This month’s Art After Dark looks back at classic works from art in the Norton’s European Collection to masterful cinema and chamber music.
ICYMI click below for May's lineup
Concert
Antonio Rincón was born i nto the heart of a musical family consisting of several generations of classically trained musicians and professional violinists. He began his formal training under the tutelage of his father Augusto Rincón at Santo Domingo’s National Conservatory of Music, where he later continued his studies with violinist Jolanda Janckar. Mr. Rincón was chosen to study at the New World School of the Arts with former concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic Rafael Druian, as well as Sigrun Edvaldsdottir, Cathy Meng Robinson, and legendary violinist Ida Haendel.
Artist At Home
Nicaraguan native, Mayling Pao is a local artist known for her expressive, figurative paintings. Her artwork has been exhibited in galleries and art festivals in Miami, West Palm Beach, and Kansas City, MO. Recently, she was commissioned to paint a public mural of Jim Morrison which can be seen on Clematis Street in downtown West Palm Beach. When she is not painting or sculpting in her studio based in Northwood Village, she enjoys teaching art and inspiring creativity in children at the Center for Creative Education.
Collection Insight
This month’s Collection Insights is brought to you by Dena Seigel. Dena has been a docent at the Norton Museum for the past four years and currently serves as the Chairperson of the Docent Advisory Council. Dena discusses Landscape at Céret, circa 1921, painted by Chaim Soutine.
Chaïm Soutine (French, born Russian Empire, now Belarus, 1893-1943), Landscape at Céret, circa 1921
As a docent for the past four years at the Norton Museum of Art, I have had the privilege to show our collection to many school groups and adult visitors. It was difficult to choose just one work of art!
My choice from the European Collection is Landscape at Céret by Chaim Soutine. At first glance all you see is a jumble of autumn-like colors. But the more you look, the more you see. It is like reading a good book, the more you read the more that is revealed.
Soutine moved from Paris to Céret in the Pyrenes in 1918. There he produced a number of landscapes. The Pyrenes are known for their winds and this painting shows the ferocity of nature.
His paintings of this period have a frenetic energy, filled with texture and layers. His jagged brushstrokes are multi- directional, layering color on color. I am drawn in by the colors, the sensuousness of the impasto brushstrokes and the airless quality of the scene.
Soutine is an expressionist artist and he paints through his feelings. His work is a combination of what he is seeing and what he is feeling. Like a great work of fiction, it is revealed over time.
- Dena Seigel, Chairperson, Docent Advisory Council
Film Favorite
One of the most influential and inventive films of all time is Federico Fellini’s 8 ½ (1963). The Norton’s Senior Development Officer for Membership, Leslie Francisco, tells us why he picked this film favorite.
The Norton’s European Collection features exceptional works that transcend time, and when I think of enduring classics, Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini’s 8 ½ immediately springs to mind. 8 ½ depicts a disillusioned filmmaker who is grappling with producing his next film amidst a complicated artistic and personal life. As the film progresses, the filmmaker loses sight of what is real and tangible, frequently plunging into dream sequences.
What I most enjoy about 8 ½ are the moments of self-reflexivity. Fellini deliberately reveals the process of the film’s own creation, challenging the audience to step outside of it and contemplate the role of the filmmaker. As a result, the film takes on a unique self-awareness that blurs the lines between the film’s fiction and Fellini’s own reality.
- Leslie Francisco, Senior Development Officer for Membership
8 ½ is available to stream via Amazon Prime Video and on YouTube.