In the year 1000 CE, complex trade networks were taking shape, stimulating unprecedented cultural interactions. The Vikings reached the shores of North America, trade routes connected China with Europe and Africa, and in the Americas, cities like Chichén Itzá underwent explosive growth that attracted people and goods from afar. These are just a few of the world-changing phenomena of this transformative era.
Valerie Hansen explores these early economic and cultural exchanges and their long-term impact in her new book The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World―and Globalization Began, which originated as a college course co-taught with Mary Miller, director of the Getty Research Institute. In this episode, Hansen and Miller discuss the state of the world around the year 1000.
We’ve asked curators from the Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. These recordings feature stories related to our daily lives.
This week, curator Bryan Keene sees a common motif from illuminated manuscripts in a paper chain craft that he makes with his children. To learn more about this artwork, visit: https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/103069/.
Over the next few weeks, look for new recordings every Tuesday.
Transcript
JAMES CUNO: Hi, I’m Jim Cuno, president of the J. Paul Getty Trust. As we all adapt to working and living under these new and unusual circumstances, we’ve asked curators from the Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. We’ll be releasing new recordings on Tuesdays over the next few weeks. I hope you’ll find these stories about our daily lives—from laundry on the line to a dog at a scholar’s feet—thought provoking, illuminating, and entertaining.
BRYAN KEENE: Hello, my name is Bryan Keene and I am a curator of manuscripts at the Getty Museum. Growing up, my family used to make brightly colored chains out of paper to commemorate a holiday, birthday, or other special occasion. Each day in anticipation of the big event, we would tear off a link, knowing that we were one day closer to seeing our friends and family and to celebrating together.
Now, my husband and I are working from home with our two small children, ages 3 and 5 and we’ve had to celebrate all of those special occasions while in quarantine. Once the severity of the current pandemic became clear, we decided to reverse this art-making project: every day for the last eleven weeks and counting, we’ve added a link to a chain. Our daughter helps to determine the pattern of color or design for the current week and our son practices writing words of things that we’re thankful for or memories from the day.
I look at our chain as a reminder of the pervasive interlace and knot patterns found in decorated books—from Ireland to Italy and from Egypt, Ethiopia, Armenia, Persia, and beyond.
One of the earliest codices under my care was written and likely decorated by a monk called Sigenulfus in the year 1153. He was part of the Benedictine community in Montecasino, which is about 90 miles southeast of Rome
The bright red, yellow, blue, and green interlace on this page is characteristic of manuscripts from Montecasino, as are the countless hidden creatures. As I look closely, I see small white dogs who wrestle amid scrolling vines, while blue-faced monsters appear and lurk at either end of the lower portion of the shape. There are tons of figures hidden throughout. The shimmer of gold catches my eye as I struggle to find a spot to fix my gaze. And at the center, a bleary-eyed face stares out at me. I think we’ve all felt this way in the previous weeks.
These decorations surround the letter M, which opens a prayer asking for mercy. The last line on the page asks that we be cleansed with hyssop or a salve, and that our spirits be renewed.
Having spent a lot of time in monastic communities for study, I feel something familiar about the current moment, at least in terms of the reduction in daily activities, the number of people we encounter, and the feeling that each day is surprisingly similar to the previous one.
So we’ll continue to add to our chain, inspired by this captivating illumination. And I hope that you’re able to find quiet and meditation at this time, until that wonderful day when we can all spend time together looking at works of art in museums again.
CUNO: To view this illuminated Initial M, likely written and decorated by Sigenulfus in Montecassino, Italy in the year 1153, click the link in this episode’s description or look for it on getty.edu/art/collection.
We’ve asked curators from the Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. These recordings feature stories related to our daily lives.
This week, curator David Saunders reflects on how a painted vase from the 6th century BCE that shows Ajax and Achilles playing board games helps him make sense of his work-from-home life. To learn more about this artwork, visit: https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/6890/.
Over the next few weeks, look for new recordings every Tuesday.
JAMES CUNO: Hi, I’m Jim Cuno, president of the J. Paul Getty Trust. As we all adapt to working and living under these new and unusual circumstances, we’ve asked curators from the Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. We’ll be releasing new recordings on Tuesdays over the next few weeks. I hope you’ll find these stories about our daily lives—from laundry on the line to a dog at a scholar’s feet—thought provoking, illuminating, and entertaining.
DAVID SAUNDERS: Hi there, my name is David Saunders. I’m a curator in the Antiquities department. One of the objects that I’ve been looking at with renewed interest and perspective is this Athenian black figure neck amphora that shows Ajax and Achilles playing a board game.
Normally its on view at the villa. I guess if I feel if I’m feeling generous, I would forgive you if you overlooked it. The shape is very typical, the decoration and the quality of painting is fairly commonplace, the image is by no means unusual. But like so many of the works in our collection they invite kind of a fresh perspective as our own sort of lives evolve.
Ajax and Achilles are the leading heroes of the Greek army. They’ve come with their comrades to Troy to recover Helen. And for whatever reason, we don’t quite know, they are not needed on the battlefield, either conflict hasn’t taken place yet or there is a pause in the fighting for whatever reason. And for Ajax and Achilles everything they do is centered around their status as warriors. It’s their job, if you will, being on the battlefield is their workplace.
I’m certainly not going to compare myself to Ajax and Achilles, I, you know, for many reasons. But similarly, as a curator to not be in the museum every day, it’s sort of sort of comparable. So much of what I do is centered around centered upon working with objects directly or engaging with our public. And to be working from home and to be at a remove from that is— it’s hard.
And seeing Ajax and Achilles here, it’s kind of encouraging and endearing almost to see them passing the time that they find a way to occupy themselves. We are seeing a side of Ajax and Achilles that we would never see otherwise that there’s sort of this sort of casual, innocuous sort of low stakes, depiction of them play playing this game. At the same time, you see how sort of intensely focused they are, and they’re bringing all of that kind of warrior persona, if you will, to the playing of this game. You know, all that energy that they have on the battlefield is being kind of concentrated on this tiny little board game. And you kind of wonder how healthy that is, you sort of almost want to tell them just to kind of actually relax, you know, loosen your grip on those spheres. And I think again, in our current moment, wanting to be productive whilst working from home, but recognizing that this is a very different situation and a different climate and it’s okay to find other ways of being oneself and contributing to our community.
And I look forward to a time not only when I can see the vase directly once again but, like Ajax and Achilles, sit face to face with a friend and enjoy their company.
CUNO: To view this black-figure neck amphora featuring Ajax and Achilles, made in Athens, Greece around 510 BCE, click the link in this episode’s description or look for it on getty.edu/art/collection.
Architect Marwa al-Sabouni was born and raised in Homs, Syria. When the Syrian civil war began, she decided to remain in her home with her husband and two young children. An architect at the beginning of her career, al-Sabouni was determined to pursue her PhD in architecture, even as the war raged and her apartment building was caught in the crossfire between the Syrian army and opposition groups.
Al-Sabouni published her reflections on war, urbanism, and the relationship between architecture and community in her 2016 memoir The Battle for Home: The Vision of a Young Architect in Syria. In this episode, she discusses her life and her understandings of architecture, identity, and culture.
We’ve asked curators from the Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. These recordings feature stories related to our daily lives.
This week, Getty Research Institute Senior Research Specialist Zanna Gilbert reflects on the empty streets of Ed Ruscha’s Streets of Los Angeles project, begun in 1966. To learn more about this artwork, visit: https://www.getty.edu/research/special_collections/notable/ruscha.html.
Over the next few weeks, look for new recordings every Tuesday.
JAMES CUNO: Hi, I’m Jim Cuno, president of the J. Paul Getty Trust. As we all adapt to working and living under these new and unusual circumstances, we’ve asked curators from the Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. We’ll be releasing new recordings on Tuesdays over the next few weeks. I hope you’ll find these stories about our daily lives—from laundry on the line to a dog at a scholar’s feet—thought provoking, illuminating, and entertaining.
ZANNA GILBERT: I’m Zanna Gilbert from the curatorial department at the Getty Research Institute. And one of the first artworks that crossed my mind when we entered into lockdown was Ed Ruscha’s Streets of Los Angeles project.
In 1966 Ed Ruscha had driven along the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood with motorized camera mounted on the back of his pickup truck. The camera was capturing photos of the buildings on each side of the street, like a kind of analog Google streetview. He used the images to create his artist book every building on the Sunset Strip. This was a 27-foot long accordion folded record of the iconic Hollywood Street. Having devised this method for documenting sunset reshaping his collaborators continue to document various LA streets, and they revisited the streets periodically over the next six decades and they continue doing this until today. They built an archive that now totals over half a million images and constitutes just an incredible record of how LA has changed over time.
On one of the first days of lockdown, one of the rainy days at the beginning, I drove the entire length of Sunset Boulevard with my family. This was research that I’ve been wanting to do for a while, but would never have done under normal traffic conditions. We began at the beach in Malibu and then drove through Brentwood towards the street signs of a deserted Sunset Strip. And then through little Armenia, Thai Town, and then ending where it turns into Cesar Chavez Boulevard.
Moving along the streets, eerily empty and almost devoid of people, I felt I was almost inhabiting flow Ruscha’s images. He’d always planned his shoots in the early hours of the morning so there’d be less traffic. Both because he didn’t want people in them. And because the slow speed of the pickup truck, then wouldn’t hold up the impatient, LA drivers.
Meditating on these images now, which echoes a looming post-apocalyptic feel of many of these paintings seems especially apt. The streets that were first empty by the pandemic are now, filled up again with protest marches and the righteous rage after the murder of George Floyd by the police.
Since the 1960s, Ruscha has been one of the artists that offers new ways of seeing Los Angeles, and the evidence we have from all the years of Ruscha’s streets photos, tells us so many stories about the city, about globalization gentrification and inequality and real estate speculation. I see Ruscha’s vast archive and history of LA as an important opportunity to reflect on the future and think about what our alternatives are now.
CUNO: To learn more about Ed Ruscha’s Streets of Los Angeles photographs, a project he began in 1966, click the link in this episode’s description.
Peter
Paul Rubens was among the most influential artists in 17th-century
Europe. Despite a childhood marred by a scandal that landed his father in
prison, Rubens rose to become not only a prominent court painter in the Spanish
Netherlands but also a lauded diplomat who worked across Western Europe. With
countless biographies written about the artist and exhibitions of his work
continuing into the present day, the legacy of this Flemish Baroque artist is
hard to overstate.
In this episode, Getty curator Anne Woollett discusses the life of Rubens through 17th-century biographies by three authors: Giovanni Baglione, Joachim von Sandrart, and Roger de Piles.
Reflections: Stephanie Schrader on Cornelius Saftleven
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We’ve asked curators from the Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. These short recordings feature stories related to our daily lives.
This week, Getty drawings curator Stephanie Schrader considers the upside-down world of An Enchanted Cellar with Animals, made by Cornelis Saftleven around 1655 to 1670. To learn more about this artwork, visit: https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/160/
Over the next few weeks, look for new recordings every Tuesday.
Transcript:
JAMES CUNO: Hi, I’m Jim Cuno, president of the J. Paul Getty Trust. As we all adapt to working and living under these new and unusual circumstances, we’ve asked curators from the Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. We’ll be releasing new recordings on Tuesdays over the next few weeks. I hope you’ll find these stories about our daily lives—from laundry on the line to a dog at a scholar’s feet—thought provoking, illuminating, and entertaining.
STEPHANIE SCHRADER: Hi my name is Stephanie Schrader and I’m
curator of drawings at the J. Paul Getty Museum. I’m recording this podcast
from a closet, during my 8th or 9th week from working at home because of the COVID-19
pandemic. And like many people with children who are working from home, I’m
hiding in here to avoid my daughter as she takes her online chemistry class in
the other room.
Normally, I look after the Dutch and Flemish drawings in our
collection, and especially now, I’m feel very fortunate that I can escape the
world of 17th century Dutch art and culture. 17th-century Dutch artists excelled
at making images that poke fun at human foolishness. And there’s one drawing in
our collection that I keep coming back to, which is speaking to me much more
vividly than it did before. It is a drawing by Cornelius Saftleven, who is
known for his animal satires and his images of hell.
This particular drawing shows a cellar full of animals doing
all different human-like activities. It is an enchanting scene with lots of
color that accentuates the animals’ curious behavior. There are chickens
standing on wooden fences as baked bread cools above them and rats warming their
feet by the fire and a chained monkey who is looking out, sort of jeering at
the viewer as overturned kitchen utensils are scattered on the floor in front
of hims. And overhead there’s a swirl of bats, who suddenly feel more menacing
as I think about the likely origins of COVID-19. The animals have taken over
here in this vaulted cellar.
But one aspect of this drawing that really stands out to me
now is a monkey who’s pretending to be a conductor and trying to wrangle a
group of owls into singing from a book that has been propped open on the floor.
These distracted owls are not interested in learning how to sing and certainly not
interested in learning from this very eager and enthusiastic monkey. As I
repeatedly remind my daughter to stay focused on her studies and to get off her
phone, I really relate to this foolish monkey trying to encourage these owls to
sing.
In my moments of frustration, though, I am grateful for this
drawing. Saftleven reminds us to laugh at the absurd, and God knows there’s
enough absurd out there. He urges us to be critical consumers of images, to
question our actions, and to remain attentive to the world we live in,
especially now, when it’s upside down.
CUNO: To view the drawing An Enchanted Cellar with Animals, made by Cornelis Saftleven around
1655 to 1670, click the link in this episode’s description or look for it on getty.edu/art/collection
As we all adapt to working and living under these new and unusual circumstances caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve asked curators from the Getty Museum and Getty Research Institute to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking about right now. These brief recordings feature stories related to our daily lives—from laundry on the line to a dog at a scholar’s feet. Over the next few weeks, look for new recordings every Tuesday.
This week features manuscripts curator Beth Morrison discussing Simon Bening’s portrait of the author of the Livre des faits de Jacques de Lalaing, made about 1530.
JAMES CUNO: Hi, I’m Jim Cuno, president of the J. Paul Getty
Trust. As we all adapt to working and living under these new and unusual
circumstances, we’ve asked curators from the Getty Museum and Getty Research
Institute to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking about
right now. We’ll be releasing new recordings on Tuesdays over the next few
weeks. I hope you’ll find these stories about our daily lives—from laundry on
the line to a dog at a scholar’s feet—thought provoking, illuminating, and
entertaining.
BETH MORRISON: Hi, my name is Beth Morrison and I’m head of manuscripts at the Getty Museum. As for everyone else, it’s been a little bit of a transition to working at home and my life seems dominated by endless zoom meetings. But one of the things I really look forward to is the unexpected appearance of people’s pets. They sort of nose in from the side, or jump up on people’s laps, and it reminds me very much of an illumination that I’m working on right now.
I’m writing an article about a manuscript that is devoted to the life of a medieval knight names Jacques de Lalaing. And the frontispiece is by an artist named Simon Bening, who was one of the greatest artists of the sixteenth century. And he chooses an author portrait at the beginning of the manuscript which is a picture of the author hard at work at his text, and he’s got a desk, he’s got light at his back so he can see more clearly, he’s writing with his quill pen and he’s got books nearby him in case he needs to check something. And one of the great, charming details is that his pet dog has wandered in to curl up in the sun and take a nap. It’s a fluffy brown and white dog, quite distinctive, and very cute.
And it reminds me so much of my own working methodology nowadays. I put my desk at a good place in my house so the sun is at my back so I can see clearly. And my dog comes in, plops down, and decides to take a nap whenever she can because she thinks shelter at home is the greatest thing ever invented; she gets to spend all day with me.
So as I’ve been studying this illumination more and more,
I’ve been comparing it to other works by Simon Bening. And I realized that this
dog appears multiple times in his works. At the beginning of the 1530s, it’s a
little puppy. And then by the end of the decade it’s a full-grown dog. And it
kind of made me realize I bet this is Simon Benning’s own dog. And he used the
dog as a model whenever he needed to add a sort of everyday touch to his
illuminations.
It seems to me that pets are such an important part of our
lives, especially now in times of crisis. They provide comfort, they provide
inspiration, and just like this artist and this author in the middle ages, I
like to have my dog near me. It makes me realize that people in the middle ages
are pretty much just like ourselves in terms of how they approach their lives.
CUNO: To view this author portrait by Simon Bening made
around 1530, click the link in this episode’s description or look for it on
getty.edu/art/collection/.
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio is one of the most admired painters of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Known for his powerful, dramatically lit compositions, Caravaggio depicted violence and the human form with a degree of realism unprecedented at the time. He was among the most famous painters in Rome—but not only because of his skill as an artist. Caravaggio was also notorious for his wild life and shocking temper. After being sentenced to death for murder, he fled Rome and died in exile at age 38 . Three biographies written in the decades after his death constitute nearly all that is known about the enigmatic artist.
In this episode, Getty curator and expert on Italian painting Davide Gasparatto discusses Caravaggio and the role these early biographies, by Giulio Mancini, Giovanni Baglione, and Giovanni Pietro Bellori, played in defining Caravaggio’s legacy.
As we all
adapt to working and living under these new and unusual circumstances caused by
the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve asked curators from the Getty Museum and Getty
Research Institute to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking
about right now. These brief recordings feature stories related to our daily lives—from laundry on the line to a dog at a
scholar’s feet. Over the next few weeks, look for new recordings every Tuesday.
This week
features photography curator Mazie Harris discussing Walker Evans’s Washington Street, New York City / Wash
Day (ca. 1930).
JAMES CUNO: Hi, I’m Jim Cuno, president of the J.
Paul Getty Trust. As we all adapt to working and living under these new and
unusual circumstances, we’ve asked curators from the Getty Museum and Getty
Research Institute to share short reflections on works of art they’re thinking
about right now. We’ll be releasing new recordings on Tuesdays over the next
few weeks. I hope you’ll find these stories about our daily lives—from
laundry on the line to a dog at a scholar’s feet—thought provoking,
illuminating, and entertaining.
MAZIE HARRIS: My name is Mazie Harris. I’m one of the
photography curators here at the Getty, and working at home these days I feel
like all I do is laundry and dishes non-stop. So I find myself appreciating all
the more this photograph by Walker Evans.
It looks like the photographer walked between two buildings
and glanced up to see these crisscrossed lines of laundry hanging out to dry. There’s
such delight in this sort of, it’s just like an everyday occurrence. And, I
don’t know, looking at laundry dry seems like it would be just devastatingly
boring and yet Evans makes it look like a lively musical score. The fabrics
bellow in the wind, the sweet string of socks swaying against each other in the
bottom left corner. It evokes full lives and loving labor. It’s all here
illuminated and abstracted against a blank sky.
Photographers have such an incredible ability to make the
mundane visually interesting. Photographs remind us to look, look, look, to
look carefully. To be observant. And I’m grateful to be reminded of that as I
pull yet another load of laundry from the washer or endlessly plunk dishes into
the drainer by the sink. This photograph reminds me to try to find beauty in
even the most banal places.
CUNO: To view this photograph by Walker Evans, titled Washington Street, New York City /
Wash Day and made around 1930, click the link in this episode’s
description or look for it on getty.edu/art/collection/.
