Read All About It!

Reading is probably my second favorite past time, after spending time with family and friends. (I don't consider working at my art a past time, it is work.) I am a voracious reader with very eclectic tastes and this past month I found I was reading two books, one was historical fiction and the other a biography, that were set in the same era. Now the one, "The Forgotten Flapper" by Laini Giles is the story of Olive Thomas, a fictionalized account of the real Ziegfeld chorus girl to silent screen actress. I am now in the middle of "The Curse of Beauty: The Scandalous & Tragic Life of Audrey Munson, America's First Supermodel" by James Bone, which tells the tale of Audrey's rise and fall and the legacy she left all over America with the beautiful sculptures of her standing therein. Oddly enough, these themes both revolve around human beauty. Olive Thomas was voted the most beautiful shop girl in New York City and Audrey Munson was the most beautiful and sought after model of sculptors. These two women epitomized the standards of beauty in the early century, but for all their beauty, their lives took tragic turns.

What was interesting for me in these stories as well, is the times they lived in. There was such change going on at the turn of the century with many advances in technology and industrialization. The style of art was changing too from the classic Beaux Arts to modern art. So on the one hand you have the beautifully sculpted statues of Audrey by Piccirilli, Weinman, Calder, French, Konti, Scarpitta, and many others, in contrast to the new art forms bursting on the scene of Picasso, Picabia, Cezanne, and Marcel Duchamp, with all the -isms of cubism, fauvism, Dadaism, futurism, expressionism and surrealism. Audrey even posed for Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, a sculptor and founder of the famous Whitney Museum (in addition to being a member of one of America's wealthiest families of course).

I thought that was so exciting and can liken it to the times we live in now too. We have at our disposal so many avenues of artistic expression and such a multitude of materials to do it, that would have amazed and astounded the artists of just fifty or sixty years ago! And it just keeps growing! Who knows what media will be in existence in the future fifty or sixty years or how current modes will change then? It truly boggles the mind and teases the imagination doesn't it?

So I guess what I am taking away from these stories is that while certain beauty does fade and is forgotten amongst the ages, the beauty of art is a mainstay. It can be seen in public venues or in galleries and museums. It can be historically priceless or it can be avant-garde in-your-face. The important thing is that we love and treasure art in all its many forms, past and present. It not only provides us endless pleasure, but it also gives a glimpse into the time when it is made which may also answer the why and how, and that information is a treasure unto itself.