Picasso’s Blue Sympathies
Picasso’s Blue Period–or basically anything he did before Cubism–has always struck me as more powerful than anything he did later, … Continue Reading Picasso’s Blue Sympathies
The Impressionists Get to Work
Mothers, Ironers, Workers at a Cotton Office, Farmers, Floor Strippers, Writers, Waitresses, Stonebreakers, Gleaners, Apple Pickers, Sowers….
Manet the Mystic
Manet’s 1862 painting The Old Musician is a great human riddle. Just what everybody is doing here, and why they’re … Continue Reading Manet the Mystic
Caravaggio’s Dirty Feet
The affront that many of Caravaggio’s greatest paintings presented to their first audience must have been astonishing: casting a local … Continue Reading Caravaggio’s Dirty Feet
Picasso & Sex
from John Richardson’s biography of Picasso: When questioned much later about his earliest sexual experience, Picasso claimed that his sex … Continue Reading Picasso & Sex
Memento Mori
Vermeer’s Window on the Left, Vermeer’s Late Afternoon Light
As I’ve written elsewhere: “Except for his earliest work, there were no grand subjects in Vermeer, and very little else … Continue Reading Vermeer’s Window on the Left, Vermeer’s Late Afternoon Light
The Mysteries of Mérode
For some reason the Mérode Altarpiece, painted in the late 1420s by Robert Campin, has become an obsession of mine. … Continue Reading The Mysteries of Mérode
Claude Lorrain’s Nostalgia for What Never Was
I first came across Claude Lorrain’s fantasies of classical Greece and Rome on the cover of an old paperback of … Continue Reading Claude Lorrain’s Nostalgia for What Never Was
The Painting that Lit a Million Conspiracy Theories
It’s too bad Nicholas Poussin’s Shepherds of Arcady/Et in Arcadia (Even in Arcadia, there am I) can’t get much attention … Continue Reading The Painting that Lit a Million Conspiracy Theories
Aldous Huxley Saves the Day
from Thomas Cahill’s Heretics and Heroes: In a collection of travel essays published in 1925, Aldous Huxley had called Piero … Continue Reading Aldous Huxley Saves the Day
Week of Van Gogh: Town & City
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Week of Van Gogh: Still Life
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Week of Van Gogh: Landscapes
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Week of Van Gogh: Portraits
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Week of Van Gogh: Self-Portraits
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Images: The Saint & the Lion
One of the great jazz standards of Medieval & Renaissance art, here’s only a selection of all the depictions of … Continue Reading Images: The Saint & the Lion
Images: The Painting Salvador Dali Couldn’t Get Away From
The way I heard it, Salvador Dali saw a reproduction of Millet’s Angelus in his classroom during childhood, and it … Continue Reading Images: The Painting Salvador Dali Couldn’t Get Away From
Images: Manet’s Muse, Victorine Meurent
The French painter and model Victorine Meurent (1844-1927) appears in some of the most famous of Édouard Manet’s paintings. Click … Continue Reading Images: Manet’s Muse, Victorine Meurent
Images: Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits
The number of Rembrandt’s self-portraits alone far outnumber the entire output of many artists. Here is only a fraction of … Continue Reading Images: Rembrandt’s Self-Portraits
Vermeer in Bosnia
If anyone asks you about the Why of art, especially in the face of atrocity or just its apparent impracticality—for … Continue Reading Vermeer in Bosnia
Michelangelo & Leonardo da Vinci
From Walter Isaacson’s recent biography of da Vinci, here is about as concise and colorful a summary of how true … Continue Reading Michelangelo & Leonardo da Vinci
