ANIMAL ART OF THE DAY for World Parrot Day: Two Majolica Cockatoos
May 31st is World Parrot Day!
To celebrate, here are two cockatoos seen at the recent Majolica Mania exhibition at the Walters Art Museum:
Tag: birds
ANIMAL ART OF THE DAY for Penguin Awareness Day: Japanese penguins?
Haori with Penguins and Icebreaker ShipsJapan, mid-Shōwa period, 1957-58silk plain weave, stencil-printed warp and weft[photos by author] Penguins (Spheniscidae) are found almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere, with only the Galápagos penguin (Spheniscus mendiculus) skirting the other side of the equator. They definitely aren’t native to anywhere near Japan! I saw…
ANIMAL ART OF THE DAY for National Hummingbird Day: Europe’s first hummingbirds?
The Vatican Loggia’s “Raphael Rooms” have long been noted for their immense variety of flora and fauna depicted, including many exotic species. Believed to have executed primarily by Rafael’s associate Giovanni da Udine (1487-1564) between 1517-1519, this artistic menagerie is thought to be an artistic catalog of the real-life menagerie…
SWIPED FROM SOCIAL MEDIA: Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art features animal pieces from its collection all month long!
After a long period of relatively little activity outside of posting info about events, Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art’s social media has had a busy August sharing more images from its collection, including no less than a half dozen animal art-themed works! I have been sharing these on the…
NEW EXHIBITION: “Feathered Ink” now open at Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art
“Feathered Ink” is a new exhibition at the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art which “explores how Japanese artists have experimented over several centuries with different brush techniques in their depictions of avian subjects,” and showcases three galleries of hanging scroll paintings, folding screens, ceramics, and printed books. In Japan,…
EVENT: “Object Focus: Percy the Peacock” [Walters Art Museum, online]
The Walters Art Museum just announced a virtual event scheduled for Thursday 4 August from 6pm-7pm (Eastern U.S. time), tied into their current Majolica Mania exhibition, and specifically, its star attraction: The star of the Majolica Mania exhibition is a five-foot-tall ceramic peacock nicknamed Percy. This impressive sculpture celebrates the…
ANIMAL ART OF THE DAY for National Pink Flamingo Day: A flamboyance of flamingo letters
ANIMAL ART OF THE DAY for World Migratory Bird Day
World Migratory Bird Day is on the second Saturday of May in Canada and the US (May 14th in 2022), and the second Saturday of October in Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean (October 8th in 2022). To celebrate, here is Norman Lewis‘ Migrating Birds. This entry won the…
ANIMAL ART OF THE DAY The Threatened Swan
A swan fiercely defends its nest against a dog. In later centuries this scuffle was interpreted as a political allegory: the white swan was thought to symbolize the Dutch statesman Johan de Witt (assassinated in 1672) protecting the country from its enemies. This was the meaning attached to the painting…
