Stephen H Goddard | University of Kansas (original) (raw)
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Print quarterly
Rare and possibly unique impressions of working proofs for Henry de Groux's print series &quo... more Rare and possibly unique impressions of working proofs for Henry de Groux's print series "The Face of Victory" (Le Visage de la Victoire) are published and illustrated. The article focuses on those images that were not included in the final published portfolio and argues that they were suppressed by the French authorities. Among these, it is argued, is the original frontispiece, "The Eclipse" (L'Eclipse). A source for the this image and several images of the "Comet of War" is suggested.
http://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/dspace/handle/1808/13342
Renaissance Quarterly, 1988
Sometime between 1502 and 1509 one of Antwerp's city clerks took time to pen a small drawing ... more Sometime between 1502 and 1509 one of Antwerp's city clerks took time to pen a small drawing and inscription on the flyleaf of a document in his care (fig. 1). His depiction of a naked soul seen from the backside while ascending into the clouds of heaven, succinctly labeled “ascensio,” turns out to be only the first of several dozen doodles preserved in a special class of judicial manuscripts in the Antwerp city archives. Taken as a group, these pictorial and verbal jottings provide a unique opportunity to eavesdrop upon the spontaneous mental meanderings of several Antwerpians in the age of Metsys, Erasmus, Bruegel, and Plantin. The art of doodling is revealing by its very nature, and the possibility that one of the doodlers was the humanist Pieter Gillis provides an additional incentive for the discussion of this material, which is catalogued and translated in the accompanying appendix.
It is in the tree that we sense life's seasons. The warm wood helps us survive the pulses of the ... more It is in the tree that we sense life's seasons. The warm wood helps us survive the pulses of the cold, dormant months. We animate with the buds of spring; boast the green canopy of summer; let the fiery-red leaves burn away in the fall. I enjoy working in a museum that acts like a tree-reaching for the light, changing with the seasons and building ring upon ring of memory and progress. It allows devotees, thinkers, and adventurers to nest and build in its branches. The Spencer welcomes detractors and disciples with the same exuberance. A tree is a worthy model for a university art museum in its historical, metaphorical, and contemporary significance. May museums be more tree-like: shelter and protect, mark a place, change a life, extend a limb for a playful purpose, thrust a branch or even lean an entire system toward a patch of sun-reach for a new idea. The museum's new branches grow beyond our rooted trunk. They draw us onto the larger public square that demands universal reflection and responsibility. Museum as tree bends with the wind now, grows deep and abiding roots for the future, buds new and errant leaves, shades our community, and sheds its protective leaves to expose the beautiful and vulnerable structures and contradictions hidden within the human experience.
The near-sacred status of the book in China, and elsewhere in Asia, is central to the art of Xu B... more The near-sacred status of the book in China, and elsewhere in Asia, is central to the art of Xu Bing, as is the acknowledgment of the demanding skills and years of practice needed to achieve literacy and a mastery of calligraphy. From The Analects of Confucius to Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong, the book is emblematic of Chinese history, memory and authority. This exhibition brings together the many aspects of Xu Bing's ongoing involvement with the book as a vehicle for ideas about the shifting and interlocking roles of language, art, literacy, power, and culture. Xu Bing (b. 1955), the son of a professor and a librarian, grew up enjoying the rare privilege of roaming the restricted shelves of the Beijing University library. From 1975-1977 he worked in a rural farming community and then studied printmaking at the Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing. His exquisitely crafted, watershed work, Book from the Sky (first exhibited in China in 1988 and 1989), comprised entirely of elegantly composed but meaningless characters, embodies his own observation that "to change the written word is to strike at the very foundation of a culture." [Piller, p. 18} After moving to the United States in 1990, the artist had to develop a new relationship with books. Although he marveled at the accessibility of American public libraries, he was frustrated by his limited ability to read English. For the next few years Xu's book projects, such as Post Testament and Brailliterate, addressed the difficulties of facing a language barrier. Paradoxically, Xu's most recent work experiments with a "language of icons" that dispenses with traditional forms of writing, yet, like the pictograms on traffic signs, can be understood by all.
An academic directory and search engine.
An academic directory and search engine.
Print quarterly
Rare and possibly unique impressions of working proofs for Henry de Groux's print series &quo... more Rare and possibly unique impressions of working proofs for Henry de Groux's print series "The Face of Victory" (Le Visage de la Victoire) are published and illustrated. The article focuses on those images that were not included in the final published portfolio and argues that they were suppressed by the French authorities. Among these, it is argued, is the original frontispiece, "The Eclipse" (L'Eclipse). A source for the this image and several images of the "Comet of War" is suggested.
http://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/dspace/handle/1808/13342
Renaissance Quarterly, 1988
Sometime between 1502 and 1509 one of Antwerp's city clerks took time to pen a small drawing ... more Sometime between 1502 and 1509 one of Antwerp's city clerks took time to pen a small drawing and inscription on the flyleaf of a document in his care (fig. 1). His depiction of a naked soul seen from the backside while ascending into the clouds of heaven, succinctly labeled “ascensio,” turns out to be only the first of several dozen doodles preserved in a special class of judicial manuscripts in the Antwerp city archives. Taken as a group, these pictorial and verbal jottings provide a unique opportunity to eavesdrop upon the spontaneous mental meanderings of several Antwerpians in the age of Metsys, Erasmus, Bruegel, and Plantin. The art of doodling is revealing by its very nature, and the possibility that one of the doodlers was the humanist Pieter Gillis provides an additional incentive for the discussion of this material, which is catalogued and translated in the accompanying appendix.
It is in the tree that we sense life's seasons. The warm wood helps us survive the pulses of the ... more It is in the tree that we sense life's seasons. The warm wood helps us survive the pulses of the cold, dormant months. We animate with the buds of spring; boast the green canopy of summer; let the fiery-red leaves burn away in the fall. I enjoy working in a museum that acts like a tree-reaching for the light, changing with the seasons and building ring upon ring of memory and progress. It allows devotees, thinkers, and adventurers to nest and build in its branches. The Spencer welcomes detractors and disciples with the same exuberance. A tree is a worthy model for a university art museum in its historical, metaphorical, and contemporary significance. May museums be more tree-like: shelter and protect, mark a place, change a life, extend a limb for a playful purpose, thrust a branch or even lean an entire system toward a patch of sun-reach for a new idea. The museum's new branches grow beyond our rooted trunk. They draw us onto the larger public square that demands universal reflection and responsibility. Museum as tree bends with the wind now, grows deep and abiding roots for the future, buds new and errant leaves, shades our community, and sheds its protective leaves to expose the beautiful and vulnerable structures and contradictions hidden within the human experience.
The near-sacred status of the book in China, and elsewhere in Asia, is central to the art of Xu B... more The near-sacred status of the book in China, and elsewhere in Asia, is central to the art of Xu Bing, as is the acknowledgment of the demanding skills and years of practice needed to achieve literacy and a mastery of calligraphy. From The Analects of Confucius to Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong, the book is emblematic of Chinese history, memory and authority. This exhibition brings together the many aspects of Xu Bing's ongoing involvement with the book as a vehicle for ideas about the shifting and interlocking roles of language, art, literacy, power, and culture. Xu Bing (b. 1955), the son of a professor and a librarian, grew up enjoying the rare privilege of roaming the restricted shelves of the Beijing University library. From 1975-1977 he worked in a rural farming community and then studied printmaking at the Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing. His exquisitely crafted, watershed work, Book from the Sky (first exhibited in China in 1988 and 1989), comprised entirely of elegantly composed but meaningless characters, embodies his own observation that "to change the written word is to strike at the very foundation of a culture." [Piller, p. 18} After moving to the United States in 1990, the artist had to develop a new relationship with books. Although he marveled at the accessibility of American public libraries, he was frustrated by his limited ability to read English. For the next few years Xu's book projects, such as Post Testament and Brailliterate, addressed the difficulties of facing a language barrier. Paradoxically, Xu's most recent work experiments with a "language of icons" that dispenses with traditional forms of writing, yet, like the pictograms on traffic signs, can be understood by all.
An academic directory and search engine.
An academic directory and search engine.
Esse, 2020
Why Look at Plants, winner of the 2019 Choice Outstanding Academic Title, is a deep dive into the... more Why Look at Plants, winner of the 2019 Choice Outstanding Academic Title, is a deep dive into the arts and that broad, unruly swath of non-human life, the plant world.