Spotlight: How About Them Apples? Shades of Meaning in Fruit.

William Rickarby Miller, Still Life–Study of Apples, 1862. Oil on canvas, 6 1/2” x 13 “ De Young Museum Collection, San Francisco.

William Rickarby Miller, the son of English landscape painter Joseph Miller, immigrated to America and settled in New York City in 1844. He first worked as a portraitist, but soon added landscape painting to his repertoire. Throughout Miller’s prolific career, he completed a large number of landscapes in oils, watercolors, and pen and ink. He also turned his talents to the genre of still-life, especially paintings of fruit, like these four apples. The painter’s exactitude and command of surface finish are on full display here, and this dense composition combines an almost electric palette of reds and greens, compressed, stage-like space, and deep shadows, reminiscent of 17th-century Dutch still-life painting. The apples represented appear to be four distinct varietals, so there is a kind of encyclopedic morphology at work; this, combined with their very wide range of sizes, opens the picture to a number of symbolic readings beyond the merely formal. Miller’s highlighting of the apple tree’s leaves and stems, in every stage from freshness to desiccation, evokes a vanitas contemplation on the ephemerality of life, and makes the apples–as round and brightly lit as planets, painted in an array of complementary colors–all the more voluminous and powerful.

Spotlight: Rauschenberg "Retroactive I" Looks Ahead While Looking Back

Detail from the BLVRD Features AR episode: Robert Rauschenberg, featuring the 1963 silkscreen painting Retroactive I (Coll: Wadsworth Atheneum) © 2021 Robert Rauschenberg Foundation/Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY.

American artist Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) was a restless experimenter who revolutionized Postwar art, starting in the early 1950s, by blurring traditional boundaries between genres and disciplines, as well as the distinction between artist’s studio and his life. Later in life, he became an important activist for animal rights and the environment (making the first “Earth Day” poster in 1970).

BLVRD Features’ eleventh augmented reality episode centers on Rauschenberg’s early 1960s practice through an exploration of a radical silkscreen painting at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, CT. Created in 1963, Retroactive I combines imagery sourced from television, popular magazines, and the everyday (for instance, a seemingly random Polaroid of a glass of water inked in green) with references to art, culture, and politics. A picture of an astronaut ‘s flight simulation test, taken from Life Magazine, emphasizes the period’s exciting “space race,” while an abstracted dripping mushroom cloud above a well-known photo of J.F.K. speaks to the threat of nuclear war that hovered over his presidency. Begun before Kennedy’s assassination, but finished shortly afterwards, the painting was not only as a testament to Rauschenberg’s artistic innovation, and a vivid document of its historical moment, but, like its title “Retroactive I” implies, a picture that already looked solemnly to the past.

Spotlight: Looking at Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion.

Anonymous artist. Red Avalokiteshvara, Tibet or Nepal, 18th century. Pigments on cloth, 25 1/8 x 17 ½ in. The Rubin Museum of Art Collection.

Bodhisattvas are traditionally described as beings that aspire to attain enlightenment and help others to achieve it. The greatest bodhisattvas are near enlightenment and are regarded as deities with abilities nearly equal to those of Buddhas. They can be male or female and are portrayed adorned with crowns, jeweled ornaments, and garments of ancient Indian royalty. They are identifiable by the distinctive attributes that symbolize their particular enlightened qualities.

The vibrant red figure in this elaborate scroll painting is Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, one of the most popular devotional deities in Nepal, where 108 forms of him are known. He is depicted standing, with his right hand in the gesture of giving, and holding the stalk of a lotus, with his left. 

Avalokiteshvara is considered the earthly manifestation of the Buddha Amitabha, who is shown in his crown. His consort is Tara, a deity who appears elsewhere in this gallery. It is said that she was born from one of Avalokiteshvara’s tears, which transformed into a lake, out of which arose a lotus, from which Tara was revealed when it opened.

Spotlight: BLVRD Features' 10th AR Episode: “William Holman Hunt's (The Lady of Shalott)"

BLVRD Features’ William Holman Hunt (The Lady of Shalott) AR experience in an expanded mode - displaying a self-portrait by the artist, Hunt’s 1850s book illustration of the Lady of Shallot, and the introduction of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s 1832’poem, upon which this and Hunt’s final 1888-1905 painting are based.

This week we released our tenth BLVRD Feature, with two more episodes coming out soon. This latest augmented reality experience marks our third collaboration with the fantastic team at the Wadsworth Atheneum, and its story is built around one of the Wadsworth’s most iconic works, a dazzling and exquisitely-detailed painting by the British Pre-Raphaelite artist William Holman Hunt.

In England, during the mid-late 19th century, as industrialization greatly altered the pace and tenor of society, many Victorians - whether longing for a simpler, more pious time, or just seeking escape from routine - were captivated by literature related to the middle ages, especially tales of King Arthur and his knights. Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s 1832 poem about unrequited love and the mysterious curse of a beautiful noblewoman confined to a tower near Camelot thrilled readers and provided a perfect subject for artists like Hunt, who sought to evoke an earlier, more spiritual time and relished the meticulous craft and detail associated with art made before the Renaissance period.

Our mini-episode not only transports users back to the Victorian era, but to the days of King Arthur and Camelot through Hunt’s imagination and storytelling. The Wadsworth’s painting of the Lady of Shalott is layered with multiple references to stories from the Bible, Greek mythology, and Camelot, as well as nods to the symbolism and brilliant illusionism of 15th-century Flemish painter Jan van Eyck. Download this BLVRD Features experience today, and start unraveling all of these exciting interwoven narratives - all in augmented reality, within your own space.

Spotlight: A View of the Evolving American Scene: “The Jolly Flatboatmen”

George Caleb Bingham, The Jolly Flatboatmen, 1846. Oil on canvas, 38  1/8” x 48  1/2” (96.8 x 123.2 cm) Coll: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Image courtesy of the National Gallery of Art.

Think about how your home is decorated. What posters and pictures do you have on your walls? During the mid-19th century, this painting by George Caleb Bingham, entitled The Jolly Flatboatmen, was turned into an extremely popular black & white print that sold in the thousands. Let’s take a brief look at the imagery of this work, and why it might have found appeal among people across the U.S.

After rowing their boat upstream and loading it with cargo, the boatmen in this idealized scene of the American West now leisurely float downriver, enjoying music and dancing after a long day’s work. This iconic image, which was very well known during its own era, captures and immortalizes life on the American frontier in the early days of westward expansion. The inland Mississippi and Missouri rivers, important gateways to the West for pioneers and explorers, were also vital for transportation and trade, stimulating economic growth and cultural change for the young nation. Bingham’s river scenes were widely circulated in northeastern cities, promoting a romanticized sense of the landscape and inhabitants of the burgeoning American West. However, by the time the artist painted The Jolly Flatboatmen in 1846, the idyllic world of the American frontier was quickly changing, and flatboats, like the one pictured here, were rapidly being replaced by faster and more efficient steam-powered vessels. 

*Select facts derived from the www.NGA.gov collection object page: The Jolly Flatboatmen.

Spotlight: The Stories These Books Could Tell Us

John Frederick Peto, Job Lot Cheap, 1892, Oil on canvas. 29 5/8” x 39 3/4” Coll: M. H. De Young Museum, San Francisco.

As with so many of the best late 19th-early 20th century American still lifes, this painting comes alive in the trompe l’oeil (eye-tricking) details. The more you look, the more you see, and the more you are drawn into an immersive sense of a time gone by.

Like William M. Harnett, his friend and former classmate at the Pennsylvania Academy, Philadelphian John Frederick Peto was a master still-life painter, able to evoke depth and a range of materiality, from worn wooden surfaces and rusty hinges, to frosted panes, remnants of long-gone labels, well-handled marbleized book bindings, and dog-eared pages of books. In this painting, Peto represents a bunch of books arranged helter-skelter in a cabinet. The range of unrelated volumes demonstrates the booksellers’ practice of gathering random unsold titles and offering the entire group (the “job lot”) at a discounted price (“cheap”). Peto’s close-up view provides a telling and very realistic record of the cast-offs of commerce at the turn of the century. At the same time, the artist stages a fascinatingly complex, humorous, and extremely modern interplay between notions of permanence and impermanence, culture and commerce, fragment and whole.

Spotlight: Expanding People’s Horizons: Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 World Map

Martin Waldseemüller, Universalis cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei traditionem et Americi Vespucii alioru[m] que lustrationes, 1507. Map, 128 x 233 cm, sheets 46 x 63 cm or smaller. (Library of Congress Collection, Washington, D.C.)

German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller's 1507 world map was the first map to depict a separate Western hemisphere with the Pacific as a separate ocean. Drawing heavily upon data gathered during Amerigo Vespucci's 1501-02 voyages to the New World, and in recognition of Vespucci's understanding that a new continent had been discovered, Waldseemüller christened the new lands "America." 

This is the only known surviving copy of the first edition of the map, of which it is believed 1,000 copies were printed. By showing the newly-found American land mass, the map represented a huge leap forward in knowledge – one that forever changed the European understanding of a world previously divided into just three parts: Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Spotlight: Why Create In XR?

Image: Boulevard Arts’ Virtual Reality Experience: “Turner Contemporary: Helen Frankenthaler,” showing a recreation of the artist’s 1960s Upper East Side studio.

Today, 12-12-20, would have been American artist Helen Frankenthaler’s 93rd birthday. In looking for an image to post, I came across this shot showing the “studio” we created for a virtual reality experience of Frankenthaler’s paintings from a gallery of Turner Contemporary’s 2014 “Making Painting” exhibition. Boulevard captured 10 works, allowing users to look closely at and gain a deeper appreciation for Frankenthaler’s fearless artistic experimentation. Through immersive technology, we were able to archive part of a temporary show in England that won’t occur again, making it available to anyone, anywhere. That’s certainly a big plus of virtual reality. But, even more exciting, in some ways, was the fact that our team later added a special feature to the experience that just isn’t possible outside of virtual reality. Working with staff from the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation in New York, we extensively researched and recreated an approximation of the artist’s 1960s Upper East Side, New York studio, which no longer exists (It’s now a yoga studio!). Within VR, users can step “back in time” through a portal in the painting gallery into an environment containing Frankenthaler’s tacked and unstretched canvases, deep sink, paint-splattered floor, paint cans, sqeegees, sticks, other painting tools. VR allows users to “walk around” the space, get an accurate sense of scale and materials, and feel much closer to the artistic process. Today’s technologies allow for different types of enhanced engagement and discovery, and we should take full advantage of this. In other words, looking to the future can help us better picture and grasp the past.

Spotlight: Paul Gauguin's Modernist Take on Traditional Life in Brittany

Paul Gauguin, Haymaking (also known as The Haystacks) , 1889. Oil on canvas, 36 x 29 in. The Courtauld Gallery Collection.

Haymaking, also known as The Haystacks, was painted in Brittany in 1889, two years before the artist’s famous journey to Tahiti. Gauguin represents several peasant women in traditional regional white bonnets, working among the haystacks, as a herdsman slowly leads two oxen away from the scene. Elements are evoked rather than precisely described. Picturing peasants in this abstracted manner, Gauguin sought to tap into a power and authenticity he felt was lacking from both Academic art and Impressionism with an intensely simplified painting, dominated by stylized, flattened shapes and a yellow mass of hay forming the high horizon.

Spotlight: Innovation Across the Centuries: Three Great Women Artists

Details from the BLVRD Features app: Artemisia Gentileschi, Self-Portrait as a Lute Player, 1616; Samuel Joseph Beckett, Loïe Fuller Dancing, c. 1900; Howardena Pindell, Autobiography: Water/Ancestors/Middle Passage/Family Ghosts, 1988. (Full image credits located within the app).

When we released our 8th BLVRD Features AR installment several days ago, it suddenly occurred to me that the last 3 stories Boulevard Arts has focused on have been about women - fascinating and extraordinary women: Artemisia Gentileschi (a 17th c. Italian painter), Loïe Fuller (a late 19th-early 20th c. American performer, who lived in Paris), and Howardena Pindell (a contemporary multi-media artist). Reflecting upon this unintentional, but serendipitous sequence of female creators reminded me of art historian Linda Nochlin’s groundbreaking 1971 exhibition/catalogue titled “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” Nochlin’s bold query (now seen through the lens of half-a-century of hindsight) was, of course, meant to challenge people to come up with the names of famous women artists and grab their attention. But, more importantly, her provocation (a word Linda loved to use!) was meant to establish a useful framework for identifying, understanding, and exposing myriad cultural and institutional barriers faced by women artists across the centuries–not to mention further challenges posed by race. Her point was NOT that there have been no great women artists, but instead that women’s art should be understood as embedded in a matrix of gendered social expectation and reception, and that their identities and narratives have been much less explored and celebrated than those of their male counterparts. (Just check out art history text books from the 1970s, look at how few women appear in the Western art historical canon… and you’d think there had been “no great women artists” too!). Undoubtedly, both society, as a whole, and the discipline of art history have come a long way since Nochlin first lobbed her early feminist battle cry at the Brooklyn Museum (and to her students at Vassar) in the early 1970s. But, it’s still important today to champion the work and stories of Great Women Artists! We would love for you to check out our free BLVRD Features app (available in the Apple App Store) and engage with these three incredible artistic innovators in #augmentedreality!

Spotlight: Howardena Pindell: Autobiography: Water/Ancestors/Middle Passage/Family Ghosts

Howardena Pindell: Autobiography: Water/Ancestors/Middle Passage/Family Ghosts, 1988. Acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 118x 71 in. Wadsworth Atheneum Collection. Courtesy of the artist and Garth Greenan Gallery, New York.

BLVRD Features recently released an augmented reality experience exploring a stunning and powerful multi-media work by Howardena Pindell entitled Autobiography: Water/Ancestors/Middle Passage/Family Ghosts , from the Wadsworth Atheneum with whom we developed this exciting project.  

An important American artist, activist, curator, and educator, Pindell has always marched to the beat of her own drum. For over five decades, her trailblazing voice and wide-ranging experimental artistic practice have shaped the discourse around process and politics in contemporary art.  Pindell’s art demands that we pay as much attention to the creative process as the human condition. Very often her work addresses the intersection of racism, feminism, and oppression. Even Pindell’s more seemingly subtle abstractions, however, not only engage us with textural provocation, but are (figuratively) interwoven with probing questions about the nature of beauty and the divine, collectivity, and life’s value and meaning.

Part of the artist’s larger “Autobiography” series, Autobiography: Water/Ancestors/Middle Passage/Family Ghosts (1988) is a massive canvas (well over 9 ft. high), which as its title suggests, is complexly layered in terms of Pindell’s collage process, as well as her poignant, at time hauntingly confrontational, signifiers of identity, experience, and history – both deeply personal and collective. 

Working with the Wadsworth team to create a mini AR experience that would allow us to share this large-scale remarkable work for audiences anywhere, and to “open it up” for them, was an exciting challenge and an absolute joy for Boulevard Arts.  And, its wonderfully serendipitous that NYC’s artspace The Shed is currently hosting a terrific solo exhibition of the artist’s work, entitled Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water! 

Spotlight: “Artichokes”: Thomas Jefferson, Encryption, and Westward Expansion

Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson's Cipher for the Lewis and Clark Expedition, (developed by Robert Patterson), 1803. Manuscript document, Library of Congress Collection.  

Were you aware that Thomas Jefferson had a life long-fascination with gadgets and encryption? While serving as President George Washington's secretary in the 1890s, Jefferson devised the wheel cipher, an ingenious and secure method, using 36 disks, each with the 26 letters of the alphabet arranged around its edge, to encode and decode messages. (A version of this cipher system was even used by the U.S. Army from 1923 – 1942).

 The cipher see you here is a different type that Jefferson also used. Shortly after the Louisiana Purchase was made, in May of 1804 American explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set out on a historic expedition intended to help establish diplomacy and trade with Native Americans in the West and find a water route to the Pacific Ocean. Before they left, (now) President Jefferson, who commissioned this extensive mission, presented Lewis with this cipher (developed by a mathematician named Robert Patterson), in order to be able to communicate with him in code at seasonable intervals throughout the expedition. The cipher consists of a 28 column alphanumeric table, in which someone writes the first line to be decoded and then writes out the designated keyword, repeating it for an entire line.  Jefferson’s choice of keyword for the cipher was “artichokes.” Yes, “artichokes”!

Spotlight: Frederic Edwin Church's "Niagara" and the Beginning of the Blockbuster Exhibition

Frederic Edwin Church, Niagara, 1857. Oil on canvas, 40 x 90 1/2 in. (101.6 x 229.9 cm). National Gallery of Art Collection, Washington D.C.

Frederic Edwin Church, a student of Thomas Cole, the founder of the Hudson River School, further amplified the nationalistic sentiment for which his famous teacher’s work was known and appreciated. Church’s Niagara (1857), a monumental and thrilling landscape, transports the viewer to a uniquely American vista, whose sublime strength and beauty were considered by many to be unrivaled by any natural landmark in Europe. By employing an extremely horizontal composition, eliminating the foreground, and angling the plane of the Falls downward – so that water appears to rush past – the artist has captured and intensified the dynamic and perilous sense of nature.  The panoramic marvel, which proved to be a phenomenal success when exhibited within the United States and abroad, solidified Church’s status as the premier landscape artist in the United States.

During the month of May (1857) alone, tens of thousands of spectators paid 25 cents a piece to view the massive and masterful painting, show-stoppingly illuminated in a darkened, Manhattan gallery. Can you imagine how exhilarating this theatrical experience must have been to mid 19th-century viewers, especially those unable to visit the actual tourist site (either from the New York or Canadian sides)? Niagara’s impressive month-long gallery display in the Big Apple was followed by no less than a tour of England and Scotland during the summer months, a return to New York, and then a busy exhibition schedule, including stops in Washington D.C., Baltimore, Richmond, and New Orleans. Moreover, the production of relatively inexpensive prints of the famous painting (like purchasable museum posters today) allowed for middle-class Americans to bring copies of Church’s work in to their very own homes, leading to easy name recognition for the artist. The success of the breathtakingly-cinematic landscape culminated at the 1867 Paris Universal Exposition, where the universally-praised Niagara won silver medal. As a result of Church’s savvy strategy of producing a massive work, intended from its inception as a dramatic, crowd-pleasing spectacle, his painting of the Falls earned a reputation, in the decades that followed, as the finest work ever executed by an American artist. 

*Select facts derived from the www.NGA.govcollection object page: Niagara; Sarah Cash ed., Corcoran Gallery of Art. (Corcoran Gallery of Art: Washington, D.C., 2012).

Spotlight: Looking At An 800-year old Buddha from the Himalayas

Unknown Himalayan artist, Buddha Shakyamuni, Tibet; 13th century. Gilt copper alloy and pigments, 13 ¼ x 10 ¾ x 7 in. Rubin Museum of Art Collection, New York

This small but exquisite metal sculpture is almost eight hundred years old and was most likely made using the lost-wax casting method. In Himalayan visual traditions, images, whether painted or sculpted, contain clues that let the viewer know who or what they are looking at. We can identify this figure as a buddha, specifically the Buddha Shakyamuni, through its posture, hand gestures (or mudras), and physical characteristics–such as the cranial protuberance (the ushnisha), a tuft of hair between the eyebrows (the urna), and long earlobes. The stretched earlobes, in particular, evidence the strain of heavy earrings and serve as a reminder of Shakyamuni’s worldly possessions and royal identity, which he renounced for a life of asceticism. The seated, cross-legged lotus position (associated with meditation), along with the right hand touching the ground in a mudra known as the earth-touching gesture signify a pivotal moment in the Buddha’s life when he called the earth to witness his awakening.

 This ancient Buddha Shakyamuni is included in “Gateway to Himalayan Art ,“  a virtual reality experience, we created in partnership with the Rubin Museum of Art, to celebrate objects from their stellar collection. Boulevard Arts’ experience not only allows you to look closely at this special sculpture, but to turn it in space, and see it in the round, from all sides–something you certainly can’t’do in real life (unless you are one of the curators)!

Spotlight: Did You Know That The Inventor (of Morse Code) Was Also A Painter?

Samuel F. B. Morse,The House of Representatives, c. 1822 (probably reworked 1823). Oil on canvas, 86 7/8 x 130 5/8 in. (220.7 x 331.8 cm), National Gallery of Art Collection, Washington D.C.

This immense canvas was painted by Samuel F. B. Morse, an individual who is better known today for having co-developed Morse code and inventing the telegraph. It depicts the neoclassical chamber of the House of Representatives and members of Congress alongside staff, Supreme Court justices, and journalists, all rendered in careful detail. Established in 1789, the House of Representatives is responsible for ruling on legislation. If bills are approved, they then progress through the Senate and are finally sent on to the President before becoming law. 

Morse’s painting captures an unusual moment of calm during which figures chat collegially and informally while an oil chandelier is lit in preparation for an evening session. This is more of an idealized portrayal than a realistic one because at the time the House was debating major legislation, which created a contentious, and at times uncivil, environment. The inclusion of several different government branches, as well as a Native American Pawnee chief, represents a hope for national harmony. 

Painted before commercial photography, Morse’s work would have given contemporary Americans a rare glimpse into the inner chambers of the newly reconstructed Capitol Building. Indeed, the painting is recognized today as the most genuine depiction of the Old Chamber, and in 1976, the image was actually used to guide the historic room’s restoration.

Spotlight: Protesting 1773 Style: The Boston Tea Party

W.D. Rev. Mr. Cooper, “Americans Throwing the Cargoes of the Tea ships into the River, at Boston,” 1789. Engraving, Library of Congress Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Image Courtesy Library of Congress

Published in 1789, The History of North Americawas written by Reverend Mr. Cooper and engraved by Paul Revere, Jr.  This primary source from the colonial era contains detailed history about the indigenous population, settlement of the colonies, fight for independence, and formation of the United States. Americans Throwing the Cargoes of the Tea ships into the River, at Bostondepicts a scene from The Boston Tea Party, the colonists’ ultimate statement of defiance against British tyranny.  Policies favoring The British East India Company, which monopolized American tea sales, caused escalating colonial resentment.  On December 16, 1773, Samuel Adams, leader of the Sons of Liberty, organized 100 people disguised as Native Americans to sneak onto three British ships docked in Boston Harbor.  They dumped approximately 46 tons of tea into the water, destroying the product and infuriating the British.  Revere’s engraved illustration captures this pivotal event leading up to the American Revolution.

Spotlight: Helen Frankenthaler: A Painter of Scale

Helen Frankenthaler, The Bay, 1963. Acrylic on canvas, 80 ¾ x 81 ¾ in. (205 x 208 cm), Detroit Institute of Art, Founders Society. © 2020 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc./ARSNY

Frankenthaler is a painter of scale. In common with the work of fellow Abstract Expressionist artists in America, including Morris Louis, Robert Motherwell and Jackson Pollock, Frankenthaler’s paintings generally expanded in size from the 1960s. This was further enabled by the wide dimensions of the studios she occupied, and her characteristic, though not exclusive, practice of working her canvases on the floor. By working horizontally, her paint would float, rather than drip, and enable her to create expansive works, such as The Bay, seen above.

In The Bay, the artist’s pouring technique translates directly into what appears to be an aerial view of a body of water adjoining land, as modulating shades of billowy blue shift in depth and temperature, calmly flooding the space. As blue meets green, the two colors carry on a gentle, organic relationship; a condensation of detail suggests more varied forms of life at their edges. In 1966, The Bay was selected and exhibited at the American Pavilion of the Venice Biennale, along with works by Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, and Jules Olitski–an important validation of the young artist's achievement.   

Spotlight: "See-non-ty-a, an Iowa Medicine Man"-A Portrait of Disappearing Ways

George Catlin, See-non-ty-a, an Iowa Medicine Man, 1844/1845. Oil on canvas, 27 15/16 x 22 13/16 in. (71 x 58 cm), Paul Mellon Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Throughout the 1830s, George Catlin made numerous journeys to the western frontier, visiting more than 140 American Indian tribes and completing more than 500 paintings of Native Americans. Combining these paintings with an array of drawings, sketches, and artifacts, Catlin assembled a vast traveling collection known as the “Indian Gallery.” In his portraits of prominent individuals, such as this Medicine Man of the Iowa tribe, Catlin aimed to capture the dignity and nobility of America’s native population, whose traditional customs and way of life were increasingly threatened during the 19th century. The Indian Removal Act, passed in 1830 around the time of Catlin’s first western sojourn, enforced a mandatory mass migration that pushed Native Americans further westward and exerted pressure on them to adapt or perish. While the artist ultimately went bankrupt after numerous failed attempts to gain government patronage, his Indian Gallery, later purchased and donated to the Smithsonian Institution, represents a cultural treasure, offering valuable insight into Native American life and documenting a difficult chapter in American history. 

Spotlight: "Artemisia Gentileschi" - Latest BLVRD Features Episode Explores Striking Self-Portrait from Wadsworth Atheneum in AR

Artemisia Gentileschi, Self-Portrait as a Lute Player, c. 1615-18. Oil on canvas, 30 1/2 x 28 1/4 in. Charles H. Schwartz Endowment Fund, Wadsworth Atheneum Collection

It’s been exciting and inspiring working with the Wadsworth Atheneum on our latest augmented reality episode for the BLVRD Features app – released on August 21. Featuring the museum’s captivating “Self-Portrait as a Lute Player” (c. 1616), “Artemisia Gentileschi” gives users a window onto the remarkable world of this important Italian Baroque artist. It is the first of what we hope will be many experiences exploring fascinating stories about artists and aspects of the artistic process through the lens of historical and contemporary works from the Wadsworth’s premier collection. Indeed (thanks to a terrific suggestion by one of the curators), within this mini #AR episode, we were able to incorporate not one but two Wadsworth paintings – Artemisia’s “Self-Portrait” and the sumptuous “Judith and her Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes”(1624-25) by her father, Orazio Gentileschi – keeping it all in the family, as it were. 

Coming from curatorial and museum education backgrounds, our Boulevard Arts team respects the primacy of the object – of seeing and experiencing painting, sculpture, and architecture firsthand, on site, whenever possible. But, we also believe strongly in immersive technology’s ability to make art encounters accessible to anyone, anywhere, while delivering incredibly rich and compelling content. This is the impetus behind BLVRD Features.

The Wadsworth Atheneum re-opens to the public on September 5. We hope that you will be able to visit this fall, or at some point soon!  Whether you make the trip in person, or digitally via the museum’s website, let us know if there are specific paintings from their collection that you would like to see contextualized and brought to life in augmented reality.

Spotlight: Florence, the Italian City Where Artemisia Gentileschi First Found Success

Florence, Italy: A view of il Duomo di Firenze from Piazzale Michelangelo: color photograph taken by Balon Greyjoy. September, 2016 . Designed by Arnolfo di Cambio, the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore was begun in 1296 and completed in 1436, with a dome engineered by Filippo Brunelleschi.

Artemisia Gentileschi was born in Rome. But, it was in Florence that the 17th-century painter achieved her first successes, becoming the first woman accepted into the local drawing academy, the Accademia del Disegno, and finding patronage among the city’s elites, including the Medici. Her clientele would later grow to include members of several European courts.

At this time in Europe, few women were accepted as professional artists, let alone became internationally famous, a feat accomplished by Gentileschi during her own lifetime. Artemisia challenged societal conventions not only through her choice of career, but also by tackling the type of large-scale, heroic subjects traditionally exclusive to male artists–in a style that could be characterized as sumptuous, dramatic, and often spell-binding.

Today, Gentileschi is celebrated as an exceptional painter and imaginative interpreter of popular biblical and historical themes. Her work will be exhibited in several museum shows throughout the coming months.

To learn more about this remarkable Baroque period artist, stay tuned for Boulevard Arts’ next augmented reality episode, created in partnership with the Wadsworth Atheneum.