Author: A Scholarly Skater
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Modern-day gargoyle carver Walter Arnold
Not much is known about the medieval stone carvers responsible for the gargoyles and grotesques on Gothic edifices, but there are many equally-skilled and talented artists making gargoyles today. Walter S. Arnold is one such carver, and he has been making gargoyles, grotesques, and other stone statuary for a several decades. He created over ninety…
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Co-ee-há-jo, a Seminole Chief by George Catlin
George Catlin (1796-1872) was a unique sort of artist/anthropologist/social activist/entertainment producer combination who achieved lasting notoriety for his sympathetic paintings of Native Americans. Having become interested in Native American culture at a young age, the adult Catlin travelled throughout the American west with William Clark (of Lewis and Clark fame) to visit and depict members of the plains tribes. Catlin…
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Gargoyles and Grotesques of Hughes High School, Cincinnati
Continuing with last week’s theme of academic gargoyles and grotesques, let’s take a look at the grotesques of Hughes High School in Cincinnati. This grand building is home to over 90 grotesques representing a wide variety of subjects and skills relating to science, mechanics, fine arts, humanities, and liberal arts (1). Pictured above is the grotesque of athletics in the…
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Camel Grazing at Mosque by Louis Comfort Tiffany
Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933) is world famous for his works in stained glass and other decorative arts, as well as for founding Tiffany Studios. However, did you also know that he was an accomplished painter? While that doesn’t come as a complete surprise to me, of course, I had never really focused on that fact until one…
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Grotesques of William Rainey Harper Memorial Library, Chicago
I have recently become obsessed with gargoyles and grotesques who are reading. (Possibly I feel kinship to them.) While doing research on collegiate gargoyles and grotesques a few months ago, I realized how many colleges and universities have at least one sculpture of someone reading a book. Both people and animals are shown in this studious pursuit, and they are…
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Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney by Robert Henri
Robert Henri’s stunning portrait of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. Whitney was a sculptor, collector, and founder of the Whitney Museum. Henri was an important American portraitist.
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Gargoyles and Grotesques of Wells Cathedral, Somerset, UK
Two weeks ago, I talked about the mouth puller grotesque and how common he can be in Gothic architecture. The grotesque above belongs to a related type – the thorn puller, who struggles to pull a thorn or some other painful irritant out of his foot. The thorn puller appears in many different churches and may…
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Gargoyles and Grotesques: Onigawara
Relief-carved demon faces on the ends of ridge beams in traditional Japanese architecture, onigawara are fantastic examples of grotesques outside medieval Europe.
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Sunlight on the Coast by Winslow Homer
I featured another painting by Winslow Homer a few weeks ago, but today is his birthday, so it would be just wrong to not acknowledge it. This work is very different in tone from “The Milkmaid”, although the actual style of painting is quite similar. Homer is well-known for his seascapes, many of them painted…
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Gargoyles and Grotesques of Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland, England
This rather distressed-looking grotesque lives on Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland, England. He sticks out his tongue and pokes at something inside his mouth, as though he’s having some dental problems. I can’t help but feel a little sorry for this odd little dude. He belongs to a subset of gargoyles and grotesques known as “mouth pullers”…
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The Gross Clinic by Thomas Eakins
The controversy surrounding the career of American realist painter Thomas Eakins (1844-1916) is perfectly encapsulated by his great painting The Gross Clinic. The Philadelphia-born Eakins loved naturalistic detail and was a strong advocate for the use of nude models in artists’ education
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Gargoyles and Grotesques of The Britannia (527 West 110th Street), NYC
The early-twentieth century Britannia apartment building on West 110th Street in New York City counts among its residents not just one or two, but at least six grotesques. The 1909 building by Waid & Willauer architects was hailed in its day for its welcoming and “homelike” aesthetic.(1) Accordingly, its grotesques are supposed to represent aspects of…
