vince’s ear

This is technically the third post in a series involving the statues and sculpture of Philadelphia. It is about one of the few cemeteries which is also a National Historic Landmark, the Laurel Hill Cemetery.

The cemetery is a historic one with many prominent Philadelphians laid to rest, such as George Gordon Meade, commander of the Union forces at the pivotal Civil War battle Gettysburg. It also brags of being an extensive sculpture garden filled with angels, cherubim, guardians, and all sorts of decorative monuments. One such monument was designed by the artist Alexander Milne Calder (William Penn statue on top of Philadelphia City Hall), the father of Alexander Sterling Calder (the Swann fountain in view of City Hall), and grandfather of Alexander Calder (among other things the mobile looking at the fountain and City Hall from the art museum).

If you ever find yourself in the Philadelphia area, besides the Art Museum and the Rodin Museum, which are just a stone’s throw away from each other, you definitely should visit Laurel Hill, which is about a five minute’s drive from the museums (see the link for directions); admission is always free. There are plenty of reasons for visiting- it’s more than a nice walk in the park on a Sunday afternoon, no matter how many times you go you always find a new interesting monument, and visiting such a somber and peaceful area can be very therapeutic.

You can see the tombstone used for Adrian in Rocky Balboa (2006). Also don’t forget to see Rocky himself near the famous Rocky steps. Below are a couple of the angels you’ll find. I also put the shots from this recent visit in the Sculpture and Statues Gallery.

Laurel Hill Cemetery website.

See also Sculpture and Statuary in Philadelphia Part 1 and Part 2.

This is the second post in a series documenting my photo-journalist efforts to capture every statue and sculpture in and around the city of Philadelphia on my SLR camera. You can read the first post here: Sculpture and Statuary in Philadelphia Part 1 , and I highly recommend checking out the new shots, as well as the ones from the first expedition at my Philadelphia Statues photo gallery.

Attempting to shoot every statue in the city is quite a challenge, but an exhilarating one. It’s a lot of fun being a tourist in your own city because I guarantee most city dwellers would find all kinds of new and exiting artifacts all over their town if they just went and looked. As I have said before, if you have any suggestions on what I can take pictures of, especially around Philly, let me know in the comments. I hope you enjoy this post and the photos. I plan on making many more from my ongoing excursions downtown, and as a travel companion I hope you enjoy the trip as well.

Founders, Statesmen, and Ghosts?

I especially had a lot of fun with this one, as there is a bit of a story behind it (as is I’m sure of all these statues). The statue is of the founder of my state, William Penn, hence Pennsylvania, or “Penn’s Woods.” In this statue he holds the land charter given to him by Charles II in 1681 to repay a debt owed to his father, Admiral Penn. This is the largest land charter in history. William Penn is a prominent figure in U.S. history, contributing to the uniting of the colonies to become the United States, and his Pennsylvania frames of government would inspire the democratic principles of the United States Constitution.

The statue above rests in the garden of the Pennsylvania Hospital. But some folks may argue against my choosing of the word “rests” as there is quite a legend behind this particular monument. The monument itself had strange beginnings as it was found by mistake by Penn’s grandson in London and bought for a negligible price. It was later donated to the hospital where it has remained since.

Legend has it that the old statue steps down from its pedestal every night and wanders the garden. Could this strange specter be the ghost of old Willie Penn haunting the garden? Could the statue be restless and wander for a nightly stroll? Some stories have it that every New Years Eve, the Penn statue comes to life and walks the Earth.

You know where I’ll be late New Years Eve this year. OK, maybe not, but it still makes for an interesting story. Now this next fellow of Philadelphia prominence I recognized a block away. I talked about him a little here about half way through the post. It is none other than my favorite surgeon, Dr. Samuel Gross depicted in Thomas Eakins’ “The Gross Clinic.”

“The Gross Clinic” was almost bought by the Walton family of Walmart for $68 million but was thankfully overbid by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Wachovia, Pew Charitable Trust and many other public and private donors. The painting shows Samuel Gross, scalpel in hand, conducting surgery on a boy in a classroom at Thomas Jefferson University. The painting at first received little praise but has since been recognized as Eakins’ masterpiece.

Throughout the city you find statues of many statesmen from throughout U.S. history. Here are Commodore John Barry, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Robert Morris.

 

The Philadelphia Museum of Art

In the first post I showed a whole bunch of statues from around the Philadelphia Museum of Art and in and around the Rodin Museum. In this post I will emphasize some of the statues from the collection inside the art museum. Unfortunately there are just too many to include so I’ll show below some of my favorites. Be sure to check out the gallery to see some of the many sculptures found in the permanent collection, once again too many to include. I hope to include more in subsequent posts.

Why not start off with a head of our dear old Ben Franklin. Now this jolly fellow had so much to do with Philadelphia and the founding of our country that I won’t even go into it, but direct you to this article if you’re interested.

Click the thumbnail for larger version. It was funny as I took this picture a man came up with his daughter and asked her “who’s that?” She then of course replied Benjamin Franklin! She also added that the bust off to the left in this picture is his wife. I got a good laugh from that. He sits here in the American collection of the museum.

These next couple of shots are just a few of the sculpture pictures I took that were in the early American and European collections. The rest you can find in the Sculptures Gallery, as will the rest of the more modern ones which I will show you here after these next few pictures.

 

 

By the way the last Rodin sculpture above was difficult to shoot because I couldn’t get in front of it. The reason was because it was After 5 at the museum on Friday night and the place was swarming with people, and this one being near the bar made it next to impossible to stand in one spot to take a picture. I’ll explain Friday after 5 in a later post about the museum itself.

And for the viewer with more modern tastes, these shots are from the American collections and Modern and Contemporary Art collections. I’ll start it with one of Duchamp’s most famous works of art, his “Fountain.” I talk a little about it here.

The Perelman Building

Speaking of modern art, I’ll go ahead and plug the newest addition to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Ruth and Raymond G Perelman building. The museum’s only addition in 80 years, it houses many examples of modern art and textiles, to include a nice collection of sculptures. I’ll go further into detail about this nice new building across the street from the main building when I do my post about the Philadelphia Museum of Art. First check out some of the sculptures you’ll find there. This first one is by one of my favorite sculptors Jacques Lipchitz. I could do a whole post about him.

 

Well this concludes my second post involving the statues and sculptures around the city of Philadelphia but certainly not the ongoing adventure of taking their pictures. There is too much to include in a single post which is why this is broken down across several articles.

Once again I must encourage you to check out the galleries to the right of your screen to see the others, they’re all worth viewing. Furthermore no matter where you live in the world I highly recommend a visit to the city of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to at least see the Art Museum. Take a tourist trip around the city to see the many landmarks and historical spots around downtown, you can arrange a tourist trip complete with bus rides and guided tours. Or you can do what I do and just walk around, you’re bound to find something.

I’d say you can’t throw a rock without hitting a historical monument, but I wouldn’t recommend throwing rocks at the statues. You might anger William Penn…

Sculpture and Statuary in Philadelphia Part 1

Technorati Tags: sculpture, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, statues, statuary, historical, monuments

This is the first post in a series regarding my photographic efforts to capture all the statues and sculptures throughout the city of Philadelphia, which boasts the largest amount of statues in a single city in the world. The photos in this first expedition were taken in April, 2006 and were part of a collection of 122 shots, all of which are in the gallery named Philadelphia Statues on the sidebar. The next post in the series will center around our outing in the Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philly and will include some of its beautiful monuments and statues.

The Museums

My adventure started on a warm and sunny spring morning near the Philadelphia Art Museum. My route was to shoot some of the works around the museum, make my way up Kelly Drive through Fairmount Park and back again, continue past the museum, and proceed up the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

The first in this showing will be the Jacques Lipchitz masterpiece, “Prometheus Strangling the Vulture” which stands in front of the east entrance of the museum on top of the famous Rocky Steps. ( The Rocky Statue is currently [12/07] on view at the foot of the east entrance steps.) Lipchitz exhibited at the Philly Art Museum in 1949 at the 3rd Sculpture International, and his sculptures pepper the city streets. Another prominent example of his artistry is at the Columbia University in Manhattan, “Bellerophon Taming Pegasus.”

 

 

Many of Lipchitz’s sculptures revolved around a mythological theme, as do most of the ones around around the Rocky Steps. The next one is a good example.

I’ll have to find out the name of this one and update this, but it is one of my favorites. The following is the huge statue in the small park across the circle from the east entrance generally depicting Native American symbols and a prominent historical figure (perhaps George Washington) atop a stead. It is truly an amazing spectacle.

In one of the subsequent posts I will devote the entire session to the genius Auguste Rodin. He was a nineteenth century French artist whose works, like Lipchitz’s, also focused on some mythology. If you are ever in Philadelphia to see the Art Museum on some Sunday afternoon, don’t skip the Rodin Museum located near the main building on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Housed here is the largest collection of Rodins outside Paris. Its a very decent collection including one of the many versions of “The Burghers of Calais,” and the “Age of Bronze.” In the front of the Museum is the “Gates of Hell” and the famous “The Thinker.”

“The Burghers of Calias”

“The Gates of Hell”

“The Thinker”

Some other decent works under the Museums heading could have come from the recently opened Perelman Building. The Perelman Building is the museums latest gallery and marks the only addition in 80 years. It houses many modern art pieces including sculpture and textiles. Admission is free until 2008.

The Warriors

Too many to display in a single post are the numerous military statues you will find all over the city. They include war heroes, prominent generals, and history makers spanning the centuries. It is interesting to note the symbolism involved with these soldiers. Next time you see a statue of a soldier on horseback notice the feet of the stallion. If both front feet are in the air the subject died in battle, one foot signifies the subject died from wounds received in battle, and both feet mean the rider died of natural causes. The first here is U.S. Grant, the important Civil War general and final commander of the Union Army, whose ride here calmly keeps both front feet firm, as we know he later became President.

The next several here I can’t recall who they are but you and I can both tell if they died in battle, from wounds inflicted in battle, or continued to live after the war.

Each apparently died from wounds received in battle.

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Fairmount and Love Parks

There are some great sculptures all around Fairmount Park up Kelly Drive and along the way to Love Park. The angel here is just one example in Fairmount Park along the Skuykill River. Love Park was created by Philadelphia city planner Edmund Bacon, the father of Kevin Bacon. The Love Statue was created by Robert Indiana.

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Three Generations of Calders

Some of the most influential sculptors of Philadelphia have to be Alexander Calder, his father Alexander Sterling Calder, and his father Alexander Milnes Calder. If you stand in the balcony over the Great Stair Hall you see a huge Alexander Calder mobile over the steps. Turn around and look out the window to observe further down the Parkway the huge fountain about halfway to City Hall, this was the work of ALexander Sterling Calder. Off in the distance you can see atop the City Hall, the statue of William Penn, sculpted by none other than the eldest Alexander Milnes Calder.

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Some Other Great Sculptures

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Sculpture and Statuary in Philadelphia, Part 2