POIGNANT REFLECTIONS: 400 YEARS OF METHODS AND TECHNIQUES AT RISD MUSEUM

Five exhibits are currently on display at the RISD Museum, “Drawing Closer: Four Hundred Years of Drawing from the RISD Museum,” “Trading Earth: Ceramics, Commodities, and Commerce,” “Striking Chords: Music in Ukiyo-e Prints,” “Variance: Making, Unmaking, and Remaking Disability,” and “Inherent Vice.” And each exhibition highlights a different aspect of the RISD Museum’s collection and mission as an institution.

First, “Drawing Closer” brings together 67 works by European artists dating back to the 16th century that “consider how and why drawings were created, paying special attention to the materials they were made of and to the functions they served both in the artist’s studio and in the world outside it.”

While each of the drawings in this exhibition is a masterful example of illustration, two in particular stuck out. First, Jane Ogden’s “Bluebells and Primroses with a Bird’s Nest,” uses opaque watercolors to show a delightful scene of lovingly rendered greens and flowers surrounding the bright blue eggs of a chaffinch resting in a nest. The piece is highly detailed and delicate with each leaf and flower showing a deep texture.

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