ML138494
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Subject: (Interview). Subtitle: J. Carter Brown. Timecode In: 00:00:04. Timecode out: 00:14:55. Notes: Egyptian Art; Howard Carter; Tutankhamun; National Gallery of Art. Equipment Notes: Stereo=1; Split track. NPR/NGS RADIO EXPEDITIONS Show: Geographic Century - Howard Carter Log of DAT #: J. Carter Brown Date: 4/16/99 ng = not good ok = okay g = good vg = very good chatting with Don a lot of coughing 1:20 JCB: I¿m J. Carter Brown, director emeritus of National Gallery of Art and chairman of the fine arts commission and chairman of a fine arts television network called ¿Ovation.¿ ¿talk a little bit about the exhibition¿ 1:43 JCB: The Tut show as it got to be known was prob a high water mark in terms of excitement that any show has ever created was in 1976 at the Nat. Gallery, before the East building was opened it was in our West building and it had such an impact that visitors towards the end were setting up pop tents the night before to be first in line. What led¿ 2:14 JCB: I happened to be in Egypt at the time that we were just re-establish. diplomatic relations Kissinger¿s shuttle diplomacy and I went to the minister of culture and said we needed a great E. exhibition and shortly after I left they called a cabinet meeting and a decision was taken to do it and then it took a long time to gestate and when it came it had an enormous impact. Describe show, one or two major pieces. 3:05 JCB: The Tut show was very small it was only about 50 pieces but what pieces because the artistic quality of that particular moment in Egyptian art was abs. At the top of everything ever produced and in general Egyptian Art is fabulous. The show was organized by according to Howard Carter¿s rhythm of discovery so as you went in you were faced with a series of blocked walls in the original photographs they were taken at the time and then you would turn and see what he and Lord Canarvan actually saw the photos were black and white so many of the actual objects were gold they made a magical combination, the most important piece was the famous gold mask layer after layer and it was one of great pieces of sculpture that survives from any culture but the fact that it is solid gold gives it this extra umpphhh that blows people away I loved ¿Selkit everyone fell in love with Selkit this great sexy goddess in gold, who was one of four that was guarding the tomb and then there were objects of great interest like a game board that Tut he was afterall a kid, and the fun of playing these games which are like modern monopoly or checkers hurdled one back into time, imaginatively. The gold mask is an Idealized portrait of King Tut¿.has a lifelike quality which one does not associate with the stylized Egyptian art¿(argument about where to put mask)¿since there was no chronology to the art because they were all made about the same time¿the discovery made the story. What portion of collection in E. was shown at Nat Gallery? 5:48 JCB: The 50 odd pieces that we borrowed were only a tiny % of what came out of the tomb. And its so amazing to think that the tomb was robbed twice¿But ¿they couldn¿t get into the tomb itself¿but when you go into the Cairo museum its a separate section and the number of objects is absolutely overwhelming and this is what makes this archeological find unique really in 20th century archeology. compares to other collections and disc. Of antiquities 6:38 JCB: One hates to make invidious comparison but just so happens that E art lasted several thousand years and most of it looks very similar and Tut¿s father his wife¿s parents started a revolution , they left Thebes and went to Amarna(?) and liberated the artists to go and do sketches from nature and do a new kind of realism and so those same artists and craftsmen were the ones employed to do Tut¿s funerary objects and alth... (Notes truncated)
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- 26 Apr 2005 - Ben Brotman
- Digitized
- 26 Apr 2005 - Ben Brotman
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- 26 Apr 2005 - Ben Brotman