Level 3, Arts of Southern Asia
Siddartha Guatama, also known as Sakyamuni, was the founder of Buddhism. He preached his doctrines in northern India during the 6th and 5th centuries B.C. In this majestic sculpture from Thailand, he is shown in a monk’s robe, which is the way he appeared while preaching. His hand gestures convey calm, beneficence, and freedom from fear. His richly jeweled ornaments and crown indicate the Thai belief that the Buddha has ties with human kings and could be shown as a ruler as well as a Buddha (Enlightened One).
Sakyamuni Buddha
Thailand: Lopburi style
c. 13th century
Bronze with gold gilding
Dallas Museum of Art, gift of David T. Owsley via the Alvin and Lucy Owsley Foundation, Cecil and Ida Green Acquisition Fund, and Wendover Fund, 2006.21
Level 3, Arts of the Pacific Islands
One of the most distinctive of all Indonesian sculptures is the protective figure that hung above the entrance to the innermost room of the Mentawai clan house. Important ceremonies were held in that sacred space, and women and children slept there at night. With brilliant ambiguity, the curving limbs of this sculpture can be read as the four legs of a guardian creature, whose real monkey skull seems alert to evil forces, or as elements of a composition that is symbolic of cosmic order.
Protective figure (jaraik) in the form of an animal
Indonesia: West Sumatra, Mentawai Islands, Siberut Island, Taileleu people
c. 1895–1905
Wood, pigment, shell, metal, rattan strips, grass fibers, and monkey skull
Dallas Museum of Art, The Eugene and Margaret McDermott Art Fund, Inc., 2001.265.McD
Level 3, Arts of the Pacific Islands
On the island of Leti, ritual dances once featured a small sculpture representing the head of an animal. The dancer held the masklike object in his mouth by the tab extending from the back of the head. Only three complete examples are known to have survived. Two masks in European museum collections represent pigs. This mask depicts the head of a bird, perhaps a pigeon or rooster. The imagination of the sculptor is apparent here in the improbable use of boars’ tusks to create the white feathers that rise above the head and encircle the face.
Mouth mask depicting the head of a bird
Indonesia: Southeast Moluccas, Leti Island, Luhuleli village
19th century
Wood, boars’ tusks, clamshell, mother-of-pearl, buffalo horn, resinous material, and pigment<br />
Dallas Museum of Art, The Eugene and Margaret McDermott Art Fund, Inc., 1997.141.McD
Level 3, Arts of the Pacific Islands
Peoples of the island of Flores once carved pairs of ancestor figures that were enshrined in special buildings. Rarely were they as expertly carved as this couple. The distinguishing features here are the attention to anatomical detail, the lively sense of personality and gesture, and the use of horsehair for hair and bits of glass for eyes.
Pair of ancestor figures (ana deo)
Indonesia: Lesser Sunda Islands, west-central Flores, Nagé people
Early 20th century
Wood, horsehair, and glass
Dallas Museum of Art, The Eugene and Margaret McDermott Art Fund, Inc., 2001.270.1.McD
Level 3, Decorative Arts
Multiple layers of richly worked glass, a technique Louis Comfort Tiffany used with great success, provide an appropriately watery effect for these images of undersea life. Thick stonelike glass “jewels” and wavy and twisted “drapery” glass forming heavily encrusted borders further enliven the scenes. Although Tiffany’s glass usually incorporated lush natural imagery, only a few surviving windows depict aquatic themes—an unusual subject more often seen in select examples of his glass vessels, enamels, and lamps. In this pair of windows, Tiffany’s appreciation of Japanese art and his innovative approach to stained glass design are dramatically revealed.
Pair of "Under the Sea" windows
(window with sea anemone,"Summer," and window with starfish, "Spring"), from the suite "Four Seasons Under the Sea"
Louis Comfort Tiffany (American, 1848–1933)
Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company (American, 1892–1902)
c. 1885–1895
Stained glass, leading, and wood frames
Dallas Museum of Art, The Eugene and Margaret McDermott Art Fund, Inc., 2008.21.1–2.McD
Level 3, Decorative Arts
Weighing close to eighty pounds, this monumental cistern was made for Frances Hastings, the 10th Earl of Huntingdon, following his appointment to the cabinet of King George III. Originally it would have held ice to chill wine in the earl’s country home as a grand display of his power and prestige. The cistern itself bears lion-mask handles and both the royal arms and those of the Earl of Huntingdon. Hoofed legs connected by a chain form its detachable base. The size of this cistern and the likelihood that such a large piece would have been melted down as tastes changed make this a particularly rare object.
Huntingdon Wine Cistern
Abraham Portal (English, 1726–1809)
1761–1762
Silver
Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Mrs. Patricia D. Beck, 2003.41
Level 3, Wendy & Emery Reves Collection
The Reves Collection is particularly rich in watercolors, but its crown jewel in the medium is this great still life by Paul Cézanne. In this magnificent late work, familiar objects from the artist’s still-life repertoire are gathered on a rectangular wooden kitchen table. Cézanne’s late work is marked by an emotional identification of the artist’s creative power with the creative forces of nature in general. His brilliant colors, the remarkably free and impulsive brushwork resulting even in undisguised drips and splatters, the use of uncovered patches of white paper, and the superimposed washes of varying transparency animate every inch of the composition, opening up all elements to a sense of breathing and pulsating life. The viewer becomes absorbed into the space of the painting and Cézanne’s process of translating perceived reality into spatial notations of line and color.
Paul Cézanne
(French, 1839–1906)
Still Life with Apples on a Sideboard, 1900–1906
Watercolor
Dallas Museum of Art, The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection, 1985.R.12
Level 4, Ancient Art of the Americas
The crown represents the earliest gold-working tradition of what is today the country of Peru. This early art style, known as Chavín, was the first to have widespread influence throughout the Andean region, along the coast of South America. The three frontal figures on the crown, which look rather human but have feline and serpent features, represent the Staff God, a primary deity of Chavín religion. The most famous image of that god is engraved on a slab of granite. This version in gold is equally dramatic but can be read more easily.
Crown with deity figures
Peru: north coast or highlands, Chavín style
Early Horizon, c. 900–200 B.C.
Gold
Dallas Museum of Art, The Eugene and Margaret McDermott Art Fund, Inc., 2005.35.McD
Level 4, Ancient Art of the Americas
The ancient Maya perfected the art of chipping flint to create flat blades that were deposited in caches during dedication rituals for architecture and stone monuments. This example is one of the most elaborate known. Maya art often shows deceased kings being carried to the afterlife in crocodile-form canoes, paddled by gods. That is one interpretation of the imagery here. Others refer to the Maya story of creation, especially the rebirth of the Maize God, and to Maya astronomy, where the movements of the stars reenact the events of creation.
Eccentric flint depicting a crocodile canoe with passengers
Mexico or Guatemala: Maya culture
c. A.D. 600–900
Flint
Dallas Museum of Art, The Eugene and Margaret McDermott Art Fund, Inc., in honor of Mrs. Alex Spence, 1983.45.McD
Level 4, American Art
The brilliant decoration on this immense cabinet is made of thousands of small, elaborately cut pieces of mother-of-pearl and tortoiseshell, arranged in patterns suggesting flowers and vegetation. It was created in the Portuguese colony of Gôa in India. The cabinet doors conceal shelves, drawers, and assorted compartments for storage. When these doors were opened, the owners could display their holdings of small sculpture, natural specimens, or other collections of intriguing and highly precious objects. Once completed, the cabinet was likely shipped across the Indian Ocean to the Spanish colonial city of Manila in the Philippines. From there it crossed the Pacific on a galleon bound for Mexico. Its first owner was Don Melchor Portocarrero, 3rd Count of Monclova, who was Viceroy of Peru from 1689 until 1715.
Cabinet
Viceroyalty of New Spain
c. 1680–1700
Mahogany, mother-of-pearl, ivory, and tortoiseshell
Dallas Museum of Art, gift of The Eugene McDermott Foundation, in honor of Carol and Richard Brettell, 1993.36
Level 4, American Art
This majestic bedstead is among the most significant examples of Gothic revival furniture made during the mid-19th century, when the fashion for this type of work was at its zenith. Made in Philadelphia by Crawford Riddell, it includes a profusion of architectural motifs suggesting the details of a great Gothic cathedral. The bed’s richness and scale stand as a regal statement of power and status befitting its history.
The bed was commissioned in 1844 by the supporters of Kentucky politician Henry Clay as part of a suite of furniture intended for the White House but which, like the presidential hopeful for whom it was made, never reached its anticipated destination. Clay’s loss to James Polk in that year meant the bed and its accompanying suite were sold to a wealthy Louisiana planter, Daniel Turnbull, who installed the set in his home on the Mississippi River, Rosedown, where it remained until acquired by the Dallas Museum of Art in 2000.
Bed
Crawford Riddell (American, active 1837–1849)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
c. 1844
Brazilian rosewood, tulip poplar, and yellow pine
Dallas Museum of Art, gift of three anonymous donors, Friends of the Decorative Arts Fund, General Acquisitions Fund, Discretionary Decorative Arts Fund, and the Boshell Family Foundation, 2000.324
Level 4, American Art
Grand in scale and scope, this painting was a popular and critical success when it was exhibited in 1861. One of the most important paintings ever created by an American artist, this work was lost from view for most of the 20th century until its dramatic rediscovery in the late 1970s in a boarding school in England. Famous for its record-breaking price at auction, as well as its history-making donation to the Museum by an anonymous benefactor, The Icebergs also has the power to captivate viewers, who thrill to the dramatic struggle between humanity and the monumental forces of nature.
Frederic Edwin Church
(American, 1826–1900)
The Icebergs, 1861
Oil on canvas
Dallas Museum of Art, anonymous Gift, 1979.28
Level 4, American Art
Painted in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, this image of the Two Lights Lighthouse explores the powerful contrasts between sunlight and shadow. One of the best-loved American painters of the 20th century, Edward Hopper was celebrated for his urban and rural scenes that compellingly speak to the isolation of modern life.
Edward Hopper
(American, 1882–1967)
Lighthouse Hill, 1927
Oil on canvas
Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Maurice Purnell, 1958.9
Level 4, American Art
The bold, colorful forms of this painting herald the birth of a new type of art in Texas at the middle of the 20th century. Toni La Selle, a longtime teacher at Texas Woman’s University, was one of the first artists in the state to commit to abstraction, shown here by this small-scale yet powerful canvas that announced her ambitions and revealed her talents.
Toni La Selle
(American, 1901–2002)
Untitled, 1947
Oil on canvas
Dallas Museum of Art, Janet Kendall Forsythe Fund in honor of Janet Kendall Forsythe on behalf of the Earl A. Forsythe family, 2007.22
Sculpture Garden
Mark Handforth created Dallas Snake specifically for the Dallas Museum of Art’s Sculpture Garden, marking it as the first work exclusively designed for the garden since Ellsworth Kelly’s Untitled in 1984. Snake is composed of three discarded, reused intertwined objects—an I-beam, a red lamp post, and foot-long anchor chains—all of which combine to feature a colossal and graceful abstraction of a cobra-like form. Handforth often uses industrial objects in order to challenge the viewer to reconsider the ways in which we engage our built environment.
Mark Handforth
(British, born Hong Kong, 1969)
Dallas Snake, 2007
Steel, aluminum, and glass lamp head
Dallas Museum of Art, DMA/amfAR Benefit Auction Fund and Lay Family Acquisition Fund, 2007.39
© 2007 Mark Handforth
