David Ligare: California Classicist, Crocker Art Museum, CA, June 7 - Sept. 20, 2015, Laguna Art Museum, CA, Oct. 18, 2015 - Jan. 17, 2016, Georgia Museum of Art, GA, February - May 2016, Triton Museum, Santa Clara, CA, June 11 - August 14, 2016.

Sleight of Hand: Painting and Illusion, October 2, 2014 - February 22, 2015, New Wing, Second Floor, Central Skylight and South Metro A Galleries, San José Museum of Art.

Real and HyperReal, January 30, 2010 - August 1, 2010, New Wing, First Floor, Gibson Family and Plaza Galleries, San José Museum of Art.

Collection Highlights, November 2, 2002 - September 12, 2004, New Wing, Gibson Family Gallery and Plaza Gallery, First Floor, San José Museum of Art.

Is the Medium the Message?: Contemporary Art from the Permanent Collection, March 2, 2002 - June 2, 2002, New Wing, Metro A, Skylight and South Galleries, Second Floor, San José Museum of Art.

Collecting Our Thoughts: The Community Responds to Art in the Permanent Collection, June 23, 2001 - September 23, 2001, New Wing, Metro A, Skylight and South Galleries, Second Floor, San José Museum of Art.

Sleight of Hand: Painting and Illusion (2014-2015)

David Ligare continues the legacy of academic realism in his landscapes, nudes, and still lifes. This painting of a horse and rider is a twenty-first century look at Greek and Roman principles of proportion and idealized human forms. Areta was inspired by the ancient Greek concept that physical beauty reflects moral purity. The painting’s title is an archaic form of the Greek word arête, which means “the innate excellence of noble natures.” The artist derived the inscription at the bottom of the painting from the classical Greek poet Pindar’s Olympian odes. It reads: “But for all things there is a measure set: To know the due time, therein lies true skill.” Ligare believes that although the text was written in praise of an athlete, it could also apply to the art of a poet, or indeed to many other endeavors requiring exquisite timing and skill. He intended to reflect the cultural diversity of the ancient world by selecting an African-American model. In 1991, he wrote that Greek “Classicism was an amalgam of styles and ideas from the earliest and smokiest of times. It absorbed something from all of the cultures it came into contact with, from Egypt and Africa to Asia, creating in the process an enormously inclusive rather than exclusive ideal.”

This object was included in the following exhibitions:

• Is the Medium the Message?: Contemporary Art from the Permanent Collection , 3/2/2002 - 6/2/2002
• Real and HyperReal San Jose Museum of Art , 1/30/2010 - 8/1/2010

• Image Dimensions: 96 x 116 in. (243.84 x 294.64 cm)

This object has the following bibliographic references:

• Selections: The San Jose Museum of Art Permanent Collection. Selections: The San Jose Museum of Art Permanent Collection San Jose Museum of Art. San Jose, CA, 2004
  Page Number: 136-137

This object is a member of the following portfolios: