Category Archives: Art

Art Insider: ‘Delightful Dance’ Of Degas (Video)

Edgar Degas was a prolific artist of dance. In this latest episode of Expert Voices, Sotheby’s specialist Brooke Lampley takes us through his fascination with dance, exploring how he perfectly captured every movement both on and off-stage. Ahead of Sotheby’s upcoming Art Impressionniste et Moderne Evening Sale (25 March 2021 | Paris) discover how his painting ‘Danseuse au Tutu Vert’ beautifully illustrates a dancer’s private moment backstage. Find out about the artist’s intense use of colour and how his chosen medium of pastel has truly stood the test of time.

Paris Exhibitions: ‘Signac – The Colored Harmonies’ Musée Jacquemart-André

Signac, Colored Harmonies – From March 26 to July 19, 2021

In 2021, discover the work of Paul Signac (1863 – 1935), master of landscape and main theorist of neo-impressionism, through nearly 70 works from the finest collection of neo-impressionist works in private hands. Alongside 25 of his paintings such as Avant du Tub (1888), Saint-Briac. Les Balises (1890), Saint-Tropez. After the storm (1895), Avignon. Matin (1909) or Juan-les-Pins, Soir (1914) and around twenty watercolors, the exhibition will present more than twenty works by Georges Seurat, Camille Pissarro, Maximilen Luce, Théo Van Rysselberghe, Henri-Edmond Cross , Louis Hayet, Achille Laugé, Georges Lacombe and Georges Lemmen.

The entire exhibition will follow a chronological route, from the first impressionist paintings painted by Signac under the influence of Claude Monet to the brightly colored works produced by the artist in the 20th century, including his meeting with Georges Seurat in 1884. The exhibition, which will retrace the life of Signac and his work to liberate color, will also evoke the history of neo-impressionism.

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Paris Art History: Van Gogh’s ‘ Windmills of Montmartre’ (Video)

Vincent Van Gogh created many wonderful works during his time in Paris, not least some stunning paintings featuring the moulins of Montmartre. Sotheby’s upcoming Art Impressionniste et Moderne Evening Sale (25 March | Paris) offers one such highlight, ‘Scène de rue à Montmartre’. In this latest Sotheby’s video, specialist Etienne Hellman takes us on a tour of Montmartre, from the apartment where Van Gogh lived with his brother, to the very site where Van Gogh sat and created this incredible painting. Learn about the influence Paris had on Van Gogh’s oeuvre and how he executed this piece of Parisian history.

Analysis: ‘NFT’s And The Digital Art Boom’ (Video)

Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, have exploded onto the digital art scene this past year. Proponents say they are a way to make digital assets scarce, and therefore more valuable. WSJ explains how they work, and why skeptics question whether they’re built to last. Photo Illustration: Jacob Reynolds/WSJ

A non-fungible token is a special type of cryptographic token which represents something unique. NFTs are called non-fungible because they are not mutually interchangeable, since they contain unique information, although it is possible to mint any number of NFTs representing the same object.

The Arts: ‘The Underwater Museum Of Cannes’ (Video)

Six large sculptures of fractured human faces form the underwater museum that British sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor has created off the coast of Cannes, France. The Underwater Museum of Cannes is a permanent installation beside the island of Sainte-Marguerite that is intended to “draw more people underwater” to engage with marine life. It is designed by deCaires Taylor to be highly accessible by either snorkelling or diving, positioned two and three metres below sea level. The goal is that visitors will “foster a sense of care” for marine life and better appreciate its value, while oceans environments are continually threatened by human activity.

Read more on Dezeen: https://www.dezeen.com/?p=1619810​

Art History: ‘Orientalism’ – Visionary Delights (Video)

Orientalist art transports and immerses the viewer into a place in time. 100 and more years after it was painted, it beguiles us even now. Sotheby’s upcoming Orientalist sale (22 – 30 March) which includes works from the celebrated Najd Collection, features fascinating landscapes from John Lavery’s depictions of Tangier to Edward Lear’s View of the Pyramids Road. As well as stunning scenery, artists captured the lives of water sellers, musicians and soldiers, providing valuable documentary evidence of how the Orient looked at a time when the region was still an elusive dream to many.

Cocktails With A Curator: Cimabue’s “Flagellation of Christ” (Frick Video)

In this week’s episode of “Cocktails with a Curator,” Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon examines the only work by Cimabue in a public collection in the United States, a small panel depicting “The Flagellation of Christ.” Acquired by the Frick in 1950, the attribution of this work was a topic of debate until a sister panel was discovered in 2000, establishing that they once belonged to a larger ensemble by the 13th-century Florentine. (In 2019, a third fragment was discovered.) As a nod to the gold background, this week’s complementary cocktail is the Gold Rush, a drink invented in New York in the 1920s.

Cimabue, also known as Cenni di Pepo or Cenni di Pepi, was an Italian painter and designer of mosaics from Florence. Although heavily influenced by Byzantine models, Cimabue is generally regarded as one of the first great Italian painters to break from the Italo-Byzantine style. 

To view this painting in detail, please visit our website: https://www.frick.org/cimabuechrist

International Art: ‘Apollo Magazine – March 2021’

FEATURES | Stephen Patience explores the glamourous world of Noël Coward; Gillian Wearing interviewed by Martin HerbertDaisy Hildyard on the beasts of Francis Bacon; Kirsten Tambling on Queen Mary’s contributions to the Royal Collection; Phillip Prodger considers the merits of colourising early photographs and film

REVIEWS | Linda Wolk-Simon on a new look for the Met’s Old Masters; Mark Pimlott on a survey of post-war museum design in Rotterdam; Morgan Falconer on Soviet ad men at MoMA; Peter Parker on 18th-century paintings of Udaipur; David Ekserdjian on five centuries of Raphael; Tanya Harrod on the letter-cutting of Ralph Beyer; Thomas Marks watches the Uffizi’s new cooking show
 
MARKET | Susan Moore previews March sales in London and New York and looks back at the winter season; Emma Crichton-Miller on collecting Judaica; Jo Lawson-Tancred on Art Dubai and other events not to miss
 
PLUS | Ed Vaizey and Charlotte Higgins on whether the government should be doing more for the arts; Sophie Barling visits the tent-tomb of Richard and Isabel BurtonTimothy Brittain-Catlin on Louis Kahn’s concrete castles; Dora Thornton on the golden age of brooch design; Robert O’Byrne on Georgian waxworks

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Art: ‘After Raphael. 1520 -2020’ – State Hermitage Museum, Russia (Video)

A film about the Exhibition “After Raphael. 1520 – 2020” at the State Hermitage Museum. Director of the film – Manas Sirakanyan. The film was made with the support of the U.S. Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation, U.S. Embassy Moscow and the Hermitage Museum Foundation (USA)

Raphael is the most influential artist of the Modern Era. Over the course of five centuries, exponents of Mannerism and Academicism, Caravaggisti and masters of the Baroque, Romantics and Modernists have invariably compared their own work with Raphael’s legacy. What is the cause of such fame? What did his name represent in this or that historical period, and what does it represent today? What connects the artist’s followers in different centuries? The exhibition in the Hermitage is an attempt to answer those questions and to look at the art of the past 500 years through the lens of Raphael’s influence.

The large-scale display includes more than 300 exhibits – paintings, graphic art, sculpture and applied art from the Hermitage’s own stocks and twelve other collections in Russia and Western Europe. They include both famous masterpieces and previously unknown works. Dozens of paintings and pieces of graphic art are leaving the museum’s storerooms and being presented to the public for the first time, while a whole number of the exhibits are going on show after painstaking restoration in the Hermitage’s workshops.

The display opens with works by the master himself: a painting and drawings from European collections. Without claiming to be a full representation of the artist’s oeuvre, they serve to set the tone, as it were, and after viewers have “tuned themselves in” it will be easier for them to identify echoes of Raphaelesque harmony in the works from later centuries. The choice of graphic art for this purpose reveals another dimension to the main metaphor: it is specifically the beauty of the clear, precise line, so evident in the drawings made by the master’s own hand, that lies at the foundation of the aesthetics of Raphael himself and many of his followers.

Cocktails With A Curator: ‘David’s “Comtesse Daru”

In this week’s episode of “Cocktails with a Curator,” savor the exquisite details of “Comtesse Daru,” the only painting in the Frick’s collection by renowned French neoclassical painter Jacques-Louis David. Join Curator Aimee Ng as she delves into the history of how this lovely, intimate portrait came to be painted by an artist largely known for producing monumental works in the service of Napoleon. This week’s complementary cocktail, the Orange Blossom, is inspired by the orange-blossom tiara that adorns the sitter’s head.

To view this painting in detail, please visit our website: https://www.frick.org/comtessedaru