Collection Connection: Fever Within and the Distant Landscape

Posted on February 20, 2017 by Carolyn Allmendinger

Ronald Lockett, Traps, 1995.

“Collection Connection” blog essays suggest a motif, style, material, or other element that links works of art on view at the Ackland Art Museum. What connections can you find on your next visit?

*Click images to enlarge*

Currently on view in the exhibition Fever Within, Ronald Lockett’s Traps (right) includes a circular hole in the weathered metal of the upper right corner that reveals a distant landscape scene. Framed by rusted tin, a mountain range and water suggest a setting for the deer seen in the foreground. As the landscape isn’t fully integrated with the rest of the imagery, it also seems like an ornament, an embellishment of sorts, in contrast with the trapped deer.

Battista Dossi, The Holy Family with the Infant St. John the Baptist, c. 1530.

Many Renaissance artists treated distant landscapes in a similar way. In Battista Dossi’s Holy Family with the Infant St. John the Baptist (left), for example, the verdant hillside with Renaissance buildings could be understood as part of the setting – the place Mary, Joseph, Jesus, and John are traveling to or from. The boundary between the foreground and background is not as pronounced as the one we see in Traps, but Dossi’s landscape also functions as a kind of ornament – not essential to a picture of the Holy Family, but a beautiful addition to it that reinforces the notion of a journey.

In Lockett’s A Place in Time (below) the same motif appears, here enclosed in a three-dimensional frame and echoing a second nearby circle in which a skeletal animal appears.

Landscapes painted in a circular format appear in European and American art of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Jasper Cropsey’s Landscape with Mountains at Sunset (below) is one such example. Both artists and art lovers experimented with a device called a Claude glass – a round mirror that reflected the scene behind the viewer’s back. The idea was that the reflection improved the scene by making it more picturesque than what one could see by looking directly at it.

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Ronald Lockett, A Place In Time, 1989.

Jasper Francis Cropsey, Landscape with Mountains at Sunset, c. 1850.

CAROLYN ALLMENDINGER is the Ackland’s Director of Academic Programs.

IMAGES: Ronald Lockett, American, 1965-1998: Traps, 1995; found tin, colored pencil, and nails on wood. William S. Arnett Collection of Souls Grown Deep Foundation, L2015.2.1.

Battista Dossi, Italian, c. 1490-1548: The Holy Family with the Infant St. John the Baptist, c. 1530; oil on wood panel. Ackland Fund, 85.22.1. On view in Gallery 13.

Ronald Lockett, American, 1965-1998: A Place In Time, 1989; wood, cloth, net, tin, industrial sealing compound, oil, and enamel on wood. William S. Arnett Collection of Souls Grown Deep Foundation, L2015.2.10.

Jasper Francis Cropsey, American, 1823-1900, Landscape with Mountains at Sunset, c. 1850; oil on paper. Ackland Fund, 85.19.1. On view in Gallery 16.

Compelling Questions and a Commitment to Art: Phillip Cox, ’16

Posted on May 6, 2016 by Carolyn Allmendinger

In Fall 2014, Phillip Cox (’16) enrolled in the Research Methods seminar for UNC Art History majors in their junior year. The course topic was “The Nude in Renaissance Art” and each student in the class chose a print from the Ackland’s collection from a group pre-selected by Dr. Tania String, who taught the course. Each student’s print was to be the focus of their semester-long research project. Phil found many of the prints intriguing. He decided to let other students in the course choose their prints first, and when his turn came there was only one print left: Hercules and Antaeus by Agostino Veneziano. It was not one of the prints he’d hoped for, but as he proceeded with his research, he realized there were compelling questions to investigate.

By the end of that fall semester, he had decided to write his Senior Honors Thesis on Veneziano’s Hercules and Antaeus. Phil took several opportunities to share his thesis research and he invited feedback on it: he presented his research at the Ackland’s Student Showcase, at UNC’s annual Undergraduate Research Celebration, and at the ACC Meeting of the Minds Conference, held this year at Syracuse University and featuring outstanding undergraduate research at ACC universities. Continue reading →

Carolina Students: Make the Ackland YOURS!

Posted on September 19, 2013 by Carolyn Allmendinger

Carolina students at the opening reception for “The Sahmat Collective,” September 12, 2013. Photo: Briana Brough

As the Ackland Art Museum’s director of academic programs, I’m blogging to tell you that because the Ackland is the University’s art museum, it’s your art museum. This is a great time to check out all the ways that you can be involved with the Ackland, making memories, meeting great people, enjoying art, and having fun! Continue reading →