Art

Art

Thomas Rowlandson: Legacy of a Genius Social Observer in 1800

              Fig. 1   Thomas Rowlandson, “Bath Races”, ca 1810, (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich) By Cher Beall – Art in Britain during the Georgian period (1714-1830) is characterized by sophisticated oil paintings of landscapes and well-lit portraits by world renowned artists including J.M.W. Turner, […]

Art

Matisse Looks to the Masters: A Modern Artist Who Invokes Antiquity

Matisse, The Serf, MOMA San Francisco (images courtesy of MOMA) By Alice Devine Wilson -  At first glance, modern art seems to have little connection to antiquity—as contemporary art, by its definition, departs from the past. However, many modern artists of the twentieth century root their creations in ancient traditions. […]

Art

In the Lap of Luxury: Quality Textiles as Signs of Nobility and Rulership

Nicholas Karcher atelier, Joseph Flees Potiphar’s Wife, 1549, design after Bronzino By Andrea M. Gáldy -  Florence is currently getting ready for an “event of historic magnitude” as it has been called by her mayor Dario Nardella (http://www.theflorentine.net/news/2016/09/medici-tapestries-come-home/). A group of high-renaissance tapestries depicting the Old Testament Story of Joseph (“Prince […]

Art

Good Manners : Mannerism in Florence

Pontormo, Venus and Amor, 1533 By Andrea M. Gáldy – Maniera. Pontormo, Bronzino and Medici Florence, 24 Feb to 5 June 2016 at the Städel Museum, Frankfurt/Main curated by Bastian Eclercy, the department of Italian, French and Spanish paintings before 1800. Catalogue available in English and German: Bastian Eclercy, ed. […]

Art

Bathsheba: Rembrandt’s Confession

By Patrick Hunt –  1  “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.  2 One evening David got up from his […]

Art

Cormon’s Cain Flees The Curse

By Patrick Hunt –  Fernand Cormon’s giant 1880 painting almost fills an entire gallery wall at the Musee d’Orsay, Paris, not just because it is almost 23 feet long (7 meters) but also because its dramatic starkness directly strikes the viewer in the often-darkened room. The biblical background of Genesis […]

Art

A Style Is Born– From High Renaissance To The New Manner

By Andrea Gáldy – Pontormo and Rosso. Diverging Paths of Mannerism, 8 March to 20 July 2014, Palazzo Strozzi, Piazza Strozzi, Florence, Italy, www.palazzostrozzi.org. An exhibition curated by Antonio Natali (director of the Uffizi Gallery) and Carlo Falciani (lecturer in art history) and held at the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi. Carlo […]

Art

J. S. Bach and Steganography

By Patrick Hunt – According to 17th century German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz, “Music is a secret exercise in the arithmetic of the soul.” That music and mathematics are deeply wedded needs no explanation, since “Music is mathematics you can hear” [1]  If anyone could hear the mathematics of music, it […]

Art

Cultural Diplomacy and Soviet Art

By Allison Rath -  When Norton Dodge (1927-2011) first traveled to the Soviet Union in 1955 to study the economic role of Russian women, he encountered the underground nonconformist art world in Moscow with the clandestine help of artist Valery Kuznetsov. Moved by the art he saw, Dodge would spend the […]