Category Archives: Reviews

Artist Profiles: “Van Gogh & Gaughin” Controversy Anaylized By Author Bernadette Murphy (National Gallery Video)

Gauguin’s stay at the Yellow House is mired in controversy. What really happened? Bernadette Murphy, author of ‘Van Gogh’s Ear: The True Story’, considers those fateful days from Gauguin’s point of view.

Van Gogh and Gaughin The National Gallery

Bernadette Murphy Van Gogh's Ear The True StoryThe Credit Suisse Exhibition: Gauguin Portraits 7 October 2019 – 26 January 2020 Book tickets online and save, Members go free: https://bit.ly/2IspPWH

The first-ever exhibition devoted to the portraits of Paul Gauguin. Spanning his early years as an artist through to his later years spent in French Polynesia, the exhibition shows how the French artist revolutionised the portrait.

Exhibition organised by the National Gallery and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.

Profiles: Remembering “Postmodernist” Theorist & Architecture Historian Charles Jencks (1939-2019)

From an Apollo Magazine article:

Charles Jencks 2008Jencks’s book grew out of his PhD thesis, supervised by Reyner Banham at the University of London in the late 1960s, and paved the way for his later, more explicitly polemical The Language of Post-Modern Architecture (1977). In this bestselling book, Jencks set out his stall for a pluralist architecture that rejected what he saw as modernism’s reductive ‘univalent’ approach, swapping it for a symbolically rich and historically engaged ‘multivalent’ postmodernism. For good or bad it became the defining book of its era, an unabashed rejection of mainstream modernism that ushered in a new architectural style.

Modern Movements in Architecture (1973) by Charles JencksModern Movements in Architecture (1973) by Charles Jencks was one of the first books on architecture I read, a birthday present given to me the summer before I started my degree. In some ways, it spoiled things: I thought all architecture books would be that much fun. Modern Movements in Architecture is a complex and sophisticated history, but it wears its learning lightly. It relates architecture to a wider cultural discourse and it is unafraid to be critical, even of some architects, such as Mies van der Rohe, who were previously considered to be above criticism.

To read more: https://www.apollo-magazine.com/remembering-charles-jencks/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=APNE%20%2020191125%20%20AL&utm_content=APNE%20%2020191125%20%20AL+CID_7c3d4bb6631465b2c8eab8a1cebe2725&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Apollo&utm_term=His%20writing%20was%20always%20alive%20to%20the%20deep%20pleasures%20of%20great%20buildings

 

Automobile Nostalgia: “1963 Alfa Romeo Giulia – 1600 Sprint Speciale”

From a Classic Driver online article:

This extraordinary Alfa Romeo Giulia 1600 Sprint Special was delivered on 03.10.1963 in Pescara (Italy) and was home (city) of their time in Italy. The car was optimized for performance after delivery by Autodelta. Cylinder head, camshaft and manifold were changed and the output increased to 125 hp.

1963 Alfa Romeo Giulia 1600 Sprint Speciale

To read more: https://www.classicdriver.com/en/car/alfa-romeo/giulia/1963/716133?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Classic%20Driver%20Daily%203302019&utm_content=Classic%20Driver%20Daily%203302019+CID_bf23adaa64328b289e7d01e1b717e54a&utm_source=newsletter

 

Top Art Exhibitions: “Drape” Featuring Degas, Dürer At The Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon

From the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon:

242_345_AFF_OFFIC-900x600_Girodet_How is a drapery put in place? For what reasons does this motive persist until today? How to explain its power of fascination? These are the questions that this exhibition intends to pose, in order to enter the “factory” of the drapery and to get closer to the artistic gesture. By showing the stages of making a drapery, the visitor will discover the singular practices of artists from the Renaissance to the second half of the 20th century.

November 30, 2019 – March 8, 2020, Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon

242_442_Durer_900px (1)Albrecht Dürer, Drapery Study, 1508, Brush and Indian Ink, heightened white on dark green paper

The Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon retains an exceptional drawing by Albrecht Dürer studying a piece of drapery. This meticulous study reveals how the flexibility of a fabric lends itself to an infinity of folds, underlined by shadows and lights.

 

To read more: http://www.mba-lyon.fr/mba/sections/fr/expositions-musee/le-drape/exposition-le-drape

New Poetry & Art: “Giorgio De Chirico – Geometry Of Shadows” Translated By Stefania Heim

From a Hyperallergic.com online review:

De-Chirico_FC_hi-res-1080x1722“Everywhere is the wait and the gathering,” concludes “Resort.” A kind of soporific haze has seeped into de Chirico’s imagination, asserted through evocations of sleeping and dreaming. Even the violence and ambiguous sexual imagery of “The Mysterious Night” yield to a final note of definitive somnolence: “Everything sleeps; even the owls and the bats who also in the dream dream of sleeping.”

“My room,” he writes, “is a beautiful vessel,” and from there he propels his imagination outward across space and time, geography and history. Indeed, “faraway” (lontani, lontano) is one of his favorite adjectives. giorgio-de-chirico-the-changing-face-of-metaphysical-art-1He daydreams of Mexico or Alaska and invokes a future-oriented “avant-city” and a distant day where he is immortalized, albeit in an old-fashioned mode as a “man of marble.”

The paintings of Giorgio de Chirico invariably call to mind a cluster of adjectives: haunting, enigmatic, evocative, poetic. But unlike many artists whose poetry remains wordless and confined to the canvas, de Chirico was also a writer whose texts have been praised and even translated by such art-world luminaries as Louise Bourgeois and John Ashbery. A new collection provides us with more of de Chirico’s writings. Translated into English by Stefania Heim, Geometry of Shadows presents the relatively compact totality of the artist’s extant poems and poetic fragments written in Italian, complementing his memoirs and the novel Hebdomeros (in French), which have been available in English for some time.

To read more: https://hyperallergic.com/520898/geometry-of-shadows-by-giorgio-de-chirico/

Book Review Podcasts: “Margaret Thatcher – Herself Alone” By Charles Moore (New York Times)

Margaret Thatcher Charles Moore“I don’t think you can think about British politics or British history without thinking about her a very great deal,” Charles Moore, the authorized biographer of Margaret Thatcher, says of his subject on this week’s podcast. “And to some extent, you can’t think about the history of the modern West without thinking about her a very great deal.”

The third and concluding volume of Moore’s 2,700-page biography is titled “Herself Alone.”

Adrienne Brodeur visits the podcast this week to discuss her new book, “Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me.” When Brodeur was 14, her mother confided in her about an extramarital affair she was conducting. “The temptation is to view a mother like this in sort of the ‘monster mother’ perspective, and the fact is, the most important thing for me in writing this book was to present a very nuanced portrayal of both her and of our relationship,” Brodeur says.

Also on this week’s episode, Alexandra Alter discusses the winners of this year’s National Book Awards; and Susan Dominus, A.O. Scott and John Williams talk about what people are reading. Pamela Paul is the host.

Artist Tales: Sculptor Auguste Rodin’s “The Age Of Bronze” – So Realistic It Caused A Scandal In 1877

From a Christie’s online article:

August Rodin The Age of Bronze Christie'sRodin first exhibited a bronze and a plaster version of The Age of Bronze  at the Cercle Artistique in Brussels in January 1877. A few months later, he exhibited the plaster at the Paris Salon, where it caused a scandal. ‘The vitality and naturalism of the sculpture was so extreme, the sense of modelling so observed, that he was accused of having cast the sculpture from the model himself,’ says the specialist.

Tudor Davies, Head of Impressionist & Modern Art in Paris, reveals why Rodin’s Salon ‘scandal’ marked a pivotal turning point in the artist’s career.

The Age of Bronze  was originally conceived in 1877, and is widely considered Rodin’s first great work, ranking alongside his later masterpieces, including La Porte de l’EnferLe Penseur  and Le Baiser. Its conception marked a decisive turning point in the sculptor’s career.

August Rodin The Age of Bronze Christie's

To read more: www.https://www.christies.com/features/Auguste-Rodin-The-Age-of-Bronze-sculpture-10211-3.aspx?sc_lang=en&cid=EM_EMLcontent04144A99C_1&cid=DM351034&bid=198714681#FID-10211

Retrofuturism: Past Visions Of The Future Are Now Very “Prescient”

From an Interesting Engineering online article:

Retrofuturism is the curious eye of the past upon us. This era’s rosy predictions about the future seem laughable from the perspective of the present; however, it seems that they got some things exceptionally right. Their ideas ranged from child-like and pridefully ambitious and inspired a movement upon the artists, designers, musicians, and filmmakers who channeled the technological fantasies of a lost age.

  • Instant Messaging (1964 Prediction)

  • 1964 Prediction of Instant Messaging
  • This technology has actually become a reality. Many smartphones have this feature, or at least something similar to it. It doesn’t look like this of course, but the main idea is still there: you write it with your smartpen and the device makes your illegible handwriting into a text that is actually readable! However, it is not widely used; nobody could predict that typing would be superior to actual handwriting.

  • Personal Transportation (1950s Vision)

  • 1950s-vision-of-personal-transportation.jpgIt is unclear why people in the 1950s thought this was a practical way to travel; not only it looks like it is impossible to breathe in there, who would want to stand upright while driving? It would definitely ease the traffic; however, probably no one would want to use it.

    The Smart-Cities of Future

    Smart Cities of the FutureTowering transmitters in the city and private-jet traffic in the sky… This is a prediction that was made probably too early and it is definitely not so far from reality. Today, we paint a similar future for smart-cities and sci-fi movies depict the future cities in the same manner. It seems that older generations and we have a similar vision of the future look of the world.

To read more: https://interestingengineering.com/11-illustrations-of-how-people-in-the-past-imagined-life-today?_source=newsletter&_campaign=E4jMZWjELLmMM&_uid=46dBBxnxd7&_h=0c209d493fa27bb2c39469a873cbbd733289c833&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=mailing&utm_campaign=Newsletter-22-11-2019

Metropolitan Museum: “Mechanical Marvels – Automation” From 17th & 18th Century (Videos)

The mahout (elephant keeper), the turbaned Ottoman warriors, and the crowning crescent all allude to the Eastern origins of the elephant. Within the Kunstkammer the elephant represented rulership. This automaton clock, which strikes at both the quarter hour and the hour, is driven by a movement connected to a wheel mounted on the walkway of the howdah (saddle). On the hour, the four Muslim warriors revolve around the brickwork tower. The mahout thumps his arm up and down, as though he were leading the animal, and his counterweighted eyes move back and forth as the machine travels.

Presented to Empress Maria Theresa in Vienna in 1760, this automaton was made at the height of the “century of writing.” Written communication connected scientists, dignitaries, scholars, and artists across long distances, and the act of writing was celebrated in every form. This piece is the last in a series of increasingly complicated ones that Friedrich von Knaus produced during his tenure as Austrian court machinist; he presented other examples to dignitaries such as the French king Louis XV and Duke Charles Alexander of Lorraine.

The machine writes through the hand of the small statuette seated at its top, one of the first mechanical writing figures in human form. This video shows the mechanisms inside the sphere that produce its precise movements. Up to 107 words can be preprogrammed by the arrangement of pegs on a barrel. The figure can also be set via a hand-worked control to appear to write from dictation; this technology that presaged the first typewriter.

Duke Charles Alexander of Lorraine, who bought this automaton clock in 1777, collected luxury objects made in his realm that demonstrated local technical advances. The self-moving components of this timepiece represent the height of Flemish invention in a fashionable Neoclassical style. Mechanically complex and visually impressive, this sparkling clock was a worthy addition to the duke’s collection of timepieces and scientific instruments.

This video shows the movement of the dials for hours, minutes, and seconds; days of the month; and phases of the moon, as well as that of the seven dynamic design elements. The cross-of-Lorraine pendulum swings steadily over the main dial, underneath a dancing letter M. Above the calendar dial turns a Catherine wheel, while the four dragons supporting the obelisk flap their wings and spit pearls. Another Catherine wheel spins above the moon-phase dial, and the entire obelisk is topped by a rotating planetarium. The fourth dial shows the maker’s signature.

Website: https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2019/making-marvels-science-splendor

 

Interviews: Anthony Hopkins On The “Nature Of Existence”, Having Fun In “The Two Popes” (WSJ)

From a Wall Street Journal Magazine online interview:

Anthony Hopkins The Two Popes“The script is about questioning the nature of existence. I think about that every day of life. What is the purpose of life? As I get older, I look back on my own life as if it’s a novel written by someone else. To me it’s all a mystery. I started out over 60 years ago. My first job was, my God, 62 years ago and here I am. I don’t understand any of it. They gave me work, and I continued to work. It’s only just recently looking back, I thought, ‘My goodness, who designed this life? I certainly didn’t.’ I don’t know what’s life or destiny or kismet or God. I don’t want to get too philosophical about it. I’m fascinated about the mystery of life, about how we get through it, how we survive. I have no answers and I can’t take credit for any of it.”

Anthony Hopkins, who plays Pope Benedict XVI in this month’s Netflix movie The Two Popes, has a personal philosophy of not taking anything too seriously. “When I was younger, I was much more intense,” he says. “I got to a certain age, maybe 10 years ago, and thought, ‘Come on, just relax. Have some fun with it. Let’s have a ball!’” Hopkins’s surprising approach to playing the pope was to be as laid back as the actor, 81, appears on his lively Instagram account: He captures himself singingdancing in his Thor costume and playing the piano with his cat perched on his lap.

To read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-anthony-hopkins-doesnt-research-his-roles-11574343089?mod=read_more