[{"id":1,"tourID":3319,"title":"Spencer Kids: Animal Tails (with audio descriptions)","description":"This tour guides children of all ages on an art trek to find different animals represented in the Museum\u0027s collection. Each tour entry suggests how kids and their grown-up companions can experience and talk about the art together with fun facts about the artworks and the animals they depict. Each entry is also accompanied by audio recordings and transcripts for gallery label text and descriptions of each object\u2019s visual appearance.","displayDescription":"This tour guides children of all ages on an art trek to find different animals represented in the Museum\u0027s collection. Each tour entry suggests how kids and their grown-up companions can experience and talk about the art together with fun facts about the artworks and the animals they depict. Each entry is also accompanied by audio recordings and transcripts for gallery label text and descriptions of each object\u2019s visual appearance.","priority":null,"objects":[{"id":18264,"priority":null,"defaultDescription":"This fiberglass sculpture by Mexican-American artist Luis Jimenez evokes the lonely cry of a wolf howling at a full moon. Born in El Paso, Texas, Jimenez often used imagery like a howling wolf to explore the historic and contemporary collision of cultures along the border between the United States and Mexico. Howl resonates with the tensions between a humanized landscape and the wild.","collectionDescription":null,"collectionDescriptionFormatted":null},{"id":32274,"priority":null,"defaultDescription":"Displayed both indoors and outdoors, totem poles are a ubiquitous fixture in traditional Haida villages. Most poles are carved for one of four general purposes: to record the ancestry of a specific family; document the history of a clan; illustrate Haida folklore; or memorialize a single individual. \u2018Read\u2019 from the top down, this folklore pole depicts two Haida traditional stories.\r\n\r\nThe top portion portrays the Nanasimgyet or \u201cOrpheus\u201d myth. In this tale, Nanasimgyet (represented fifth from the top) gives his wife (third from top) a sea otter (top figure) to clean and skin. As she works at the water\u2019s edge, she is captured and taken below the sea. With the help of a whale (sixth from top), Nanasimgyet journeys underwater. He frees his wife and returns with her to the mainland.\r\n\r\nThe second legend is the Qagwaii or \u201cStrong Man\u201d tale. According to oral tradition, a young boy receives a magical halibut skin that allows him to transform into a halibut. While traveling in halibut form, the boy encounters many characters, including a giant crab (third from bottom). Eventually, the boy is forced to return the skin, as it was only a loan from his grandfather.","collectionDescription":null,"collectionDescriptionFormatted":null}],"media":[]},{"id":2,"tourID":3320,"title":"Keep Calm and Breathe","description":"Feeling stressed? Need a break in your busy day? Inhale the art, and exhale the pressure. This tour features nine objects in the Museum\u0027s collection with accompanying text designed to help you relax. Thanks to students in MUSE 301 Ashley Aranda, Brett Doze, and Mika Schrader for their assistance with this tour.","displayDescription":"Feeling stressed? Need a break in your busy day? Inhale the art, and exhale the pressure. This tour features nine objects in the Museum\u0027s collection with accompanying text designed to help you relax. Thanks to students in MUSE 301 Ashley Aranda, Brett Doze, and Mika Schrader for their assistance with this tour.","priority":null,"objects":[{"id":21603,"priority":null,"defaultDescription":"In Europe people talk a great deal of the wilds of America, but the Americans themselves never think about them; they are insensible to the wonders of inanimate nature and they may be said not to perceive the mighty forests that surround them till they fall beneath the hatchet. Their eyes are fixed upon another sight: the American people views its own march across these wilds, draining swamps, turning the course of rivers, peopling solitudes, and subduing nature.\r\n-Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1840\r\nGifford and other Hudson River School painters challenged Tocqueville\u2019s belief that the wilderness held no fascination for Americans, yet the subjugation of nature persists as a theme in this composition. Gifford delighted in painting the \u201cglorious forest primeval\u201d that filled the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. His treatment of the warm, morning light reveals misty mountain peaks, abundant forests, and a quiet lake but also illuminates a clearing around a small log cabin, alluding to the impact of this settlement upon the land.","collectionDescription":null,"collectionDescriptionFormatted":null},{"id":52776,"priority":null,"defaultDescription":"This work is an outdoor sculpture on KU\u2019s campus. If you can visit campus, follow the instructions below. If not, take a look at the images of the work and then go outside and imagine what kind of sculpture you would like to have where you are.\r\n\r\nStroll through Marvin Grove, along Memorial Drive, and past the Campanile to find Korean Cranes Rising (Korean War Memorial) by Jon Havener. Breathe in the fresh air as you walk through the trees. When you arrive at the sculpture, take in the swirling, calming lines. Look beyond the artwork over Potter\u2019s Lake, Marvin Grove and far past the horizon. Take a couple of deep breaths and allow yourself to be immersed in relaxation.","collectionDescription":null,"collectionDescriptionFormatted":null},{"id":4334,"priority":null,"defaultDescription":"This bronze sculpture was purchased in 1920 by Sallie Casey Thayer as part of her founding gift that established an art museum at the University of Kansas. Research on the sculpture\u2019s provenance\u2014the history of an object\u2019s ownership, location, or custody\u2014suggests it was once displayed with two companions: Sakyamuni (the historical Buddha) and Amitabha (the Buddha of the Western Paradise), which are now displayed in the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden in Seal Garden, Maine, United States.\r\n\r\nThis cast-bronze gilded Buddha, known as Bhaisajyaguru or Medicine Buddha, is associated with healing and medicine. During the seventh century, the Chinese monk Yijing (635 CE\u2013713 CE) traveled to India and translated the Bhaisajyaguru Sutra from Sanskrit to Chinese. This was an important text for understanding the Medicine Buddha. Since then, worship of the Medicine Buddha has expanded across China. \r\n\r\nThis representation of the Medicine Buddha includes details that reflect Buddhist beliefs. Etched on his right foot is the dharmachakra, an eight-spoked wheel symbolizing the Buddha\u2019s teachings. In the center of his forehead is the third eye, one of the \u201cThirty-Two Attributes of a Great Man\u201d that the Buddha is said to possess.  Earlobes stretched by heavy jewelry worn in his youth as a prince symbolize a conscious rejection of the material world in favor of spiritual enlightenment.","collectionDescription":null,"collectionDescriptionFormatted":null},{"id":48,"priority":null,"defaultDescription":"A cloister is a covered walkway in a convent or monastery. This particular cloister is on an island off the coast of Italy. Here the nuns lead lives of quiet contemplation. Above the archway a sign reads \u201cSILENZIO\u201d (silence). As three nuns walk the corridors they transition from the warm light of candles to the serene glow of the full moon. Take a moment for your own silent contemplation. Close your eyes and imagine the sound of the waves crashing on the rocks below.","collectionDescription":null,"collectionDescriptionFormatted":null},{"id":18748,"priority":null,"defaultDescription":"This wall sculpture is from Dale Chihuly\u2019s series Persians, which explores form, shape, and color and celebrates experimentation and innovation in glassblowing. These flaring, rippling shapes reference what Chihuly calls \u201csea forms.\u201d This work was created specifically as a commission for the Spencer Museum of Art. Although the crimson and blue hues recall the University of Kansas\u2019s colors, Chihuly selected them to resonate with works of art that were then installed nearby.\r\n\r\nLight passing through the vibrant red and blue blown glass disks of Persian Wall casts dramatic, rippling reflections on the gallery\u2019s walls. How do other artists working with glass in this gallery, such as Karen LaMonte and Preston Singletary, draw on the interplay of light and shadow to enliven their sculptures?","collectionDescription":null,"collectionDescriptionFormatted":null},{"id":43107,"priority":null,"defaultDescription":"In this video piece, the artist represents the passing of time with a slow-moving flower. The video subverts speed and slows time allowing viewers to pace their breathing and even meditate in front of the work. Take a moment to gaze at this work and feel your body relax as time slows while still allowing for movement and progress. Thus, you can and take time to relax while still feeling productive. Try imaging the smell of the orchid and the silent peace it brings.","collectionDescription":null,"collectionDescriptionFormatted":null},{"id":9141,"priority":null,"defaultDescription":"Quiet your jangling nerves while gazing at this playful self-portrait by Joseph Ducreux. By emphasizing gesture and facial expressions, Ducreux created humorous figurative paintings that directly engage the audience. Enjoy Ducreux\u2019s humor and see how making the ssshhhhh sound associated with raising an index finger to the lip makes you feel. Most small children are soothed and quieted by the wooshing ssshhhhh sound; it has been known to work wonders for adults, too.","collectionDescription":null,"collectionDescriptionFormatted":null},{"id":13418,"priority":null,"defaultDescription":"Harry Bertoia studied the relationship between sculpture and sound. You can play this work made up of two columns of brass rods by gently touching it. In the 1960s Bertoia created hundreds of \u201csounding sculptures\u201d like this, many on a large scale. He never made the same piece twice, always seeking a different or richer sound by varying the size of the rods.","collectionDescription":null,"collectionDescriptionFormatted":null}],"media":[]},{"id":3,"tourID":3321,"title":"Spencer Selections (with audio descriptions)","description":"This tour introduces you to a selection of works of art in the Museum\u0027s collection accompanied by questions to spark your imagination and multimedia resources to dive deeper. Each entry is accompanied by audio recordings and transcripts for gallery label text and descriptions of each object\u2019s visual appearance.","displayDescription":"This tour introduces you to a selection of works of art in the Museum\u0027s collection accompanied by questions to spark your imagination and multimedia resources to dive deeper. Each entry is accompanied by audio recordings and transcripts for gallery label text and descriptions of each object\u2019s visual appearance.","priority":null,"objects":[{"id":18264,"priority":null,"defaultDescription":"This fiberglass sculpture by Mexican-American artist Luis Jimenez evokes the lonely cry of a wolf howling at a full moon. Born in El Paso, Texas, Jimenez often used imagery like a howling wolf to explore the historic and contemporary collision of cultures along the border between the United States and Mexico. Howl resonates with the tensions between a humanized landscape and the wild.","collectionDescription":null,"collectionDescriptionFormatted":null},{"id":30712,"priority":null,"defaultDescription":"Influenced by the tradition of Chinese calligraphy, Wenda Gu transforms human hair and glue into textile-like panels adorned with invented writing and characters that are meant to confuse or frustrate the viewer. The work\u2019s title, Metamorphoses, suggests transformation and change. In this artwork, hair transforms into script and the language becomes a set of unreadable signs. By muddling both the characteristics of the hair as a physical material produced by humans and language as a conceptual marker of humanity, Gu looks to a future in which human society transforms into a unified whole.\r\n\r\nWhat kinds of reactions do you have to this work? How do they support or differ from the artist\u2019s intended meanings?","collectionDescription":null,"collectionDescriptionFormatted":null},{"id":43573,"priority":null,"defaultDescription":"The kimono, traditionally worn by people of all genders in Japan, is modeled here to evoke a female Asian body. Karen LaMonte produced Chado using a double casting process, first making a body mold from a live woman, then creating another mold of a kimono to enclose the cast body. The result is a hollow, semi-translucent garment.\r\n\r\nThe pose of this sculpture\u2014kneeling with arms outstretched\u2014references a serving gesture made by women during a Japanese tea ceremony known as chad\u014d. Karen LaMonte\u0027s interpretation of this submissive body language engages the long history of Euro-American artists stereotyping geisha\u2014female artists, companions, and entertainers trained in Japanese dance, music, song, and performance. How does this placement of Chado among objects from other cultures uphold, challenge, or interrupt these stereotypes?\r\n\r\nOur ability to simultaneously see and see through the colorless glass makes the material an especially rich metaphorical device. The translucency of Karen LaMonte\u2019s cast sculpture alludes to memory and absence of the implied body. The artist spent seven months in Japan studying all aspects of the kimono\u2014from weaving and construction, to ceremonial function and historic meaning.\r\n\r\n\u2013 Carolyn Swan Needell, Carolyn and Richard Barry Curator of Glass, Chrysler Museum of Art","collectionDescription":null,"collectionDescriptionFormatted":null},{"id":9767,"priority":null,"defaultDescription":"La Pia de\u0027 Tolomei is the last major painting completed by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. It depicts La Pia, a character from The Divine Comedy by Italian poet Dante Alighieri (circa 1265\u20131321). La Pia married an Italian magistrate who kept her in a castle in the swamps of Maremma where she died under mysterious circumstances. Rossetti captures the lonely and contemplative young woman toying with her wedding ring. A sundial in the foreground suggests the passage of time, while old love letters from her husband underscore La Pia\u2019s marital ties.","collectionDescription":null,"collectionDescriptionFormatted":null},{"id":9953,"priority":null,"defaultDescription":"Down on her knees before him\r\nShe humbly begged for life\r\nBut into her snowy bosom\r\nHe plunged the fatal knife.\r\n\u201cOh, Edward, I forgive you,\r\nAlthough this be my last breath.\r\nFor I never have deceived you,\u201d\r\nThen she closed her eyes in death.\r\n-Excerpt from the ballad\r\nIn Ballad of the Jealous Lover, musicians bring to life a folksong of violence and betrayal, suggesting the power of folk music and vernacular storytelling in the American imagination. In the ballad, Edward stabs his lover in a jealous rage only to discover too late that he has doubted her unjustly.\r\nBenton, Grant Wood from Iowa, and John Steuart Curry from Kansas became known as Regionalist artists, producing imagery that was typically Midwestern in subject, but archetypically \u201cAmerican\u201d in content. Benton observed and mythologized the heroes, outlaws, tragedies, and traditions of American folk life, finding universal themes in local culture. His interests can be appreciated as part of a national phenomenon that took place amidst the crisis of the Great Depression, when many sought out a usable interpretation of America\u2019s past. This resurgent interest in American history and folklore provided assurance that the nation possessed the ability to rebound from tragedy. Benton argued that Regionalist art \u201csymbolized aesthetically what the majority of Americans had in mind - America itself.\u201d","collectionDescription":null,"collectionDescriptionFormatted":null}],"media":[]},{"id":4,"tourID":3346,"title":"Collection Insights with Marilyn Stokstad","description":"Learn more about the history of objects in the Spencer\u2019s collection with these short video tours by art historian and former Spencer director Marilyn Stokstad. This tour should take approximately 20 minutes and begins in the exhibition, Empire of Things on the west side of the fourth floor.","displayDescription":"Learn more about the history of objects in the Spencer\u2019s collection with these short video tours by art historian and former Spencer director Marilyn Stokstad. This tour should take approximately 20 minutes and begins in the exhibition, Empire of Things on the west side of the fourth floor.","priority":null,"objects":[{"id":9446,"priority":null,"defaultDescription":"The paintings and sculptures within this scene contain a range of subjects and were likely created by different artists living in Europe in the 1600s. Brought together and displayed in close proximity, the assemblage becomes a collection. The collection might demonstrate the skill of the artists who created the works, the wares of an art dealer, or the expertise of the collector.","collectionDescription":null,"collectionDescriptionFormatted":null},{"id":9767,"priority":null,"defaultDescription":"La Pia de\u0027 Tolomei is the last major painting completed by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. It depicts La Pia, a character from The Divine Comedy by Italian poet Dante Alighieri (circa 1265\u20131321). La Pia married an Italian magistrate who kept her in a castle in the swamps of Maremma where she died under mysterious circumstances. Rossetti captures the lonely and contemplative young woman toying with her wedding ring. A sundial in the foreground suggests the passage of time, while old love letters from her husband underscore La Pia\u2019s marital ties.","collectionDescription":null,"collectionDescriptionFormatted":null}],"media":[]}]