With holdings spanning 700 years of Western Art , the Museum of Fine Arts & Popular Culture offers representative examples of the major art movements, including works from the Pre-Renaissance, Renaissance, 19th Century Realism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Cubism, Modern, and Surrealist works. The richness of these choice images provide a broad spectrum of value to a wide variety of museumgoers from the pleasure enjoyed by the casual visitor to research opportunities for art scholars.
For a more complete inventory of paintings, CLICK ON "FINE ART - BY CATEGORY" on the Navigation Bar above.
For a more complete inventory of paintings, CLICK ON "FINE ART - BY CATEGORY" on the Navigation Bar above.
For a more complete inventory of paintings, CLICK ON "FINE ART - BY CATEGORY" on the Navigation Bar above.
La Belle Époque (French for "Beautiful Era") was a period in the European history, recognized as starting in 1871 and ending in 1914 with the outbreak of World War I. La Belle Époque was a period characterized by optimism, peace at home and in Europe, new technology and scientific discoveries. The peace and prosperity in Paris allowed the arts to flourish, and many masterpieces of literature, music, theater, and visual art gained recognition. La Belle Époque was named, in retrospect, when it began to be considered a ""golden age" in contrast to the horrors of The Great War.
By 1880, France's new poster art form was attracting a number of top designers such as Jules Cheret, Theophile Steinlen and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Their chosen subject matter featured Parisian night life, notably the theatres, music halls and cabarets of the city. The growing popularity of poster art led to the hosting of a major exhibition in 1884, peaking during the 1890s. Poster artists were transforming Parisian streets into colorful art galleries, attaining cult status in the process, and causing theatre stars to insist on choosing their own favorite artist to do the poster for their show. More poster exhibitions were held, while publishers produced extra copies of the best posters to satisfy collectors..
Pre-television advertising consisted of these large-scale, colorful, eye-catching graphics which were posted on the kiosks of the streets of Paris and other metropolitan cities where maximum public exposure optimized sales of the sponsors' products. La Belle Epoque Poster Art combines the popular Arts with the Fine Arts and occurred during the high watermark in the quality of stone lithography, nearly 100 years after its invention in Germany.
The Museum of Fine Arts & Popular Culture's holdings include many representative works of this Golden Age of the Art of Advertising.
Circus and performance magic were key areas of popular culture from the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries where performances and performers could be followed through newspapers and publicly-displayed posters of the time.
Since these ephemera pieces of paper advertising were made to last no longer than the run of the performances, these posters' survival more than 100 years later is indeed a feat of the highest order. When rarity is combined with the sheer beauty of the imagery, the delight engendered in the viewer is timeless.
Sideshow and circus banners first appeared in Europe during the early 1800s. Hung outside shows or booths, they served the same function as that of decorative shop signs, advertising the contents within. At the height of their popularity from the 1870s to the late 1960s, sideshow banners were strung up at carnivals and travelling shows throughout the world. Early circuses routinely used brightly painted ones to lure paying customers to their quirky sideshows of freaks and curiosities - snake charmers, sword swallowers, two-headed babies and five-legged cows were some of the exaggerated attractions offered for 'your shock and amazement for just five cents!'. Circus banners were usually about 8 feet (2.4 m) high, but commissions could be any size.
The Museum of Fine Art and Popular Culture is privileged to hold many of the most beautiful examples of these awe-inspiring images which parallel the magic of the performances they advertise and remind us of our childlike wonder and excitement, witnessing the death-defying acts of acrobats and clever prestidigitators of all ages across time itself.
For further information on the Museum’s poster holdings, please see also our page on La Belle Epoque Posters, accessible via the Home Page.
Folk art encompasses art produced from an indigenous culture or by peasants or other laboring tradespeople. In contrast to fine art, folk art is primarily utilitarian and decorative rather than purely aesthetic. Folk Art is characterized by a naive style, in which traditional rules of proportion and perspective are not employed. Closely related terms are Outsider art, Self-Taught Art and Naïve art.
As a phenomenon that can chronicle a move towards civilization yet rapidly diminish with modernity, industrialization, or outside influence, the nature of folk art is specific to its particular culture. The varied geographical and temporal prevalence and diversity of folk art make it difficult to describe as a whole, though some patterns have been demonstrated.
Characteristically folk art is not influenced by movements in academic or fine art circles, and, in many cases, folk art excludes works executed by professional artists and sold as "high art" or "fine art" to the society's art patrons. On the other hand, many 18th- and 19th-century American folk art painters made their living by their work, including itinerant portrait painters, some of whom produced large bodies of work
Folk art expresses cultural identity by conveying shared community values and aesthetics. It encompasses a range of utilitarian and decorative media, including cloth, wood, paper, clay, metal and more. If traditional materials are inaccessible, new materials are often substituted, resulting in contemporary expressions of traditional folk art forms. Folk art reflects traditional art forms of diverse community groups — ethnic, tribal, religious, occupational, geographical, age- or gender-based — who identify with each other and society at large. Folk artists traditionally learn skills and techniques through apprenticeships in informal community settings, though they may also be formally educated.
Antique folk art is distinguished from traditional art in that, while collected today based mostly on its artistic merit, it was never intended to be 'art for art’s sake' at the time of its creation. Examples include: weathervanes, old store signs and carved figures, itinerant portraits, carousel horses, fire buckets, painted game boards, cast iron doorstops and many other similar lines of highly collectible "whimsical" antiques.
Folk artworks, styles and motifs have inspired various artists. For example, Pablo Picasso was inspired by African tribal sculptures and masks, while Natalia Goncharova, Elito Circa and others were inspired by traditional Russian popular prints called luboks.[6] In music, Igor Stravinsky's seminal The Rite of Spring was inspired by pagan religious rites.
Traditional animation (also called cel animation or hand-drawn animation) was the process used for most animated films of the 20th century. The individual frames of a traditionally animated film are photographs of drawings, first drawn on paper. To create the illusion of movement, each drawing differs slightly from the one before it. The animators' drawings are traced or photocopied onto transparent acetate sheets called cels, which are filled in with paints in assigned colors or tones on the side opposite the line drawings. The completed character cels are photographed one-by-one against a painted background by a rostrum camera onto motion picture film.
Fleischer Studios, Inc., was an American corporation which originated as an animation studio located at 1600 Broadway, New York City, New York. It was founded in 1921 as Inkwell Studios (or Out of the Inkwell Films) by brothers Max Fleischer and Dave Fleischer who ran the company from its inception until Paramount Pictures, the studio's parent company and the distributor of its films, forced them to resign in April 1942. In its prime, it was Walt Disney Productions's very first significant competitor and is notable for bringing to the screen cartoons featuring Koko the Clown, Betty Boop, Bimbo, Popeye the Sailor, and Superman. Unlike other studios, whose most famous characters were anthropomorphic animals, the Fleischers' most popular characters were humans.
Film posters have been used since the earliest public exhibitions of film. They began as outside placards listing the program of (short) films to be shown inside the hall or movie theater. By the early 1900s, they began to feature illustrations of a film scene or an array of overlaid images from several scenes. Other posters have used artistic interpretations of a scene or even the theme of the film, represented in a wide variety of artistic styles.
Originally, film posters were produced for the exclusive use by the theaters exhibiting the film the poster was created for, and the copies of the posters were required to be returned to the distributor after the film left the theater. In the United States, film posters were usually returned to a nationwide operation called the National Screen Service (NSS) which printed and distributed most of the film posters for the studios between 1940 and 1984. As an economy measure, the NSS regularly recycled posters that were returned, sending them back out to be used again at another theater. During this time, a film could stay in circulation for several years, and so many old film posters were badly worn before being retired into storage at an NSS warehouse (most often, they were thrown away when they were no longer needed or had become too worn to be used again). Those posters which were not returned were often thrown away by the theater owner, but some found their way into the hands of collectors.
Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll or rock 'n' roll) is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African-American genres such as blues, boogie woogie, jump blues, jazz, and gospel music, together with Western swing and country music. Though elements of rock and roll can be heard in blues records from the 1920s and in country records of the 1930s, the genre did not acquire its name until the 1950s.
The term "rock and roll" now has at least two different meanings, both in common usage: referring to the first wave of music that originated in the US in the 1950s and would later develop into the more encompassing international style known as "rock music", and as a term simply synonymous with the rock music and culture in the broad sense. For the purpose of differentiation, this article deals with the first definition.
In the earliest rock and roll styles of the late 1940s and early 1950s, either the piano or saxophone was often the lead instrument, but these were generally replaced or supplemented by guitar in the middle to late 1950s. The beat is essentially a blues rhythm with an accentuated backbeat, the latter almost always provided by a snare drum. Classic rock and roll is usually played with one or two electric guitars (one lead, one rhythm), a string bass or (after the mid-1950s) an electric bass guitar, and a drum kit. Beyond simply a musical style, rock and roll, as seen in movies and on television, influenced lifestyles, fashion, attitudes, and language. In addition, rock and roll may have contributed to the civil rights movement because both African-American and white American teens enjoyed the music. It went on to spawn various genres, often without the initially characteristic backbeat, that are now more commonly called simply "rock music" or "rock".
Since their earliest days, the movies have been concerned with historical and Biblical subjects. The first cinematic genius, D.W. Griffith, turned for his greatest themes to the Civil War, the French Revolution and ancient Babylon. Then came the era of Cecil B. De Mille's extravaganzas, drawing on the Bible, the 'wickedness' of ancient Rome, and early America.
Along with films of the various periods in the history of the cinema, movie costumes reflect the social and economic conditions and the changing tastes of the nation.
The Museum of Fine Arts and Popular Culture possesses a collection of costumes designed-for, worn and featured in important Hollywood films. In addition to its costumes, the Museum's archives hold an a treasure-trove of related film production material.
As an adjunct to the Museum's collection of Classic Film Posters, the museum’s Hollywood Costumne collection offers a vivid record of this endlessly fascinating genre of artistic productions. A museum visit will prove invaluable not only to film buffs but also to costume designers, social historians and anyone interested in the history of film.
Art may help educate children, encourage tourism and keep local economies growing and thriving. But the arts can't survive without financial and physical support. Wherever you live, there are ways you can help keep the arts alive.
Your support of local artists helps your economy. Nonprofit arts organizations provide full-time and part-time employment for artists as well as administrative support staff and marketing and fundraising professionals. They also contribute billions of dollars to local and state tax revenues and generate economic activity through the real estate, goods and services needed to produce their creative products. Audiences at art events help support the local economy by patronizing nearby restaurants and paying for parking and childcare.
Tourists not only purchase works of art and local crafts, they also spend money on hotels and restaurants, purchase souvenirs and make use of local businesses such as hair salons and laundromats. A thriving arts scene may be a big selling point for retirees, people looking for a vacation home or large corporations seeking business property.
Support of artists may result in educational opportunities for children in your community. When artists work with schools, they foster children's creativity, help promote literacy and teach problem-solving skills. Involvement in the arts may inspire some ids to stay in school, instill a positive work ethic, build self-esteem, promote collaboration and foster an appreciation for cultural differences.
Attend arts events and purchase artwork at local galleries. Arts groups usually receive a large portion of their incomes from government and corporate grants, and from individual donors. Attend an arts fundraiser and bring your friends. Money you contribute to a nonprofit arts groups usually is tax-deductible.
Even if you can't afford a monetary contribution, you can volunteer for an arts organization. Because budgets are tight, arts organizations depend on volunteers to keep their doors open. Volunteers can help with fundraising, marketing and events. Talk to friends and neighbors, and write to elected officials to encourage continued support for the arts.
“I think music in itself is healing. It’s an explosive expression of humanity. It’s something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we’re from, everyone loves music.” ~ Billy Joel
The Museum of Fine Art and Popular Culture will host a variety of live concerts of the music across the wide breadth of human cultures where the richness of all life has to offer may be enjoyed by the community.
Live shows offer an intimate atmosphere that occupies all the senses. Llistening to live music is one of the most pleasurable things you can do during leisure. This is attributed to the fact that a live performance brings a more memorable experience when compared to a radio broadcast or a video taped clip on TV. Additionally, there is more joy to listening to live music, as a performing artist gets to share his or her sentiments with the audience. He or she can freely express emotions and it helps in passing across a certain idea to the audience.
Listening to live music enables you to take part in the event in one way or the other. In live concerts, artists involve the crowd in singing along, clapping and even dancing. For this reason, live music can be used to bring people from different backgrounds together. Music enthusiasts enjoy listening to different varieties. As a result, live concerts attract people from different backgrounds. At the end of the day, you socialize, exchange ideas and it helps to promote peace amongst the audience. Moreover, it benefits the community in every aspect.
Live music is additionally an entertaining activity and suitable for everyone. You can be part of a live performance by singing along, dancing and even learning what is being conveyed in the song. For instance, a song can be used to pass across a cultural idea. To ensure that the message is passed efficiently, a cultural dance will accompany a live performance. Therefore, you get entertained while learning cultural values of different people. You get to celebrate life in a unique way and by exploring each artistic aspect of a performance, you experience the best entertainment.
Surveys of the general public reveal that bringing energy and vitality is perceived to be the top benefit of having performing arts presented in one's community.
A recent Health Research Forum brought into light more evidences of links between performing arts attendance and increased vitality, this time among individuals.
One research found that fine arts stimulation – attending films, concerts, or art exhibitions, or singing in a choir – improved perceived physical health, social functioning, and vitality (L.O. Bygren et al, Cultural participation and health: a randomized controlled trial, 2009).
Theatre and music performances showed the highest increases in vitality, while dance performances and movies showed smaller increases.
Based on these research findings, increases in vitality appear to be one of the strongest benefit of arts presentation, both at the community and the individual level. Moreover, these findings provide further evidence of a cause-to-effect relationship between arts attendance and health.
The bottom line is live music is beautiful and a culturally-valuable and personally-enriching experience that helps one celebrate life in a unique way. Get out and explore the world through its culturally-diverse music at the Museum of Fine Arts and Popular Culture.
In recent years, school curricula in the United States have shifted heavily toward common core subjects of reading and math, but what about the arts? Although some may regard art education as a luxury, simple creative activities are some of the building blocks of child development. Learning to create and appreciate visual aesthetics may be more important than ever to the development of the next generation of children as they grow up.
Developmental Benefits of Art
Motor Skills: Many of the motions involved in making art, such as holding a paintbrush or scribbling with a crayon, are essential to the growth of fine motor skills in young children. According to the National Institutes of Health, developmental milestones around age three should include drawing a circle and beginning to use safety scissors. Around age four, children may be able to draw a square and begin cutting straight lines with scissors. Many preschool programs emphasize the use of scissors because it develops the dexterity children will need for writing.
Language Development: For very young children, making art—or just talking about it—provides opportunities to learn words for colors, shapes and actions. When toddlers are as young as a year old, parents can do simple activities such as crumpling up paper and calling it a “ball.” By elementary school, students can use descriptive words to discuss their own creations or to talk about what feelings are elicited when they see different styles of artwork.
Decision Making: According to a report by Americans for the Arts, art education strengthens problem-solving and critical-thinking skills. The experience of making decisions and choices in the course of creating art carries over into other parts of life. “If they are exploring and thinking and experimenting and trying new ideas, then creativity has a chance to blossom,” says MaryAnn Kohl, an arts educator and author of numerous books about children’s art education.
Visual Learning: Drawing, sculpting with clay and threading beads on a string all develop visual-spatial skills, which are more important than ever. Even toddlers know how to operate a smart phone or tablet, which means that even before they can read, kids are taking in visual information. This information consists of cues that we get from pictures or three-dimensional objects from digital media, books and television.
“Parents need to be aware that children learn a lot more from graphic sources now than in the past,” says Dr. Kerry Freedman, Head of Art and Design Education at Northern Illinois University. “Children need to know more about the world than just what they can learn through text and numbers. Art education teaches students how to interpret, criticize, and use visual information, and how to make choices based on it.” Knowledge about the visual arts, such as graphic symbolism, is especially important in helping kids become smart consumers and navigate a world filled with marketing logos.
Inventiveness: When kids are encouraged to express themselves and take risks in creating art, they develop a sense of innovation that will be important in their adult lives. “The kind of people society needs to make it move forward are thinking, inventive people who seek new ways and improvements, not people who can only follow directions,” says Kohl. “Art is a way to encourage the process and the experience of thinking and making things better!”
Cultural Awareness: As we live in an increasingly diverse society, the images of different groups in the media may also present mixed messages. “If a child is playing with a toy that suggests a racist or sexist meaning, part of that meaning develops because of the aesthetics of the toy—the color, shape, texture of the hair,” says Freedman. Teaching children to recognize the choices an artist or designer makes in portraying a subject helps kids understand the concept that what they see may be someone’s interpretation of reality.
Improved Academic Performance: Studies show that there is a correlation between art and other achievement. A report by Americans for the Arts states that young people who participate regularly in the arts (three hours a day on three days each week through one full year) are four times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement, to participate in a math and science fair or to win an award for writing an essay or poem than children who do not participate.
Article by Grace Hwang Lynch from PBS Parents
![Houdini “Buried Alive” 8-Sheet Poster, 1926. Last poster for Hungarian-American Harry Houdini [born Erik Weisz] ((1874-1926) . Otis Litho Company, Cleveland, Ohio.](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/549ae178e4b037c197072e8b/1421368415665-W7EUZ2DPIODUB5E6HEQO/Houdini+1926+Poster.jpg)
