Art Blogging: The San Antonio Museum of Art

Today, Katherine and I visited the San Antonio Museum of Art. It possesses and immense and diverse collection, from Ancient Egypt and Greece, China and Japan, as well as selections from Oceania, the Islamic world, and India. It also has impressive collections of Wedgewood porcelain and Latin American art. Here are a few interesting items that I saw.

This is The Dancing Lesson (1880) by Edgar Degas. The SAMA is currently holding a special exhibit of Impressionists on loan from the Clark Art Institute.

The Onions (1881) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir was also at the special exhibit. Renoir's unique use of light delicately depicts the translucent skins of the onions.



At the Concert (1880), also by Renoir, who is by far my favorite impressionist. Renoir was a master of luminescence. This canvas radiated with a warm glow, particularly in the subtly shifting flesh tones. I was also impressed by the roses, which took the forms of whirlpools of reds, pinks, and whites.









There was also a collection of 19th Century Japanese prints in a sideroom. Yoshu Chikanobu was a woodblock printer of the Meiji Period. He usually depicted mythological, historical, or familial scenes. Blessed With Children, like many of his works, were written in response to a perceived threat to traditional Japanese values by Westernization.