Corinthian Helmet by auntietk
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Description
We've spent a couple of days in Houston, a museum stop on our way to Louisiana.
Saturday afternoon we went to the Rothko Chapel, which was a treat, and Sunday we spent half a day at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Just by luck they had a Rothko retrospective on display (only until January, so we came at the right time). His work really is more interesting in person than it is in photographs. The challenge for me, being an abstract photographer at heart, was how to take an abstract photograph of an abstract painting! :P
MFA Houston isn't a large museum, but we still couldn't get through the whole thing. We would say, "Let's just zip through this room and get a feeling for the period," and we'd get hooked looking at something or other, which is as it should be. It's no fun to just zip through a museum display, even if the style or the period isn't one's favorite thing! Religious art from the 1600s? Plan: zip through. Reality: Wow ... look at the colors, and how beautiful the paint is! I would stick my head in some room or another and there would be a Kandinsky, or an O'Keefe, or a Picasso or something. Now how can anybody pass that stuff by? They had an exhibit of Vishniac photographs, so of course we had to look at the whole thing. After taking four hours to do a mile and a half, our feet were tired and our brains were full, and we gave up. But what a great day! :)
Today, Monday, we head for Louisiana.
If you want details on this helmet, check out the MFAH catalog here: Corinthian Helmet
Comments (17)
bugsnouveau
Wonderful shot and fun story
anahata.c
oh I fully understand...big museums cajole us into thinking "we'll see everything" but you can't, you just can't...They're in fact repositories that we have to return to many times to get close to their offerings. So having a day or two to see a big museum is great but really frustrating at the same time. You get intimacy with a few pieces, a lot of 'tastes', and---with everything else?---the feeling that you just passed by a whole period of history like it was an afterthought. Whoosh. Bye, 14th C....And when you go back and look at the pieces you neglected? You sometimes fall in love with the very stuff you couldn't stand initially. Museums pull on us in a million ways, they're gigantic artistic 'teases', and yes, you just can't get into everything in one visit. You walk away feeling you were at a party of lots of amazing people, and you only talked to a few...When you get to NYCity, I hope you can return to a few of the museums. You'll be overwhelmed, as everyone is. And MoMA is a massive collection of one modern art masterpiece after the next, and you'll be exhausted before you get out the door. Hope you'll be able to return. (And yes, Rothko close up is a whole other ball game from books and jpgs: They must be seen in person. "Zoomed," full view...)
Well! Of all the things you'd post from that visit, who knew you'd post this!!! Your excerpt is haunting and mysterious, which is how these old masks/helmets should look. They stare at us from a deep past; and given that this is probably for war (maybe for a ceremony), it has a haunting sense of fear and mournful loss. It has it because of your angle, crop, lighting, and your use of all black around it. You brought that out of the mask. And I love the detail in the corrosion too. Beautifully caught, Tara, I mean this is how to capture a mask. More museum shots, please---this is what we want to experience in a museum. We're so inundated with art everywhere, in museums, we can forget how intimate an artwork can be. The shadow on the far right draws this mask back to the past from which it came...beautifully done.
herhey2000
Great image.
wysiwig
Your treatment of this brings out a feeling of a ghost from the past. A superb image of an extraordinary relic. The condition is amazing. You do not say what photographs of Vishniac you saw. He was well known for his work in photomicroscopy of biological subjects but became famous for his documentation of Eastern European Jewish life just before the beginning of the Holocaust. If you have not seen it, look up his book "A Vanished World" which contains some of those images.
LivingPixels
Lovely shot T!!!
Juliette.Gribnau
awesome helmet and capture
T.Rex
Your description reminds me of Mad Magazine (1967) of a tour guide telling a bus load of tourists "We are behind schedule! We have 7 minutes for this museum. Now remember, NO LOOKING!" I still get a laugh out of that one. And how about the fully serious air line advertisements from the 1960s of how many European capitols one could visit in a 7 day tourist trip with just THIS airline!
Now, I wonder who once had his head inside this helmet. Isn't it strange how such items can outlive their owners by X-thousands of years? I wonder what artifacts we as individuals will leave after us, to be discovered X-thousands of years in our future? Very good close up photo, even showing details for the green corrosion in the bronze. Keep up the good work! :-)
photosynthesis
Wonderful closeup view that reveals all the subtle colors & textures on this relic. But then I would expect nothing less than this type of attention to detail & subtle touch from you...
moochagoo
Seems like a greek helmet. Perfect lighting.
MrsRatbag
Can you imagine wearing this rough beast on your head? Next to your soft skin? I can't, those warriors must have been made of iron themselves...you'd get scars before you even got close to a battle! What a great closeup, I can almost imagine the eyes peering back at me.
RodS
As I look at this helmet, I am hearing the footsteps of phalanxes of sword and pike carrying troops marching through time. You really used the light to awesome effect here, Tara!
Yeah....... Museums. I have yet to manage that 'take a quick look around' thing. It takes about 2 minutes in the first room, and I'm done for the next three hours... And don't even get me close to a book store, either...
durleybeachbum
You are so right about museum and galleries! This close photo makes me feel that the helmet is alive and silently and sadly watching all who pass.
By the way, your photo didn't appear in my activity feed so I'm glad I always look also in the photography section!
kenmo
Excellent capture and presentation of this helmet...
CavalierLady
Oh my word, I would have been in heaven.... I love ancient history and archaeological finds from centuries past! This is stunning, and I just love this close up. Wonderful image, Tara!
dochtersions
Oh, is this a jewel!!!! And so amazing photographed, with all the details, which are so many. It's if I could touch it , you really bring it to life. And what an great day this must have been, my friends.
jocko500
I miss going this month so hopeful i go in jan. cool shot
nikolais
a perfect closeup