so fortunate to have you on our site. Thank you so much. You are our guru!
Carla~