UT Downtown Gallery

First Friday, a cultural event that takes place the first Friday of most months, is a great opportunity to further explore the many art galleries and shops downtown. Unfortunately, the last thing I usually want to do on a Friday evening is walk around in a small, overcrowded space so the last time I took part in First Friday was about two years ago. The class trip to the UT Downtown Gallery was a nice visit and well overdue.

I was a bit miffed at all of the construction going on, why does every construction job in Knoxville take place at the same time, and it made it very difficult to listen to the lecture. I understand we were, metaphorically, killing two birds with one stone by having a lecture "on the scene", but with the construction and the fact that the other visitors had no problem sticking themselves right in our faces, I would have been able to concentrate better in a less awkwardly positioned space.

The gallery itself is very nice and clean and I have no doubt that Mike Henry, the manager and artist in town, takes great pride in making a visit to the gallery and enjoyable experience. The refreshments were a nice touch, a cool glass of lemonade on a muggy day like it was is definitely a welcome sight. Maybe I am just used to museums that yell at you if you have a drink in the galleries.

UT Downtown Gallery hosts around 12-14 new shows a year, primarily to attract new and returning visitors to the gallery and the current show was a complete collection of Salvador Dali's illustrations of Dante's Divine Comedy, a Renaissance masterpiece by the Florentine writer. He worked on them throughout the 1950's and 1960's, commissioned in 1951 by the Italian Government in celebration of Dante's birthday. When the project became public in 1954, the Italians were of course outraged that a Spanish artist would be commissioned for the illustrations instead of an Italian as Dante is one of their national heroes. The images have been immensely popular ever since and several editions in French and German have been produced in wood block printing. The original water color illustrations have been scattered as they were given as extras for buying the reproduced set before anyone realized that they should be kept together and preserved.

The edition owned by the Ewing Gallery, on temporary loan to the UT Downtown Gallery, is
believed to be a German produced complete set, and it is very rare to see all of the images together. Dali's prints were donated by University of Tennessee alumni Gary Johnson, a 1970 graduate in Engineering; it goes to show that anyone can be interested in art and make very generous donations to institutions. They are quite stunning; though I have never read Dante's Divine Comedy or any of his work, though I fully intend to do so now, I know enough about Classical and Christian mythology to understand the subjects of the illustrations.

My favorite images generally came from the "Paradise" section, as I tend to like pretty things. The Language of the Birds is extremely attention grabbing and dramatic. I love how fluid and expressive Dali was able to use the brush and how the swan seems to dissolve into the paper; it reminds me of Japanese zen painting.

In the "Purgatory"section, Ship of Souls is an eerie echo of doomed souls in purgatory wandering the vast, ghostly water. I was reminded of Hieronymus Bosch's Ship of Fools, c. 1490-1500, a satire of the excesses of the clergy on the brink of the Reformations of Martin Luther. It would be interesting to know if Dali ever saw the painting and if he was influenced by it.

Cerberus is a popular subject of art and myth, even today he is common depicted in video games and cartoons such as Disney's Hercules, 1997. Dali's Cerberus in the "Inferno" section is perhaps one of the most abstract and terrifying representations of the mythical beast I have seen. Seemingly cloaked in shadow, Cerberus is a terrible sight to behold as it rears intimidatingly at the unflinching figure in the lower right corner. I know I would not be as brave!

I learned that the street on which the gallery is located was originally much lower and only fairly recently was elevated to meet the bridge connecting to the rest of downtown and eventually the interstate. It is amazing how engineers are about to make such a dramatic change like that and one can still see the older street from the side. My visit to the UT Downtown Gallery was very enjoyable, except for a few qualms and I really need to check in on it more often.