Back to the High Art Museum

(click on this picture or any other picture to appreciate it more)

Yesterday we went again to the Atlanta Art Museum. Before we went there we went to the Cobb County Humane Society and the Atlanta Humane Society looking for some sort of million dollar super dog that someone would love for us to take off their hands.

As far as dog hunting, we did get some good ideas. However, we did not find a single dog that knew how to cook, wash dishes, vacuum, and cut grass.

Anna is on vacation this week.

We did not get to the Atlanta High Art Museum until 4pm – with plans to spend a few hours there to study a group of bronze art works named THE GATES OF PARADISE by Lorenzo Ghiberti and the photographic exhibit by Annie Leibovitz.


The guy who issued our tickets told us we had one hour – the art museum would close at 5pm. Gads! A rush through an art museum is insane.




THE GATES OF PARADISE bonze art by Lorenzo Ghiberti was on display. I am not sure of the date but I think it was the mid 1400s – that would even be before Christopher Columbus tried to prove the world was round and stumbled across the Indians.

Of the Bronze works on display was one about 11 by 14 or larger, slightly bigger than poster size of David having just finished slaying Goliah (?) was bending over sawing off his head. In the background was the cityscape of Jerusalem and closer a crowd of on-lookers. Which proves even then where there is blood there will be gawkers.

There were a couple more of those sizes, such as the Garden of Eden and God is making Eve for Adam… however, there are some more men standing around looking… I think I need to go back and reread Genesis –I think I missed something.

And there was THE GATES OF PARADISE huge display. It reaches high, almost to the ceiling. It is surely near ten feet tall and has ten panels. Each Panel is about the same size as the bronze poster size art of David cutting off Goliah’s (?) head and the Adam’s getting his Eve. They are five panels high and two across. The panels are in order, much like reading a comic book. The first panel to read or look at is in the top left, then you go to your right and check out the next panel, then drop to the next one on the first of the next row, then the one to the right of it, then drop, and keep that up. I wonder if the sequence of comics got there method from these bronze works.

This reminds me of my ancestors the Killian line in Bavaria before they came to America. There is about a four or five generation of this line that were bronze artists. Some of their works were for royalty. Some sold for weird art… one Killian ancestor was known for one particular bronze plate (if that is what you call it) that has a skull with a flower growing out of the eye socket. I’ll have to tell more about my Killian ancestors soon.




The Annie Leibovitz exhibit was of her photographs between 1990 and 2005. I think a lot of them were for magazine covers such as The Rolling Stone. A lot of her pictures were of the rich and famous, but also a lot were of her family and dying friend. The photographs were fantastic. That is my critique. They were just good. I think Annie is very good working with black and white… she seems to have used sharp contrast of light and dark in many of pictures, and many she had a lone individual, maybe famous and maybe not, in a unique solo situation that makes the photograph take on a depressing tone. There were hundreds of pictures. Each one great.

I think a lot of thought was put into placing the pictures on display. On one display wall was a picture of Bush and his inner-circle such as Connie Rice, Dick Chaney, and maybe three or four more. Next to that picture was Michael Moore his close circle of assistants such as a camera man and a sound man and maybe one or two more…. Just the placement of the pictures was practicing the contrast that Annie was so good at.