Re: Acanthus
gardenchat@hort.net
  • Subject: Re: Acanthus
  • From: Z* <z*@comcast.net>
  • Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2012 10:12:19 -0600
When I was in Rome with my older grandson several years ago acanthus was
blooming everywhere. It was fun pointing it out along the roadsides and
again on the tops of the Corinthian columns. Both of my grandsons are
going to New York with me in the

spring, and the Met is on our list. Thankfully my brother has a complimentary membership to all the museums. 

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 1, 2012, at 9:46 AM, James Singer <inlandjim1@q.com> wrote:

> Auralie, if you google acanthus, it'll cough up four or five pictures of
> acanthus--including a pretty good one of the blooms.
> 
> On Dec 1, 2012, at 7:19 AM, Aplfgcnys@aol.com wrote:
> 
>> Yesterday we were taken by a younger couple to see the newly opened
>> Matisse exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum.  Chet allowed himself to be
>> pushed in a wheelchair, and I took advantage of benches when I could.
>> It is a fantastic exhibit which shows paintings of the same subject but
>> in different stages or forms side by side, with several showing photographs
>> of the developmental stages.
>> 
>> In his later life, Matisse had used many botanical motifs - most frequently
>> palms, but in his late book illustration period other leaf patterns.  At
> one
>> point the explanatory signs said he was using Acanthus.  My friends asked
>> me what an Acanthus flower looked like.  I could not immediately call to
>> mind what the flower was, but assured them that it was the foliage that
>> was a standard feature of ancient columns.  I guess my art history
> education
>> goes back farther than theirs.
>> 
>> I have now checked and confirmed that Acanthus is what we popularly call
>> Bear's breeches, and I'm still not certain that I have ever seen its bloom.
>> It was very interesting to compare the classic examples I remembered to
>> the abstracted forms conceived by Matisse.  But as ever, botany is a
>> major element in art.
>> 
>> Auralie
>> 
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