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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
By Patrick Hunt – The Abbazia di Novacella is in the South Tyrolean municipality of Varna (Varhn), surrounded by its monastery vineyards above the Isarco (Eisack) River. South Tyrol was part of Austria until 1919 but is now Italy. The Abbazia is steeped in history, from its medieval foundation around […]
By Kristine Wendt – One of the most elusive art historical biographies belongs to Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. Having pieced together his biography from police records alone, historians have classified Caravaggio as violent, irascible, and quick to draw his sword. Moreover, surviving contemporary biographies, covetous and biased, have further […]
Pan Figure on Cabinet in Pompeian Style, Carlo Marchiori (Photo P.F. Sommerfeldt, 2012) By P. F. Sommerfeldt – Carlo Marchiori’s riotous imagination brings us back to 18th century Venice when everything was in excess, full of Baroque opulence. Born in Rossano near Venice in 1937and trained in Padua and Venice, […]
By Patrick Hunt – One of the most beautiful paintings in the world, Bruegel’s 1565 Hunters in the Snow (117 x 162 cm) has received much attention for the return of the trudging “weary hunters with drooping shoulders…turning their backs to the observer…characterizing the season” [1] at top left and the harmonious […]
By Patrick Hunt – A “fish story” is often perceived as a tall tale, a narrative with “fishy” circumstances. If not an outright result of something incredible like “Jonah and the Whale”, a dubious stretching of the truth may be amusing but modern ichthyological science has somewhat tarnished the Egyptian […]
By Patrick Hunt – In Chretien de Troyes’ 12th century chivalric tale Erec and Enide, the young knight Erec engages in a battle of honor defending Queen Guinevere but is not known by his arrogant adversary Yeder, partly because he is unadorned and wearing borrowed armor without his heraldry […]
By Patrick Hunt – Rembrandt van Rijn lived here in this imposing house on the old Breestraat near the heart of old Amsterdam from 1639-58. Now a museum (Rembrandthuis, “Rembrandt House”) along with the adjacent contemporary structure to the left, survival of this intact 17th c. house is due to Rembrandt’s […]