The mural... “A Social History of the State of Missouri” is one of the most famous murals painted by Benton, an American Regionalist artist who traveled the state in search of authenticity for his subjects. This 13-panel narrative work, completed in 1936, was intended to captured the Missourian spirit and history. It incorporated 235 individual portraits and everyday scenes, from settlers raising a log cabin to the famous James Brothers robberies to slave mistreatment....A commenter at the NYT snarks: "This incident perhaps says as much about 'the social history of the State of Missouri' as the painting itself."
I like to visit state capitols and can see that I need to get down to
Images.
How can you be in a building with rooms like this...
... and think a wall is just a wall? At least she didn't pee on it. Or have sex up against it.
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42 comments:
Oh. It's the NY Times.
You should see the comments over at WashPo about Walker dropping out. Leftists are such pleasant people.
I like those murals, they are a veritable celebration of industry and CO2.
Confirmation bias is such a powerful force.
Was the power of the story in the image of the attached narrative.
Columbia, Mo. is a great town, but it's not the state capitol.
So it's an excuse to take a dig at an obscure Republican party functionary no one outside Missouri would otherwise have heard of. Got it.
Jefferson City is the state capitol of Missouri. Columbia is the home of the University of Missouri.
It was a faux pas but seems pretty unlikely that the mural would be damaged. How hard would you need to press down to make an impression with a ball point pen through card stock?
And the overreaction is completely absurd. Possibly inflicting a barely perceptible indentation into a painting is evidence of barbarism, but carving up unborn human babies for profit is defensible to these people.
So this unintentional faux pas that as far as we know caused no damage is inexcusable, but the thousands of dollars of damage to the Wisconsin Capitol done by garage's thuggish friends is just okie dokie. Got it.
At least she didn't pee on it. Or have sex up against it.
Benton's most famous student Jackson Pollock would have.
It's hardly inconsistent to recognize the beauty and value of a mural and still know that if is paint on a wall. That's the difference between a murals and paintings. Let's not confuse the two.
In Birmingham, AL the Jefferson County Commission is working on removing a mural from the county courthouse that was painted in the 1930s by John Warner Horton because it depicts slaves picking cotton.
"It is one of two 17 ½-by-8-foot murals painted by Chicago artist John Warner Norton that depict the agrarian Old South and the industrial new South."
http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2015/09/jefferson_county_courthouse_mu.html
I fail to see how you could depict "the agrarian Old South" without slaves.
Some cursory googling of the artist's name reveals that he is at least a moderately important muralist and "easel artist."
I suspect that if they succeed in their endeavor in fifty years or so it will be an act as reviled as the short-sited demolition of the beautiful Birmingham Train Station.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Terminal_Station
Curious George, equating unadorned marble with a painted surface. Sorta like he mistook $9 million for the real price (mostly landscaping and grass replacement).
Like Walker, Curiouw George is nothing more than exaggeration. Too bad he didn't follow Walker into hiding under the rock where he now resides.
This woman is just another hillbilly Republican. What do you expect?
Umm, Curious George said "thousands of dollars" in damage, not $9 million, unless I missed something earlier in this thread.
"... or have sex against it"
How do you know?
Now you've done it, for the first time in my long life, I have an urge to visit Missouri.
Imagine my surprise when, clicking through, I found a second person in the photograph doing the exact same thing. And there seems to have been no effort to report his identity, and no one seems angry with him.
Curious.
Don't forget "unidentified man" doing the same thing next to her. She's apologized for her "thoughtless act," and that's a good description of what happened. Still, it was a gauche and low class thing to do.
But of course, state representative Pat Conway (D) has to tell us that we must understand how "fragile" this art is. That's why it extends unprotected down to waist level with chairs pushed up against it. The reaction is as overwrought as the action was thoughtlessly disrespectful.
"In Birmingham, AL the Jefferson County Commission is working on removing a mural from the county courthouse that was painted in the 1930s by John Warner Horton because it depicts slaves picking cotton. "
Those who erase history are doomed to repeat it.
I know it's long, but perhaps we can create a tag called "Obscure Republican says/does something strange that obviously contains larger implications for conservatives as a whole." Maybe pair it with another tag, applicable to Democrats, called "It's just one person. Move along already."
Mr. Marner described the people who viewed the photo on Facebook as “outraged and shocked.”
I viewed the photo -- not on Facebook -- and was all full of Meh. This is just one more example of the unfortunate part of the internet -- its ability to cause shock and outrage over nonsense.
If you don't want people to interact with art, then don't keep it around; cordon it off so you can't get up close.
Wouldn't it be a hoot if "unidentified man" turned out to be her Democrat opposite number.
Had it been a D writing against the wall, I'm pretty sure an R would tell us how fragile the art is. This is all eye of the beholder small ball politics.
"Kyzernick said...
Umm, Curious George said "thousands of dollars" in damage, not $9 million, unless I missed something earlier in this thread."
Right, but then he can't make some dumbass response.
"Mark said...
Curious George, equating unadorned marble with a painted surface."
Uh, it was more than just the marble Corky.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5093/5523069461_c6907bf88b.jpg
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5256/5523673406_5c3afa5ebf.jpg
That said, I'm equating actual damage, done intentionally, versus surmised damage, done accidentally.
The interior and exterior of the Nebraska State Capitol is an American masterpiece. I've seen Wisconsin's and, while it is nice, the Cornhusker state wins. (But WI wins in football and basketball.)
And sometimes one President's HMS Resolute desk is another President's footstool.
If I were in that room I wouldn't be able to rest until I found the secret passageway.
"Had it been a D writing against the wall, I'm pretty sure an R would tell us how fragile the art is."
Had it been a D writing, we would never have heard about it, at least not in the New York Times.
Five questions:
1. If a murial at ground level, on a wall with traffic all around it is so delicate that it could be damaged by someone writing on something else while that something else is pressed against it, would it not be reasonable for the building maintenance personnel to protect that murial with a railing or glass or something to prevent people from leaning against it, brushing against it or spilling something on it?
2. Does anything at all happen in the US these days wherein someone does not attempt to transform it into a political statement?
3. Is any event so trivial that it cannot be turned into a tank full of fuel for the partisan outrage machine?
4. Barbarians are taking jack hammers and dynamite to the priceless legacy of a bygone civilization while the world yawns, but you are getting the vapors over this?
5. Do my fellow Americans realize how unserious they appear from a distance?
I've been to this one, and the murals are by far the only interesting thing about it, or the town (which is Jeff City, not Columbia, as someone else mentioned). If you've never been, the capitol in Lincoln is the best one I've ever seen.
Get down to Columbia, Missouri? Why, when the capitol is in Jefferson City.
I've seen the murals, and they are gorgeous. The entire Missouri capitol is really nice. If you go, eat at Arris' Pizza right across the street. There is also the Katy Trail close by for cycling and abundant hiking all over central and southern Missouri.
I am shocked and outraged.
Larvell,
Oh I agree. Indeed, in classic guess the party fashion, it took me a bit of looking before I could confirm Pat Conway's D status.
Still, the double standard is old news, and while always noting it, I've grown tired of complaining about it.
One comment over at the the NYT article struck me as a more effective antidote. Amidst all the anti Republican snark over there, one commenter said the problem was the thoughtless behavior, not the party identification, and let's not pretend that one party or the other has a monopoly on that.
Your reference to Columbia reminded me of one of my favorite novels, Stoner.
I hope she didn't disrespect the "Missouri Idea"!
Thanks for all the corrections on the state capital. The article had the dateline "Columbia, Missouri," and Columbia is the name of a state capital.
Sorry. I'm a big fan of state capitals! We go out of our way to visit them!
Or have sex up against it.
Well, to be fair, judging from the photo I doubt she had that option.
"It was a faux pas but seems pretty unlikely that the mural would be damaged. How hard would you need to press down to make an impression with a ball point pen through card stock?"
I think the main concern is with this happening many times--and thus the need to not let it become socially acceptable. Repeated tiny abrasions will, over time, damage a mural.
"...would it not be reasonable for the building maintenance personnel to protect that murial with a railing or glass..."
I believe that such protection was not needed in the past, because people were raised to respect public art.
"A commenter at the NYT snarks: "This incident perhaps says as much about 'the social history of the State of Missouri' as the painting itself." "
Said the resident of the city notorious for its graffiti vandalism and rude people.
What has been lost in all the hyperventallating about this elsewhere is that these two business card signers are the sorts of people Benton depicted throughout his career. If he were alive, and had a sense of humor, even old Thomas Hart might laugh at the notion of people doing business against a mural of people doing business.
If anything, it points out the old aphorism about those who love the common people in the abstract (or enshrined in art, same thing), but despise them in actual fact.
Reminds me of the murals in the city hall of Pawnee, Indiana.
"Or have sex up against it"
I'll bet somebody has.
jaydub,
"5. Do my fellow Americans realize how unserious they appear from a distance?"
Close up, too.
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