Monthly Archives: June 2023

My Art Photography: JOAN MIRÓ (1893-1983, Spanish), Joan Miró’s Chicago, 1967 (installed 1981), Chicago, Illinois.

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FEATURE image: Joan Miró, Joan Miró’s Chicago (sometimes Miss Chicago), steel reinforced-concrete, colored ceramics, 1967, Brunswick Building Plaza, 69 W. Washington Street, Chicago. This artwork is Miró’s only monumental sculpture. Text & artwork photograph by author.

Joan Miró (1893-1983) is a Catalan who is a major dadaist artist  “Dada” is a nonsense word but its artistic movement that started around 1915 in Zürich, Switzerland, has brought into existence many famous artworks by a range of artists. As World War I raged on in Europe between 1914 and 1918, young artists and intellectuals reacted with art, performance, and poetry that was radically experimental, dissident and anarchic. These artists countered the horrors of the war and capitalist culture by moving past a degradation of art to contributing to an anti-art under the banner of “dada.” These ideas and ideals of dada quickly spread to the art capitals of Paris and New York – and beyond.

Joan Miró’s Chicago is the artist’s first monumental sculpture in the world.

Joan Miró’s Chicago is in this dada milieu as it sits in the Brunswick Building Plaza, directly across Washington Street from another Spanish artist’s 50-foot-tall Cor-Ten steel sculpture from the same time (1967): Chicago’s Picasso in Daley Plaza. Miró’s sculpture expresses the neck, bustline, and slim and wasp-waisted hips of a woman’s torso with outstretched arms and a simplified head. She is made of steel-reinforced concrete with brightly colored ceramics that are added to the scooped-out hem of her skirt. Like other of Miró’s sculptures of female figures from the 1950s, the shape of the skirt is that of an overturned broad-lipped cup or chalice. The bronze, crown-like headdress is like the dadaist found objects that populated Miró’s artwork whether paintings, sculptures, ceramics and more throughout his career. Joan Miró’s Chicago possesses qualities evocative of primitive fertility or earth goddesses similar to those found in the ancient Mediterranean world.

One of Dada’s major sculptural forms to emerge and which was masterly accomplished by Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), was the “readymade” which used familiar mass-produced objects (i.e., ceramic urinals, household tools, etc.) for high art pieces. The dada expression of the readymade increasingly asked the viewer to take seriously these consumer items and found objects as high art on an equal platform with lofty traditional productions of a monied arts establishment.

Dadaists experimented boldly with new media such as collage (Jean Arp, 1886-1966), airbrushed photography (Man Ray, 1890-1976) and nonsensical poetry (Hugo Ball, 1886-1927). These art forms freely combined as well as crossed over its categories, i.e., nonsensical poetry interpreted in performance art.

Joan Miró, Barcelona, June 13, 1935 by Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964). Public Domain. This work is from the Carl Van Vechten Photographs collection at the Library of Congress. According to the library, there are no known copyright restrictions on the use of this work. As the restrictions on this collection expired in 1986, the Library of Congress believes this image is in the public domain. The Carl Van Vechten estate has asked that use of Van Vechten’s photographs “preserve the integrity” of his work, i.e, that photographs not be colorized or cropped, and that proper credit is given to the photographer which is the photograph here.

Miró’s art does not accept the world as it is.

In the 1930’s and 1940’s Miró worked with material such as paper, string and even toothbrushes and, sometime later, natural objects such as rocks and fruits to make loose, playlike assemblies, many of which due to fragility or destruction, did not survive. Miró did not transform or repurpose these found objects – bells, jars, vases – but by leaving them alone saw they retained what the artist called their own “magical powers.” Miró’s more permanent artworks – paintings, ceramics, plaster or bronze sculptures, etc. – possess the same randomness as his looser assemblies which is the artist’s intended reflection of nature’s promiscuous progeny. The artist turns his back on established art principles and pursues his own independence which, following intuition unto slow resolve, improbably marries diverse objects of recognizable forms making for an assembly of more than one class or nature. They are of a realm not always of this world.

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Though Miró completed a maquette of the sculpture in 1967 (called Project for a Monument for Barcelona), its production into a 40-foot sculpture – the artist’s only monumental sculpture – was delayed until 1979. The hundreds of thousands of dollars for the production and installation of Joan Miró’s Chicago was provided by a private-public partnership in Chicago.

SOURCES:

A Guide to Chicago Public Sculpture, Ira J. Bach and Mary Lackritz Gray, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1983, pp. 73-74.

https://magazine.artland.com/what-is-dadaism/ – retrieved June 29, 2023.

Joan Miró, Janis Mink, Taschen, 2006, p. 93.

Miró, Guy Weelen, translated by Robert Erich Wolf, New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1989, pp. 178-179.

My Architecture & Design Photography: WAUKEGAN, Illinois. (19 Photos & Illustrations).

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FEATURE image: 946 N. Sheridan Road, Waukegan, Illinois 1876. A fuller description of this house whose appearance is almost out of a 19th century novel is found in the post below. All text & photographs by author.

INTRODUCTION.

Waukegan, Illinois, is an historic community on Lake Michigan about 40 miles north of downtown Chicago. It is one of the oldest settlements in Illinois. The site of the city was visited by French explorers Louis Jolliet (1645-1700) and Père Jacques Marquette, S.J. (1637-1675) in 1673 where Waukegan began as a French trading post and Potawatomie village.

Inside the Kiva (c.1905-1912), oil on canvas. 20 in. x 30.25 in., Kate Cory (1861-1958), Waukegan Historical Society. Waukegan photographer, sculptor, painter and muralist Kate Cory moved to Newark, New Jersey, with her family as a child. Between 1905 and 1912 she lived among the Hopi of the Oraibi Mesa in Arizona where this painting was made.  Public Domain.

Waukegan’s origins as “Little Fort.”

“Little Fort” was the first name for the environs of Waukegan. It started around 1700 as a log building overlooking the Waukegan River on its southwestern shore as it drained into Lake Michigan. This point marked the portage from the Lake to the Des Plaines River as it traveled west. The state of Illinois was established in 1818. Over the next quarter century, the Illinois volunteer army fought local native American tribes and forced them to sign treaties and migrate west of the Mississippi. The Potawatomie left Waukegan by 1829 as they ceded their land in this area and throughout northeastern Illinois to the U.S. Government. The 1830s brought vast changes to the area with opportunities for development. In addition to the land transfer, the building of the Erie Canal in 1830 brought boatloads of settlers from New England and New York State into the Illinois and the Midwest region.

Along with other communities which developed on Chicago portage routes, the history of Waukegan’s founding and development shares a similar time frame as well as personalities and activities. In 1835 Thomas Jenkins was the first settler at “Little Fort.” Jenkins was followed in quick succession by other enterprising and hard-working New Englanders who settled much of northern Illinois in the 1830s which was the edge of the Western wilderness. Like Marquette and Jolliet in the 17th century, these newcomers recognized the potential monumental impact that access to Lake Michigan had for transport of goods in and out of the region and what that commercial activity and subsequent settlement would have on the surrounding real estate. As more people arrived, the creation of a village emerged. The area was platted and streets designated, and in a contested election in 1841, “Little Fort,” became the governmental center for a recently formed Lake County.

Little Fort Becomes Waukegan.

Between 1844 and 1846 the town’s population multiplied from 150 to 750 persons. In 1849 the community changed its name from “Little Fort” to Waukegan. By 1859, when the town was incorporated as a city, Waukegan boasted a population of 2,500 people. Chicago, by comparison, had a population of 112,172 denizens in the 1860 census. Waukegan is an English alliteration that closely approximated the word for “fort” or “trading post” in the Algonquin language. In the 2020 census Waukegan reported a population of 89,321 people.

Growing population in the port city. Coming of the railroad.

Waukegan had a natural deep harbor and was a port city. This feature attracted merchants and farmers who could readily ship their goods, produce, and grain from Lake and McHenry County businesses and farms to Chicago –- and, from that point, to the Midwest and the world. Waukegan soon became one of the busiest ports on the lake. When the railroad came to Waukegan in 1855 (today’s Chicago and North Western Railway), it stimulated interest in Waukegan as a manufacturing town that included ship and wagon building, flour milling, sheep raising, pork packing, beer brewing and dairy farming (Hawthorne-Melody Farms). The railroads made it feasible for the establishment of larger industries which appeared in Waukegan at the end of the 19th century such as U.S. Sugar Refinery, Washburn and Moen Wire Mill (U.S. Steel Corporation), U.S. Starch Works, and Thomas Brass and Iron Works, among others. This mercantile and agricultural activity generated sufficient wealth for its citizens to build big houses along Waukegan’s main streets. These residences expressed the current tastes in residential styles from Greek revival and Italianate styles to the Victorian and Prairie School.

1890-1930: Population boom fueled by immigration.

Between 1890 and 1930 Waukegan experienced a population boom fueled by European immigrants and, in the 1920’s, Black Americans during the Great Migration. Waukegan thrived though by the end of the 20th century, the city suffered from an exodus of its population to farther west suburbs. This was accompanied by a shuttering of industries as management sought cheaper labor in other countries. At the same time, Waukegan was welcoming a new influx of immigrants from Latin America.

Famous residents.

A few of Waukegan’s most famous residents in history include comedian Jack Benny (1894-1974), science fiction writer Ray Bradbury (1920-2012), World War II combat photographer under Colonel Darryl F. Zanuck (Twentieth Century Fox) Albert Klein, the aforementioned fine artist Kate Cory and NFL quarterback for the Cleveland Browns Otto Graham (1921-2003).

Even after he became famous, Jack Benny never forgot his hometown of Waukegan.
Science Fiction writer Ray Bradbury said he had a sign over his typewriter for 25 years as advice to himself and other writers: “DON’T THINK.”
When Otto Graham played for the Cleveland Browns the team played in 10 consecutive title games, 4 all American Conference and 3 NFL championships. In Waukegan, Otto Graham’s father was a music teacher who taught Jack Benny to play the violin.

PHOTOGRAPHS:

408 N. Sheridan Road, 1875. Built in the Italianate style in 1875. The set of four symmetrical bay windows on the first and second floors have 12 tall thin windows. The moldings have scroll cut, incised, and cut out brackets with heavy decorative surrounds with keystones. In the center above the canopied main entrance are a second floor and gable windows with heavy shoulders for its surrounds. Above the gable window is punched out, playfully decorative bargeboard. The two story porch to the south (left) while integrated to the Italianate building is a later turn-of-the-century addition.
414 N. Sheridan Road, 1847. The strict Greek Revival-style modest building dates from 1847. Built by John H. Swartout, the frame house has a portico with a perfect classical pediment with Doric columns holding up a blank entablature. The façade hosts three identical openings – two being windows with shouldered moldings and a door with a transom. It is a simple and relatively small building that was in need of repair in 2014 when this photograph was taken by the author.
438 N. Sheridan Road, 1840s. The house was built up around a small 1840s Greek revival Style house. The Italian Villa style with its tall central tower, porch and columns, double brackets under the eaves and pediments above the windows, dates from the middle 1850s. the central door starts with the rope molding around the double doors and ascends to double arched windows on the second and third floors.
438 N. Sheridan Road, 1840s. Same house as above, southern exposure. The tower’s windows are replicated on each side at the same level as the front view.
505 N. Sheridan Road, 1850s. A central tower with a double window and a peaked arched pediment and a steep pitched roof marks this house from the 1850s as Greek Revival style. The door has heavy shoulders for its surrounds.
526 N. Sheridan, late 1840s. A Greek revival style house prevalent in the state of Ohio. The Greek Revival gable has short returns with the second-floor windows extending into the gable area. This is a construction short cut for these upper story rooms. The porch with its octagonal columns and front door entry with its heavily bracketed canopy are later additions although no later than the mid1870s.
619 N. Sheridan Road, 1840s. The present house was built around an earlier house erected in the 1840s. It is in the Victorian Gothic style. There are steep gables for the central tower and dormers. The central doors and windows have simple and neat surrounds.
Detail of same house above, 619 N. Sheridan Road, 1840s.
710 N. Sheridan Road, 1872. A restored Second Empire and Italianate Victorian mansion. The frame house features a double door entrance with glass panes and a veranda-like columnar front porch. A square-shaped second-floor porch is above the front entrance in the central section of the house and below its double bracketed cornice and Mansard roof.
Detail of double bracketed cornice of restored 1872 Second Empire and Italianate Victorian mansion at 710 N. Sheridan Road in Waukegan, Illinois.
837 N. Sheridan Road, 1858. The front porch and polygonal bay window were added to this late-1850s Italianate brick house more than 60 years later, around 1910.
907 N. Sheridan Road, early 1930s. Made of Lannon stone from Wisconsin, the buff-colored, blocky, sedimentary dolomite rock house is designed in the English Tudor style. It has a slate roof. The tall wide chimney is integrated into the façade of the solid stone wall building flanked by casement windows in gabled wall dormers.
Another view of same house above, 907 N. Sheridan Road, early 1930s. The well-designed monolithic stone and slate fortress was erected during the Great Depression.
946 N. Sheridan Road, 1876. An Italianate house has a central tower with notable openings – a ground floor heavy doorway; above that, a pair of windows under a semi-circular pediment; and finally, at the top, a triplet of windows under a triangle pediment. The second floor carries the semi-circular pediment design across three more of its windows and there are double brackets under the eaves. The porch is likely an early 20th century addition.
1004 N. Sheridan Road, late 1890s.

SOURCES:

A Guide to Chicago’s Historic Suburbs on Wheels and on Foot, Ira J. Bach, Swallow Press/Ohio University Press, 1981, pp. 97-111.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Chicago – retrieved May 3, 2023.

https://www.waukeganil.gov/181/History-of-Waukegan – retrieved May 3, 2023.

https://www.waukeganil.gov/178/Demographic-Information – – retrieved May 3, 2023.

https://www.waukeganhistorical.org/places – retrieved May 3, 2023.

http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1328.html – retrieved May 3, 2023

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Graham – retrieved May 3, 2023.

My Art Photography: ANONYMOUS/UNKNOWN. Royal (West) Portal, 12th century, Cathédrale de Chartres (1145-1220), France.

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FEATURE image: “Chartres, North Porch, Central Portal, LeftJamb” by profzucker is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. The North Porch was constructed at the start of the 13th century. The North Porch, like the North Rose Window (below) crafted in the same time, depicts the glories of the Virgin Mary along with Old Testament figures.

Chartres Cathedral in France is famous perhaps mostly for its stained glass. From the 12th and early 13th centuries, the shimmering beauty of its intact colorful windows is unparalleled. Almost all the windows are “read” from left to right starting at the base and ascending to the top.

The North Rose window in Chartres Cathedral displays the Virgin Mary and Child in the center surrounded by small circles of doves, angels and thrones. In the outer circles are depicted the 12 kings of Judah (who were Jesus and Mary’s ancestors) and the 12 minor prophets. “Chartres – cathédrale – rosace nord” by Eusebius@Commons is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Most of the church was rebuilt following a devastating fire in 1194 which destroyed much of the extant church and city. Notable exceptions were the mid12th-century west front with its royal doors and two contrasting towers. The rest of the church that is visited today – including, with a few exceptions, its magnificent stained glass windows – was rebuilt and crafted between 1195 and 1220.

The West Front is from the 12th, 13th and 16th centuries. The photograph’s column statues below are on the right side of the West Portal’s central door. Though likely originally intended in the 12th century to be enclosed in a narthex, that structure was not built and these sculptures remained outdoors. “Chartres 2014 – 2” by evocateur is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

These three doors of the West Royal Portal open directly onto the nave. They are an important part of what remains of the original mid12th century church since the rest of it was destroyed in the 1194 blaze. The portal displays a rigorous sculpture program taken from the Bible and Christian apocryphal writings. The precise identity of the column statues on either side of the doors is not certain.

The Royal (West) Portal, 12th century, Cathédrale de Chartres (1145-1220), France. While art historians have made attempts to identify the portal column statues, it remains speculative. It appears that these column statues represent Old Testament figures – in this photograph, possibly King Solomon at right holding a scroll and the Queen of Sheba next to him. What is important is the inexpressible joy that these faces of stone from almost 1000 years ago convey. Author’s photograph. 12/1989 1.24 mb

The 12th century artist’s ambition was to concentrate the life of these statues in their faces. While Chartres cathedral’s flying buttresses and its stained glass are rightly world famous, some art historians believe that it is the statuary that is the cathedral’s most interesting aspect. The statuary certainly represents 12th century art at its zenith.

SOURCES: Chartres: Guide of the Cathedral, Étienne Houvet, revised Malcolm B. Miller, Editions Houvet-la Crypte, n.d.