Famous Art Pieces With a Family Gathered at a Table
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The large-scale pieces of art displayed on stage at the Pageant of the Masters, a nightly summer performance in Laguna Beach, California, look as though they could've been plucked off the walls of some of the world'south most celebrated museums and art galleries. On closer inspection though, it becomes evident that each masterpiece is an illusion. A blink of an eye or a subtle shift in posture and suddenly audience members are well aware that what they're looking at is a collection of tableaux vivant, or "living pictures," and the characters in each piece are real people.
This play a joke on of the eye has been cartoon crowds from beyond California and around the world for nearly a century. The Pageant of the Masters dates back to 1932, when local creative person John H. Hinchman produced a summer festival for art enthusiasts who also happened to exist in nearby Los Angeles for the Olympic Games. Information technology proved and so successful that the post-obit year organizers added "living pictures" to the lineup, featuring real-life replicas of a number of famous works, including James McNeill Whistler'southward 1871 oil painting titled Whistler's Mother. The only difference is that an actress dressed in full costume, replete with a lace kerchief on top of her head, stood in for his female parent, Anna McNeill Whistler.
The tradition of creating tableaux vivant dates back long before the pageant, with historians tracing it to medieval times. Living pictures evolved from Ancient Greek mythology and miming, and were mutual liturgical and ceremonial events at the stop of a mass during that time. In Victorian England, these performances served every bit entertaining parlor games. The live recreations featured "figures posed, silent and immobile, for xx or thirty seconds in imitation of well-known works of fine art," according to The Chicago School of Media Theory. Past the mid-1800s, the practice crossed the Atlantic to the United States, where it become a popular fad. More than recently, in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Getty Museum in Los Angeles challenged people to recreate famous works using article of clothing and props they had on hand in quarantine.
Fast frontwards to today, and the pageant'south 86th season is underway, as part of the Festival of Arts of Laguna Beach, an eight-week art extravaganza that includes a juried fine art show, guided art tours, workshops, live music and more. This twelvemonth's event is peculiarly special because the 2020 pageant and festival were both canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. (The only other cancellation in its history was a four-twelvemonth hiatus during World State of war 2.) Equally with previous seasons, information technology'due south existence held outdoors at a theater located on the Festival of Arts grounds. Sure Covid-19 precautions are being taken past the festival. The pageant, for example, has enhanced its cleaning and disinfecting protocols. Masks are optional if you've been vaccinated.
Each year the pageant takes on a unlike theme. In 2019, when the show last ran, the theme was "The Time Car," and the pageant toured through by, present and future artworks as well every bit of import art events in history, such as the 1913 Armory Bear witness, likewise known as the International Exhibition of Modernistic Fine art, in New York City. This year's theme, "Made in America," focuses on works created by American artists. In total, there are twoscore different artworks performed on an outdoor stage, with each narrated segment lasting approximately 90 seconds in length before the phase coiffure seamlessly transitions to the next artwork while a live orchestra provides a musical backdrop.
(This video from 2018 shows how a "living picture" is pieced together.)
Some of the highlights from this year'south event include Nighthawks past Edward Hopper; The Passage of the Delaware past Thomas Sully; a trio of sculptures titled Hiawatha's Marriage, Hagar and The Death of Cleopatra past Edmonia Lewis; and Lincoln Memorial by Daniel Chester French. Still, there are a few exceptions to the all-American lineup, including the Statue of Liberty by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and the prove'south long-time finale, The Final Supper by Leonardo da Vinci.
Every bit an attendee, I was able to get behind-the-scenes an 60 minutes or then earlier the show and saw several of the artworks up close on phase. But there was something obviously missing: the characters. While the execution of each landscape and scene was impressive, it wasn't until I was seated in the audience and saw the performers in their roles that each artwork truly came to life. There were times that I felt similar I was at a museum viewing the original masterpieces and not in a theater surrounded by fellow art lovers.
The responsibility of choosing each year's theme goes to Diane Challis Davy, who celebrates her 25th flavour as pageant director this yr. (She fabricated her pageant debut as a volunteer cast fellow member when she was a teenager in 1976, appearing in The Tea Party past painter Mary Cassatt.) Working a year in advance, she chooses the theme, and so, with the help of swain pageant staff members and volunteers, selects which artworks will be in the final lineup.
"Dan Duling, our scriptwriter, takes images of each potential artwork and pins them on a bulletin board to create a storyboard," Challis Davy says. "Nosotros'll haggle over which ones should be included. We don't select annihilation that nosotros tin can't physically recreate or think we can't exercise a decent job in reproducing. We used to take to visit libraries to do our research, simply now everything is available on the internet and we have accessibility to vast fine art collections and tin contact museums directly about gaining permission to practice our recreations."
Once the lineup is in place, a squad of set up designers helmed past technical director Richard Hill creates the sets, with each one replicating the artworks down to the slightest brushstrokes. Strategic lighting is used to transform each piece from three-dimensional to two-dimensional, eliminating whatsoever shadows that cast members might make during their xc-second performance. An oversized frame borders the scene. Costumery and makeup are besides important to getting the illusion just right. Each costume is custom-made past a group of designers and volunteers using muslin, with every piece painted with a combination of acrylic and latex paint in the exact likeness of the original artwork. Volunteer makeup artists use both makeup and body pigment to ensure that the bandage members resemble the subjects of the art. Oft digital projections and LED lighting are incorporated to add the final touches before the mantle goes up.
Cast members are also volunteers, and many of them have been coming back to perform year later on year, including Michelle Pohl, who appeared in her first pageant in 1987 at the age of v. (Her function was in The Family Gathering, a Dresden porcelain slice, the creative person unknown.) She volunteered as a cast member off and on until 2019; this year marks her offset pageant every bit makeup director, leaning into her background as an creative person. Although she's no longer in the cast, her husband, daughter and son are featured regularly.
"Each year, the pageant brings us dorsum," Pohl says. "It'south really a family event, non only with my own family, merely the people backstage get a function of your pageant family."
Pohl recalls how standing even so on stage for xc seconds at a fourth dimension and maintaining the pose can be challenging.
"If y'all take an easy pose, the time goes by quickly," she says. "When I was xiv, I posed equally the adult female in the Columbia Pictures [movie company logo]. I had to hold my arm at a 90-degree bending. Nowadays nosotros have an armature where yous tin balance your arm, but back so I had to hold my arm upwardly on my own. Information technology wasn't like shooting fish in a barrel, I was screaming inside."
Matthew Rolston, a Hollywood-based photographer, captured cast members in full makeup and costume for a new exhibition at the Laguna Art Museum chosen "Matthew Rolston, Art People: The Pageant Portraits," on view through September 19. In a recent interview with CNN he says, " There is a sense of wonder at the illusion because what they do is then amazingly well crafted. You really think for a few moments that y'all're looking at an artwork, and then yous realize it'south human beings that are painting and costumed. It'due south a simulacra and an illusion—somewhere betwixt humanity and a depiction of humanity. And that has some intrinsic, almost primitive fascination for people. "
That trick of the eye is what Challis Davy strives for, and to keep audiences captivated she tries to include a new artwork each season, she does rely on a few fan favorites that go reused again and over again.
"It can be time consuming to make the iii-D sculptures, like the 'Lincoln Memorial,'" she says. "It'due south become a tradition for da Vinci's 'The Final Supper' to be our finale. A seat at the table is coveted, and many of the gentlemen return to the same function from year to twelvemonth, with some of them actualization in the finale for 25 to 30 years. They may non exist the youngest apostles, but their center is in it, and they beloved it."
The Pageant of the Masters runs nightly through September iii.
Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/at-pageant-of-the-masters-famous-works-of-art-come-to-life-180978259/
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