The paintings of Fernand Leger (1881 – 1955) often celebrate machine-made objects and modern city life. However, in the late 1920s, he began to include natural forms in his work. The curving line down the left-hand side of his 1927 painting Leaves and Shell softens the underlying geometric structure of horizontal and vertical lines. It also acts as a link to the organic shapes of leaves and a shell. These naturalistic elements, with their streamlined shapes, are closely connected to the abstract parts of the image.
One of my favorite contemporary furniture designers is Chris Schanck, and I always look forward to seeing his latest pieces when I attend The Salon Art + Design show each fall. Schanck’s work embraces the tension between dilapidation and opulence, asking us to find unconventional beauty in the imperfect. His contribution to this year’s fair was the Stuffed Shell Chair in a copper finish. Let’s take a closer look at this beauty.
If you enjoy seeing how very obscenely rich people lived 400 years ago or longer, go hang out at The Met for a few hours and have your mind blown. This fancy cup, made from a gilt-plated-silver shell of a Nautilus is a thing that you can see at this gargantuan museum, and it emphasizes the point that some rich people like to have really fancy things to look at and, maybe, use. Continue reading Nautilus Cup→
