After a relatively short run-through of the DMA this afternoon, I came up with the following six contenders for my project in Visual Culture. I’m really not ecstatic about any of them: I would much rather write about the work of someone I know a little bit about, like Anselm Kiefer or Magda Abakanowicz, but we’ve already been scolded for choosing only recent subjects (from the last 30 years). Since I have no interest in recreating the canon, I thought about either an Asian or pre-Columbian work, but I didn’t find anything today that grabbed me. These six, despite being fairly canonical–hell, they’re hanging in a Dallas museum!–caught my eye; plus I thought I’d be able to say something new and interesting about each of them, assuming that someone else hasn’t already exhausted these works.

Thomas Wilmer Dewing’s The Singer, 1924

Arthur Garfield Dove’s Up the Alley, 1938

Edward Hicks’ The Peaceable Kingdom, c. 1846-47

Max Liebermann’s At the Swimming Hole, 1875-78

Odilon Redon’s Initiation to Study – Two Young Ladies, c. 1905

Paul Serusier’s Celtic Tale, 1894

After a relatively short run-through of the DMA this afternoon, I came up with the following six contenders for my project in Visual Culture. I’m really not ecstatic about any of them: I would much rather write about the work of someone I know a little bit about, like Anselm Kiefer or Magda Abakanowicz, but we’ve already been scolded for choosing only recent subjects (from the last 30 years). Since I have no interest in recreating the canon, I thought about either an Asian or pre-Columbian work, but I didn’t find anything today that grabbed me. These six, despite being fairly canonical–hell, they’re hanging in a Dallas museum!–caught my eye; plus I thought I’d be able to say something new and interesting about each of them, assuming that someone else hasn’t already exhausted these works.

Thomas Wilmer Dewing’s The Singer, 1924

Arthur Garfield Dove’s Up the Alley, 1938

Edward Hicks’ The Peaceable Kingdom, c. 1846-47

Max Liebermann’s At the Swimming Hole, 1875-78

Odilon Redon’s Initiation to Study – Two Young Ladies, c. 1905

Paul Serusier’s Celtic Tale, 1894