"Valori Plastici features Giorgio de Chirico's essay 'Il ritorno al mestiere' ('The Return to Craft'), directing painters to the accomplishments of the past and the noble value of classical measure as as cure for the 'deformations' wrought by modern artists."

That reminded me of a De Chirico painting I saw at the Art Institute:

The Eventuality of Destiny, 1927 Giorgio de Chirico, Italian, born Greece, 1888–1978 Oil on canvas, 57 1/2 x 45 in. (146 x 114.3 cm) signed and dated lower left: G. de Chirico/1927 Gift of Mrs. Frederic Clay Bartlett, 1964.213 © 2008 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SIAE, Rome

When I checked the artwork list, I noticed "The Eventuality of Destiny" is now at the Guggenheim.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010
"Return Further in Time to Classical Beauty"
5:50pm

Man, Myth, and Sensual Pleasures: Jan Gossart's Renaissance opened today at the Met and will be there until January 17, 2011. The tiny image of Gossart's painting at the exhibition webpage looked familiar. I read the tiny print and learned it had travelled from the National Gallery of Art. Hunting my photo archives, I happily found I'd grabbed a digital souvenir from our visit in 2007:

Portrait of a Merchant (Jerome Sandelin?), c. 1530 Jan Gossaert, Netherlandish, c. 1478 - 1532 Oil on panel, size : 63.6 x 47.5 cm (25 1/16 x 18 11/16 in.) framed: 83.8 x 68.6 x 5.7 cm (33 x 27 x 2 1/4 in.) Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, NGA 1967.4.1

I wasted a bit of photo space, so the large size is only 1120x1400 pixels, but I did think to capture a detail of the man's hand:

What exquisite details!

The Met's tiny teaser tells us "Gossart was among the first northern artists to travel to Rome to make copies after antique sculpture and introduce historical and mythological subjects with erotic nude figures into the mainstream of northern painting."

Both the show at MOMA and this show are so enticing, I wish I could go!

But I like to think they could appear nearer to me, as did the 'European Bronzes', which I saw both at the Met and at the Getty.