15 points
Hunt for Rivera by alice gray
September 14th, 2006 10:31 PM
I have still never seen any of them in person.
1) The "Pan American Unity" Mural currently at the City College of San Francisco, and beautifully documented here. It was painted in 1940 for the Golden Gate International Exposition.
This image is so large that it was painted on ten transportable sections; trying to view it on my laptop screen is more than faintly ridiculous.
2) "Allegory of California" is not quite as large, and was installed at the Stock Exchange Lunch Club in 1930 -31; this picture gives some better indication of its relative size.
3) "Making a Fresco, Showing the Building of a City," also painted in 1931, can be seen at the San Francisco Art Institute. While available there to the public, reproduction of any part in print or digital media is forbidden without written permission. So be careful where you post your candids, if the museum even allows cameras.
4) "Still Life with Blossoming Almond Trees"
Stern Hall, University of California, Berkeley campus
Not available online.
From this digital excursion, I am most moved by the detail available to me, piecemeal as it is, from the Mural Project dedicated to the Pan American Unity mural. To me to expresses great hope, while reminding me strongly of the eccentric, lush, monsterous masterwork of Hieronymus Bosch's, "the Garden of Earthly Delight". Except of course that everyone's doing something grave and cooperative and worthwhile instead of being tortured by demons or frolicking in giant strawberries, and they're nearly all wearing clothes.
While I quite like the pipe-organ-like Deco factory and press in the middle and upper left (so Metropolis!) I am most drawn to the bilssful floating and diving ladies up at the top. The Allegory of California has floating ladies as well. So ebulent. Dreamlike. No New Deal flannels and lack of ankles for them. I am also partial to the bit on the bottom left that pays respects to Charlie Chaplain mocking Adoph Hitler in The Great Dictator.
Still, this analysis is necessarily perfunctory. I do not have the means to go to another time zone and visit them at home. I wonder what the fourth mural looks like. Would I be more reverent? Would you? Who would care to collaborate with me on this task?
1) The "Pan American Unity" Mural currently at the City College of San Francisco, and beautifully documented here. It was painted in 1940 for the Golden Gate International Exposition.
This image is so large that it was painted on ten transportable sections; trying to view it on my laptop screen is more than faintly ridiculous.
2) "Allegory of California" is not quite as large, and was installed at the Stock Exchange Lunch Club in 1930 -31; this picture gives some better indication of its relative size.
3) "Making a Fresco, Showing the Building of a City," also painted in 1931, can be seen at the San Francisco Art Institute. While available there to the public, reproduction of any part in print or digital media is forbidden without written permission. So be careful where you post your candids, if the museum even allows cameras.
4) "Still Life with Blossoming Almond Trees"
Stern Hall, University of California, Berkeley campus
Not available online.
From this digital excursion, I am most moved by the detail available to me, piecemeal as it is, from the Mural Project dedicated to the Pan American Unity mural. To me to expresses great hope, while reminding me strongly of the eccentric, lush, monsterous masterwork of Hieronymus Bosch's, "the Garden of Earthly Delight". Except of course that everyone's doing something grave and cooperative and worthwhile instead of being tortured by demons or frolicking in giant strawberries, and they're nearly all wearing clothes.
While I quite like the pipe-organ-like Deco factory and press in the middle and upper left (so Metropolis!) I am most drawn to the bilssful floating and diving ladies up at the top. The Allegory of California has floating ladies as well. So ebulent. Dreamlike. No New Deal flannels and lack of ankles for them. I am also partial to the bit on the bottom left that pays respects to Charlie Chaplain mocking Adoph Hitler in The Great Dictator.
Still, this analysis is necessarily perfunctory. I do not have the means to go to another time zone and visit them at home. I wonder what the fourth mural looks like. Would I be more reverent? Would you? Who would care to collaborate with me on this task?