The circle route
“ Intermezzi, Opus IV, Bl. 12: Amor, Tod und Jenseits (love, death and beyond) ‘‘ (1881), etching and aquatint on paper, in the show “50 Years and Forward: Works on Paper Acquisitions,’’ at the Clark Art Institute, Willliamstown, Mass., through March 10.
In gorgeous Williamstown.
Williamstown in the 1880’s.
Expansion of the surveillance society
“Nadar Elevating Photography to the Level of Art” (1862 lithograph), by Honore Daumier (French, 1808-1879), in the show “On the Horizon: Art and Atmosphere in the Nineteenth Century,’’ at the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Mass., through Feb. 12.
— Photo by Clark Art Institute
Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (1820-1910) known by the pseudonym Nadar, was a French photographer, caricaturist, journalist, novelist and balloonist. In 1858, he became the first person to take aerial photographs.
The show analyzes how some artists incorporated new scientific and technological discoveries about the atmosphere into their work. For more information, please visit here.
War imagery in Williamstown
“Portrait of a Civil War Veteran Wearing a Grand Army of The Republic Medal” (tintype), in association with the show “As They Saw It,’’ which includes three films, at the Clark Art Institute, in Williamstown, Mass. The show runs through May 1. (Williamstown also has the fine Williams College Museum of Art.)
The museum says of the show, which presents four centuries of war imagery:
"Images have long been an accompaniment to war, whether to document fast-paced events in the heat of battle, to sway public opinion through propaganda, or to convey deep emotions like grief and fear."
A hot and satisfying Jan. 20 party in the northern Berkshires
On the evening of Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, a score of revelers gathered in a field in the northern Berkshires to bid farewell to Donald Trump in a time-honored way, by burning him in effigy.
Head of Trump effigy
— Photo by Ann McCallum
Williamstown architects Andrus Burr and Ann McCallum fashioned a seven-foot-tall figure of the Apricot Toddler.
Trump effigy
— Photo by Ann McCallum
Sharing hot toddies and welcoming the local fire marshal around their bonfire, the group read aloud the names of the 147 members of the U.S. House who had voted not to accept the election results.
— Photo by Ann McCallum
Like the bonfires lit across Britain after the defeat of the Spanish Armada or Queen Elizabeth II’s Jubilee, or just simply to exorcise a demon, the Trump burning was both cathartic and warming.
— Photo by Cleo Levin
William Morgan is a Providence-based art historian and writer.
Flying fabric
“Valparaiso Green Cloak for Three’’ (stitched fabric), by Pia Camil, in her show “Velo Revelo,’’ at the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Mass., through Jan. 3. The show has two sculptures that use fabric, that, according to museum, recall “Mexican craft and modernist American paintings. Her works evoke themes of public and private space, indigenous craft, gender and identity.’’
Or a certain kind of spring
In Williamstown, best know for Williams College (part of it above) and the Clark Art Institute
It is not Spring -- not yet --
But at East Schaghticoke I saw an ivory birch
Lifting a filmy red mantle of knotted buds
Above the rain-washed whiteness of her arms.
It is not Spring -- not yet --
But at Hoosick Falls I saw a robin strutting,
Thin, still, and fidgety,
Not like the puffed, complacent ball of feathers
That dawdles over the cidery Autumn loam.
It is not Spring -- not yet --
But up the stocky Pownal hills
Some springy shrub, a scarlet gash on the grayness,
Climbs, flaming, over the melting snows.
It is not Spring -- not yet --
But at Williamstown the willows are young and golden,
Their tall tips flinging the sun's rays back at him;
And as the sun drags over the Berkshire crests,
The willows glow, the scarlet bushes burn,
The high hill birches shine like purple plumes,
A royal headdress for the brow of Spring.
It is the doubtful, unquiet end of Winter,
And Spring is pulsing out of the wakening soil.
‘‘Berkshires in April,’’ by Clement Wood (1888-1950)