Furniture at the High Museum of Art

After a couple of years of badgering my dad to come to the High Museum because of their permanent exhibition on American made furniture, I finally did it.  Dad, and some of his friends followed me to the High and they loved it.  They gawped and talked among each other about inlays and what kind of tools a person would use to make the elaborate on some of the furniture on display.  Quite endearing, really.  I did notice that groups of furniture native to a geological area had common themes.  When I looked at furniture from the North, I saw a lot of references to Classical themes from the Greek and Roman eras.  When going to the Southern furniture, they had much simpler designs and used only Biblical scenes.

And thanks to seeing a Maxfield Parrish painting, I have now morphed into a fan of his work.  Originally, while I liked what he did with blue color schemes, but his work always verged on the saccharine.  Not as bad as Thomas Kinkade’s work, but it almost went there.  I changed my mind.  Reproductions do not this man justice.  I forgot the name of one work featured there, but the way Parrish rendered one painting, it resembled a photograph.  Not to mention the checkerboard design which I can imagine that it must have taken him days to complete.

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