CRI Art: History   

Tiny in stature yet mighty in presence, Berthe Weill proved to be the guiding force behind many of the great artists we revere today. In an arena of academy and salon-sanctioned art, she championed the new, the modern, the extreme: the avant-garde. The Paris of the Third Republic was not a genteel society. The Prussian War and the Dreyfus Affair had a deep impact on artists, art, and its marketplace. Through it all, Weill embraced the change and welcomed Matisse, Modigliani, Rivera, and Picasso. This course will examine the numerous artist relationships that Weill nurtured, supported, and the long-term impact that this woman had on the art world under disastrous conditions of a world at war.

As America grew from the first communities in the New World to the fortunes of the Gilded Age, art, architectural styles, interiors, furniture, and decorative objects moved from basic simplicity to elegant, graceful forms. This course will focus on the popular styles and design influences from the Classical Revival, Greek Revival, Victorian, and Beaux Arts eras. The extraordinary influence of designers and craftsmen such as Duncan Phyfe, Charles Launnier, John Henry Belter, Stanford White, Henry Hobson Richardson, and many others will be discussed, as well as the social and political influences upon their designs. 

Before Kandinsky, Malevich, and Mondrian, there was an artist who sensed and sought spiritual depth through the art of abstraction. Her purpose was not to render techniques and styles but to create and examine more closely the possible realms of visions and spirits within human consciousness. That person was Hilma af Klint, the creator of abstraction. In a series of two lectures, we examine the impact of 19th-century scientific discoveries and the cultural developments that affected the foundations of society and shifted awareness. We will address her cryptic, challenging symbolism and her mystic belief in representing the invisible through her abstractions. Realizing that the world was not yet ready for the message of spiritual abstraction, Hilma stated that her work was to be hidden for decades after her death. And it was… until now.