Preview of MMFA sculpture show
The New York Times has a preview of a collection of classical sculptures which it says will be coming here to the Museum of Fine Arts, although the museum site doesn’t list it.
It’s the kind of work that art students used to be sent to draw. Does anyone do that kind of work any more?
Ian 22:28 on 2024-12-11 Permalink
Memorials, usually, but it has fallen quite out of fashion – here, at least. Countries under dictators still get monumental statues. Classical and neoclassical sculpture is considered kitschy these days, I have a bust of Pallas above my chamber door carved in alabaster from Greece becasue I thought it was funny… but you can buy such stuff. I don’t think many people are making htis kind of thing as “art” anymore except in the sense of artisanal prowess. Tombstoens and suchlike.
jeather 23:00 on 2024-12-11 Permalink
There’s this woman.
Kate 09:47 on 2024-12-12 Permalink
I was thinking more about art students being sent to draw the statuary in museums – which I’ve read about – than of sculptors reviving classical forms now. In a way, it’s a kind of life drawing without a live model, convenient 3D forms just sitting there while you draw them. But I imagine that’s no longer a thing.
jeather 10:08 on 2024-12-12 Permalink
It’s a thing; I see it in museums still. Drawing sculptures or copying paintings/drawings.
CE 10:41 on 2024-12-12 Permalink
I always see people drawing the classical statues at the Met in New York. They even provide chairs.
Ian 11:56 on 2024-12-12 Permalink
I’ve seen sketching classes at the Redpath Museum but I’ve never seen anybody sketching at the Museum of Fine Art in Montreal …although I have, like others here, seen this happening in many other museums around the world.
thomas 13:01 on 2024-12-12 Permalink
@Kate I have seen students sketching at the MMFA, usually during less popular hours.
Ian 15:39 on 2024-12-12 Permalink
Ah cool. We used to go to sketch back in the 90s when I was in my BFA. Up until just over 10 years ago the permanent collections were free. Stopping that probably cut into the number of sketchers.
There are still free times for the permanent collection though – On Wednesday evenings they are free for people under 25, Tuesday mornings for 65 and older, and for everyone the first Sunday of every month.
I believe that natives & the disabled get free access any time.