Where I’m Coming From
In today’s toxically polarized climate, individuals willing to engage openly in civil discourse with people they may disagree with are all too rare and merit our collective thanks. One such individual in the field of art education is Dustin Garnet. A Canadian now teaching at California State University, Los Angeles, he is also the current […]
Honoring America’s Promissory Note
A Fourth of July message from Akhil Reed Amar, Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, rightly emphasizes the need for every generation of Americans to engage in thoughtful, informed reflection on, and debate about, our founding principles. His message focuses on the Constitution but, given its timing, it is of course […]
Lessons on Education from Books Our Children Read
Nearly four decades ago, I produced an educational film entitled Books Our Children Read.1 It documented a constructive approach to resolving parent-teacher conflict over education in a rural Ohio school district, at a time when such conflict was erupting in violence in other American communities. The film focuses on the study of literature in the […]
What Semmelweis Taught Me
What does a book report on the life of a nineteenth-century Hungarian obstetrician named Ignaz Semmelweis (1818-1865) have to do with art and art education, the subjects I’m now immersed in? Quite a lot, as it happens. Never heard of Semmelweis? Neither had I until I read a historical fiction about him entitled The Cry […]
An Open Letter to the Chairman of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
The following letter was mailed to Daniel Brodsky, Chairman of the Met Museum’s board of trustees, on September 3rd. (I insert relevant links here.) In lieu of a response from him, I received a platitudinous letter from Jessica Hirschey, the museum’s Deputy Chief Membership Officer, dated September 17. That letter is appended below, along with […]
Michelangelo's Humor
The opening next week of the major exhibition Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman & Designer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art1 prompts me to post the following brief item about a little-known side of this master. The awe-inspiring grandeur of Michelangelo’s work earned him the reverent epithet of “Il Divino” among his contemporaries. It is therefore remarkable to […]
The Creative Process behind an American Masterpiece—Bingham's 'Fur Traders Descending the Missouri'
The best thing about the exhibition Navigating the West: George Caleb Bingham and the River now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (through September 20) is the light it sheds on the creation of Bingham’s wondrous Fur Traders Descending the Missouri (1845), one of the treasures of the Met’s holdings in American art. Since […]
About For Piero's Sake
The Piero referred to in this blog’s title is the painter Piero della Francesca (c. 1412-1492), one of the masters of the early Italian Renaissance whose work I especially esteem. (For information on the banner image, see the caption below.) I dedicate the blog for his sake to commemorate the values he and his work […]