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Worcester Art Museum

The Worcester Art Museum, also known by its acronym WAM, houses over 35,000 works of art dating from antiquity to the present day, representing cultures from all over the world.

http://www.worcesterart.org/

The Figurative and the Narrative in Courtly and Contemporary Art of India

Thu, Sep 15, 2016

Dr. Vishakha Desai gives this Masters lecture on visual art as a means of storytelling, referencing among many pieces one from the Worcester Museum of Art's collection. It's title: _The Storm (A Lady Taking Shelter from the Monsoon Wind and Rain)_.

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Joachim Meyer: Die Kunst des Fechtens (The Art of Combat)

Thu, May 19, 2016

One of the many treasures acquired by the Worcester Art Museum as part of the Higgins Armory collection is a rare original copy of Joachim Meyer's sixteenth-century swordplay manual, _The Art of Combat (Die Kunst des Fechtens)_. This work is one of the most important sources for modern swordfighters who are today reviving the combat arts of Medieval and Renaissance Europe. In 2015 the museum also acquired an equally rare two-hand fencing sword of the type used by Meyer, one of only three examples known to be in the Americas. The museum's Curator of Arms, Armor, and Medieval Art, **Jeffrey Forgeng**, published the manual in translation in 2014, and he discusses the fascinating prints it contains to illustrate the Art of Combat. (Image: Tobias Stimmer from Joachim Meyer [Public domain], via [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Meyer_1570_155.jpg "Kunst des Fechtens"), image cropped)

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Roman Spectacular Blood Sports

Thu, Mar 17, 2016

Both magnificent and menacing, the Worcester gladiatorial helmet invites us to enter the world of the Roman arena with its spectacular combats of men against men and against beasts. What inspired the Romans to develop such events and to build monumental facilities to house them? Who were the fighters and how did they see themselves? What meanings did civilized Romans see in the displays of blood, skill, and courage? How did females and Christians respond to the performances? **Dr. Donald G. Kyle**, Professor of History at the University of Texas, Arlington, addresses such questions by integrating recent archaeological discoveries as well as new interpretations of the preparation, lives, and deaths of gladiators.

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Pierre Bonnard: Dining Room in the Country

Thu, Feb 18, 2016

French painter Pierre Bonnard's 1913 work, _Dining Room in the Country_, represents the artist's dining room, along with his wife and cats, at his country house in Vernonnet, a small town outside of Paris on the Seine River. Rather than painting from life, Bonnard created the work entirely from memory, foregrounding his subjective responses over an optical experience of the interior and landscape. Worcester Art Museum Director **Matthias Waschek** explores this enigmatic and delightful country scene, loaned to the Museum by the Minneapolis Institute of Arts from October 8, 2015, to May 1, 2016. (Image: József Rippl-Rónai [Public domain], via [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ARippl_Portrait_of_Pierre_Bonnard_-_A.jpg "Bonnard portrait"), image cropped)

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Terri Priest: Static Variations: Blue x 2

Thu, Oct 15, 2015

This Master Series celebrates the work of beloved Worcester artist, **Terri Priest** (1928-2014). It highlights her painting Static Variations: Blue x 2 (1971-72), a diptych of arrow-shaped fields of blue and alternating black and white stripes, which together create a pulsating visual effect. In its rigorous exploration of optical stimuli, the painting appears to have much in common with Op Art, yet Priest refused her contemporaries' rejection of content for form. Instead, she saw her artwork as deeply connected to larger social issues. Priest was active in the Civil Rights movement, and paintings such as Static Variations: Blue x 2 emerged from her activism: "My works are politically motivated—that's not an overstatement," she explained. "For every white line there was a black line. One plus one is equal to more than two." Image: Terri Priest, Static Variations: Blue x 2, 1971-1972, acrylic on canvas, Helen Sagoff Slosberg Fund, 2014.1192 © Estate of Terri Priest, used with permission.

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A Deaf Artist in Early America: The World of John Brewster, Jr.

Thu, Sep 17, 2015

John Brewster Jr. (1766-1854) was a prolific, deaf itinerant painter, who produced many portraits of New England families, especially their children. Learn more about this fascinating portrait and its artist.

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Yoshitoshi and the History of Japanese Flutes

Thu, May 21, 2015

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-1892) is remembered as one of the greatest designers of the Japanese woodblock print at a time when the medium was facing increasing competition from photography and lithography. The artist’s tumultuous life and work mirrors one of the most transformative periods in Japanese history—the change from a feudal to a modern society emulating Western ways of government and social conduct. The exhibition features a variety of Yoshitoshi’s most engaging works—images of horror and cruelty, supernatural creatures, commanding acts of bravery by legendary figures from Japanese history, images of samurai, and portraits of women. But it also proposes new ways of understanding his life and artistic trajectory, which became increasingly retrospective in his final decade, reinforcing the notion of Yoshitoshi as an artist living between two eras. The exhibition will draw special attention to his masterpiece, the scroll painting Fujiwara no Yasumasa Playing the Flute by Moonlight (1882), one of the great works of Japanese art in an American museum collection. Composer Shirish Korde speaks about the different types of historical Japanese flutes and flutist Alice Jones performs. This performance draws special attention to Tsukioka Yoshitoshi's masterpiece, the scroll painting: "Fujiwara no Yasumasa Playing the Flute by Moonlight" (1882), one of the great works of Japanese art in the Worcester Art Museum, and indeed any American collection.

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Rembrandt and Fallibility

Thu, Apr 16, 2015

Beginning with a view of _The Three Musicians_ and _The Stone Operation,_ WAM's Curator of European Art, Jon Seydl, discusses the very early work by Rembrandt, his use of allegories of the five senses, and how the young artist found his mature voice. Seydl reveals many of the distinctive hallmarks of the Dutch master and gives fascinating context to the painter's life, and great insight into his career.

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Look Closely: The Cowper Madonna

Thu, Feb 19, 2015

Painted at the moment when Raphael made the transition from Urbino to Florence, _The Small Cowper Madonna,_ one of the greatest Renaissance paintings in America, stands at the beginning of the highly influential Madonnas which secured Raphael's reputation. The Worcester Art Museum displayed the Cowper Madonna with their own Northbrook Madonna, a work that came into the museum's collection in 1940 with an attribution to Raphael that has long been discarded, but without clear consensus on what relationship the work bears to Raphael and his studio. The two-painting installation also addresses the underdrawing of the two pictures, and explores Raphael's masterful interpretation and the spread of his early style among followers in Central Italy. Pictured: Raphael, Italian, 1483-1520 The Small Cowper Madonna (detail) about 1505, oil on wood Widener Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1942.9.57

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Preserving Anthony van Dyck's Portrait of a Man

Thu, Mar 19, 2015

**Matthew Cushman**, project conservator at Yale University, and **Jon L. Seydl**, director of curatorial affairs and curator of European art, discuss what conservation has revealed about this 17th century painting by Flemmish artist Anthony van Dyck. Scientific research and the cleaning have revealed Van Dyck's process, including numerous changes to the costume, to keep up with evolving fashions, and led to the discovery of the picture’s date. View painting: Anthony van Dyck, Flemish, 1599-1641[** Portrait of a Man**](http://www.worcesterart.org/exhibitions/jeppson-idealab-portrait-of-a-man-anthony-van-dyck/ "vandyke") (before treatment) 1619, oil on wood On loan from The Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp.

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