THURSDAY. SEPTEMBER 19, 2002
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 34
'Milk and Eggs' served daily
Ben Shahn's "Myself Among the Churchgoers," 1939, is a tempera painting from the exhibit Milk and Eggs: The American Revival of Tempera Painting, 1930-1950.The exhibit features 52 tempera paintings and four non-tempera works from local artists. In tempera painting, artists combine raw pigment with water, egg yolks and occasionally egg whites.
Ethel Magafan's "Road to Gallile" ca. 1951 is part of the Spencer Museum of Art exhibit Milk & Eggs: The American Revival of Tempera Painting, 1330-1950. The exhibit runs from Sep. 21 to Nov. 17 2002
By Nathan Dayani
ndayani@kansan.com
kansan staff writer
Starting Saturday, the University of Kansas will offer some artistic food for thought.
Two new exhibits will open at the Spencer Museum of Art. Milk and Eggs: The American Revival of Tempera Painting, 1950-1950, opens in the Kress Gallery, complemented by an adjacent exhibit of the works of N.C. Wyeth, an artist known for his illustrations during the first half of the 20th century.
Both exhibits run until Nov. 17. The tempera exhibit features 52 paintings plus four non-tempera works from local artists. The Wyeth exhibit comprises 15 oil paintings and two ink drawings.
"I think the paintings are very visually engaging," said Susan Earle, the museum's curator of European and American art, of the tempera exhibit. "They are very different, there's not one style that unites them."
Andrea Norris, director of the museum, said the featured tempera works shared a common medium, not a style. Tempera painting combined raw pigment with water, egg yolks and occasionally egg whites. Norris said the exhibit included similar mediums that used combined pigment with milk instead of eggs.
Earle said both additives, when mixed with pigment, gave the paint a glue-like quality. Consequently, artists who used tempera paint painted on a hard surface rather than a canvas gave the work a strong and durable look.
She said tempera painting's heyday in Europe was during the 14th century. Later in the 20th century, American artists primarily from the East Coast, wanted to combine the traditional tempera techniques with American subjects.
"They thought it was going to give them a kind of pedigree, connecting them with history," Earle said. "I connected them to things that had been done over 500 years earlier."
Earle said both the European and American art communities returned to more traditional, conservative styles after World War I. retrenching from more abstract styles that characterized the beginning of the 20th century. She said realism and social realism were common themes in many of the exhibit's featured paintings from the '30s.
"During the Depression, you're getting artists who were trying to convey what was going on and doing a more scathing critique of their culture," she said.
Norris said the exhibit was a rarity in the area because most exhibits focused on a style rather than a medium. She said the Brandywine River Museum in
Chadds Ford, Penn., organized the show. Spencer will be the last of three or four museums to show the exhibit.
The N.C. Wyeth exhibit also comes from the Brandywine River Museum. Earle said Wyeth was one of the most popular illustrators during the Golden Age of Illustration in the 1910s. She said his illustrations were often used for book covers, including several books by Robert Lewis Stevenson.
Sean Barker, Wichita graduate student, said he liked the tempera exhibit because of its combination of a shared medium juxtaposed with different styles.
"I think that all the works are visually stunning," he said, "It's kind of nice to have the genres mixed together."
Edited by Lauren Beatty
Online voting bill fails to find support from Student Senate
By Caleb Nothwehr
cnothwehr@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
In a complicated chain of events, an amendment that would implement online voting for Student Senate elections failed at last night's Senate committee meetings.
To pass, the amendment needed a two-thirds vote in two of Senate's four committees. The amendment passed unanimously in Student Rights committee but failed 22-10 in University affairs. Kit Brauer, co-sponsor of the amendment and Denver junior, then introduced the legislation from the finance committee floor.
In an effort to cancel Brauer's actions,18 senators walked out of the meeting, attempting to make any decisions of the night null and void. But 19 senators remained and the legislation was indefinitely tabled.
Kyle Johnson, chair of the finance committee and Wichita junior, said it would not appear on the agenda again. But Brauer said the amendment would show up again in committee meetings at the next session.
"It's an example of the machine at work," Brauer said. "We spent too much time on this but the issue is representing the students."
A task force that researched online voting over the summer presented the proposed amendment, saying it would increase voter turnout. The amendment' was tailored so Senate could contract an online voting service provider to administer the election.
Travis Weller, co-sponsor of the amendment and CLAS senator, said that, if implemented, it would cost approximately $4,000 more than the current system, which costs nearly $12,500.
Opponents of the amendment said the current paper ballot system was adequate and not enough research existed for KU to implement online voting this year.
"The current system is not broken," said Jonathan Ng, student body president. "We draw 4,000 students now. It is democratic - absolutely."
Ng said his stance against the amendment was not political.
Andy Knopp, business senator and Manhattan junior, said Senate made a responsible decision in voting the bill down because the costs of online voting weren't worth the benefits.
"I think it's ridiculous to spend $4,000 on the off-chance that we might see a slight increase in voter turnout," he said.
Knopp said although online voting was a good idea, he saw no clear indication the amendment would increase voter turnout.
Sam Pierron, non-traditional senator, said he voted for the amendment because online voting was the way of the future.
"There's no reason for us to be shackled in 20th century technology," he said "It's high time that we did this."
"It's unbelievable," he said. "It became a political issue and was not based on what the students want."
— Edited by Lauren Beatty