The Wadsworth Antheneum

Sunday March 1, 2009
I woke up today to find that some family members had other things going on and so this Sunday dinner would be a quiet one. Since the museum didn’t open until later in the day, I decided to spend some time with my family and then I picked up my friend Anthony and we visited The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.

The museum is located in the capitol area of Hartford Connecticut and once again was very easy to get to! Take I91 N all the way to exit 28A. It’s a quick right off the exit and you will see the back of the museum ahead of you. It was cold today and it did snow a tiny bit but I’m glad that we went. There was a small admission for this museum; $10.00 for adults, students $5.00, and children always free.

The Wadsworth is three floors of colorful rooms and hallways to venture down. Each room contains a different theme and genera of art, from medieval, to biblical depictions to paintings of George Washington. The Wadsworth really is a great museum to visit! This museum contains early furniture making and tapestries along with different cultural arts such as Russians ballet costumes.

You will also see a wide range of paintings from different time periods with names you will recognize such as Salvador Dali ,Pablo Picasso and James M. W. Wright, whose paintings are on a previous blog of mine on the Yale British Art Gallery. Other artist in the museum are Jackson Pollock, Robert Matta and Dutch painter Aelbert Cuyp.

Apparition of Face and Fruit Dish on a BeachArtist: Salvador Dalí(Spanish, 1904-1989)

Picasso Picasso

A paintng I noticed was by Chilean artist and sculptor, Robert Matta, 1911-2002. Matta was originally an architect before he began painting. Matta was a surrealist and is a major contributor to the abstract expressionism movement. Matta practiced "automatism", painting as fast as possible, to reveal the subconscious. He describes his paintings as ,''the subconscious in its burning, liquid state; a conscious. Daytime substitution of the phenomenon of dreams.''(1) He liked to be as spontaneous as possible un like other paintings styles that have thought behind it. Matta has influenced painters such as Jackson Pollock, Rothko, William Baziotes, Robert Motherwell and Arshile Gorky.

His paintings were a start to another form of painting and is a unique style. Very different from the more traditional paintings we are used to. If you take your first right up the adjacent hallway you will see Jackson Pollock, a surrealist and abstract expressionistic American painter from Rhode Island.

Daniel Wadsworth (1771-1848), founder,also started the Connecticut Historical Society and the Young Men’s Institute which is now the Hartford Public Library. The Antheneum is America’s oldest public art museum. It has been in existence since 1842 and has art within donated by J.P. Morgan and Elizabeth Colt, wife of Samuel Colt. Daniel

The Wadsworth was also the first American museum to acquire works by Salvador Dali, Frederic Church and others. It was in 1927 under Director a Everett Austin Jr. that the allowed the museum to evolve and in 1931 the it held the first Surrealism exhibition in America allowing for surealist and abstact styles of painting to further advance in the states.

Jackson Pollock

Robert Matta practicing automatism

Unite by Robert Matta

Oliver and Abigail Wolcott Ellsworth

To learn more about this topic you can follow the links below!

(1)Http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D06E1D81139F936A15752C1A9649C8B63
http://www.matta-art.com/
http://www.wadsworthatheneum.org/learn/museum-history.php
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O3-Matta.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_Pollock