Sightings from Navigator 4, 8

Michael Newberry writes to Navigator, from Rhodes, Greece, to say that his Web site (www.michaelnewberry.com) has several new features, including a monthly studio update, "The Newberry Manifesto," and an essay by philosopher Stephen Hicks: "Post-Postmodern Art," which ends with a postscript in praise of Newberry's work. Also available on Newberry's Web site, and on TOC's, is the interview with Newberry that Susan McCloskey did for the September 1999 Navigator.

Linda Dulaney, executive director of the Art Renewal Center, located in Port Reading, New Jersey, recently wrote Navigator to announce the arrival of ARC's first newsletter. ARC's mission statement cites thirteen goals for the center: (1) To create the largest on-line museum on the internet, with hundreds of thousands of oversized high-quality images of all the known works of the greatests painters and sculptors in human history, cross-referenced to the largest encyclopedic online art reference liberary of historical texts, essays, biographies, and articles; (2) To promote a return of training, standards, and excellence in the visual arts; (3) To provide responsible views opposing those of the current art establishment when warranted, especially as expressed in critiques of current art exhibits, and in aesthetic philosophy; (4) To make available to all interested, the best of the rich GoodArt archives of debates, controversy, and dialogue that has spanned the last three years on the Internet; (5) To disseminate the rich artistic heritage of 2500 years of accumulated knowledge in creating traditional, realistic images touching upon universal and timeless themes; (6) To advance the undersanding that Great Art begins with great themes and expresses them poetically through mastery of all aspects of technique; (7) To repudiate the idea that development in art requires destruction of boundaries and standards, pointless emphasis on "newness," or pursusit of the bizarre and ugly as ends in themselves, and to expose as artistic fraud those works conceived only to elicit outrage; (8) To provide a technical resource for artistic information, including referrals to experts; (9) To provide a forum for dialogue and exchange among educators, scholars, curators, collectors, and artists; (10) To promost scholarship and research on the artists of the past and the rediscovery and preservation of their techniques and methods; (11)To establish basic visual literacy standards across the world. Drawing must be introduced as part of the core curricula in K-12 and developed progressively until high school and beyond; (12) To provide impetus for the reestablishment of high standards of performance in the visual arts of painting, drawing, and sculpture, and to promote the concept of recognizable quality as a primary criterion for the judgment of fine art; (13)To offer a platform for discussion—both scholarly and informal—on art history, aesthetics, technical considerations, art education, and other related issues, and to maintain honesty and frankness in our interaction with everyone, regardless of predisposition.

Those interested in learning more about the Art Renewal Center may check out its Web site: www.artrenewal.org. According to ARC's newsletter the site garners 40,000 visits a month, with an average visit lasting twenty-two minutes. Certainly, it offers a feast for the eyes.

Meanwhile the American Society of Classical Realism (Web site: www.classicalrealism.com) reports that the Newington-Cropsey Foundation Gallery of Art, in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, presented an exhibition of works by fourteen members of the ASCR Guild of Artists, from February 5 to April 30. A full color catalogue is in production, with an introduction written by art historian William H. Gerdts. The catalogue will feature reproductions of work by and information about all of the particpating artists.

Fans of Romantic-Realist art may be interested to know the names and creators of the artworks featured on Alexandra York's book, From the Fountainhead to the Future, which was shown in a The Objectivism Store advertisement in last month's Navigator. According to York, the works are (clockwise from the upper left): Awakening of Eve, bronze, by Frederick E. Hart; Spring at Crescent Pond, oil, by Richard Whitney; Dance!, bronze, by Marc Mellon; Four Horses, bronze, by Elisabeth Gordon Chandler; Nearing the Bend, oil, by Peter Adams; Sea of Dreams, egg tempera, by Sam Knecht; and Reaching, bronze, by EvAngelos Frudakis.