Tag Archives: Art

Art History: “The Lives of Caravaggio” (The Getty)

Art + Ideas - Getty PodcastsMichelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio is one of the most admired painters of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Known for his powerful, dramatically lit compositions, Caravaggio depicted violence and the human form with a degree of realism unprecedented at the time. He was among the most famous painters in Rome—but not only because of his skill as an artist.

Michelangelo Merisi da CaravaggiCaravaggio was also notorious for his wild life and shocking temper. After being sentenced to death for murder, he fled Rome and died in exile at age 38 . Three biographies written in the decades after his death constitute nearly all that is known about the enigmatic artist.

In this episode, Getty curator and expert on Italian painting Davide Gasparatto discusses Caravaggio and the role these early biographies, by Giulio Mancini, Giovanni Baglione, and Giovanni Pietro Bellori, played in defining Caravaggio’s legacy.

Top New Art Books: “Alice Trumbull Mason – Pioneer of American Abstraction”

Alice Trumbull Mason Pioneer of American Abstraction - Rizzoli May 2020The first comprehensive publication exploring the life and art of pioneering American abstract artist Alice Trumbull Mason is perfect for audiences eager to discover unsung yet brilliantly talented women artists.

A groundbreaking artist, Alice Trumbull Mason (1904-1971) was one of the earliest painters of the twentieth century to embrace abstract painting in America. Mason’s early paintings have been compared to those of Gorky, Kandinsky, and Miró, and in 1936 she became a founding member of the American Abstract Artists (AAA) and one of its leaders in the promotion of abstract work by artists such as Josef Albers, Ad Reinhardt, Piet Mondrian, and many others. Mason was a true artist’s artist whose efforts helped lead to the great movements of later twentieth-century art, such as Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Post-Modernism, and Conceptual Art.

Rizzoli BooksAlice Trumbull Mason features essays that illuminate and contextualize the artist’s multifaceted work and personal life through her paintings, prints, poetry, and letters. The book reveals the full life story of a seminal abstractionist, making a sound argument for adding her to the annals of great twentieth-century artists.

About The Author

Elisa Wouk Almino is senior editor of HyperallergicMarilyn Brown is professor emerita of art history at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and Tulane University. Meghan Forbes is a postdoctoral fellow in the Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Will Heinrich writes about art for The New Yorker and the New York TimesThomas Micchelli is an artist, writer, and coeditor of Hyperallergic WeekendChristina Weyl is an art historian and curator with a focus on midcentury American printmaking and women artists.

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Art History: “Auguste Rodin – The Father Of Modern Sculpture”

From Christie’s online magazine (May 2020):

Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) Meditation, small model, type I version
Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) Meditation, small model, type I version

Rodin travelled to Italy in 1875, a trip described by the late art historian Kirk Varnedoe as, ‘one of the seminal events in modern art’.

Here, in his mid-thirties, he fell under the spell of the Renaissance master, Michelangelo. His monumental, exaggerated nude figures would have a deep and lasting influence on the artist. ‘My liberation from academicism was via Michelangelo,’ Rodin later recalled. ‘He is the bridge by which I passed from one circle to another.’

Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) is renowned for breathing life into clay, creating naturalistic, often vigorously modelled sculptures which convey intense human emotions: love, ecstasy, agony or grief. Breaking the rules of academic convention and classical idealism, Rodin ushered in a new form of highly expressive sculpture that went on to influence generations of artists that followed.

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Art History: “Cocktails With A Curator – Turner’s ‘Harbor Of Dieppe'” (Frick)

In this episode of “Cocktails with a Curator,” Xavier F. Salomon, Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator, discusses the French port city depicted in J. M. W. Turner’s painting “Harbor of Dieppe: Changement de Domicile,” and how the artist’s extensive travel throughout Europe helped to develop his affinity for harbors. The complementary cocktail is the Widow’s Kiss, a French drink traditionally given to women who had lost their husbands at sea.

To see this painting in detail, please visit our website: https://collections.frick.org/objects…

 

Abstract Art Profiles: “City Landscape – 1955” By Joan Mitchell (1925-1992)

Joan Mitchell, City Landscape, 1955, oil on linen, 203.2 × 203.2 cm (Art Institute of Chicago 1958.193, ©The Estate of Joan Mitchell), a Seeing America video

Speakers: Sarah Alvarez, Director of School Programs, Art Institute of Chicago, Beth Harris, and Steven Zucker

 

Top New Art Magazines: “Apollo – May 2020” Issue

INSIDE THE ISSUE
FEATURES | Julio Le Parc interviewed by Gabrielle SchwarzGlenn Adamson on the MFA Boston at 150; Aaron Rosen on the Rothko Chapel in Houston; Valeria Costa-Kostritsky on rebuilding Notre-Dame
REVIEWS | Morgan Falconer on Donald Judd at MoMA; Edward J. Sullivan on Mexican muralism at the Whitney; Maichol Clemente on Renaissance terracottas in Padua; Susan Owens on ghosts in ancient Rome; Craig Burnett on Philip Guston; Stephen Patience on Blake Gopnik’s biography of Andy Warhol; Thomas Marks on F.T. Marinetti’s Futurist Cookbook
MARKET | Gareth Harris on online viewing rooms; and the latest art market columns from Susan Moore and Emma Crichton-Miller
PLUS | Thomas Campbell and Adam Koszary debate the role of the digital museumJames Wilkes on trompe-l’oeil and artistic trickery; Kathryn Hughes on the image of Florence NightingaleTimothy Brittain-Catlin on contemporary architectural follies; Thomas Marks in search of art during lockdownRobert O’Byrne on an exceptional collection of Chinese art

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Artists: Watercolor Painter Alex Hillkurtz

Alex Hillkurtz was born in England and grew up in California where he is a renowned storyboard artist for feature films, television, and commercials. His film credits include “Argo”, “Almost Famous”, “It’s Complicated”, and many others.

Alex Hillkurtz WatercolorAlex currently lives in Paris with his film editor wife, Tiffany, and enjoys discovering the hidden corners of the city that sketching and plein air painting allow. He uses the language of cinema to inform his images, moving beyond what one sees, and depicting what he wants others to see. He believes that in our too-crowded lives, sketching and plein air painting invite us to move at a more deliberate pace… a true sense of place, and sometimes unexpected stories are revealed.

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Fine Arts: “The Burlington Magazine May 2020” – The Best Of Art & Its History

Raphael and his cult

There is an unhappy irony in the fact that five hundred years after Raphael died of a fever at the age of only thirty-seven, the global covid-19 pandemic has brought to a premature end so many of the exhibitions that have been staged to mark the anniversary.

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Art: Modern Discoveries About Titian’s ‘Poesie’ (National Gallery Video)

A look ‘beneath’ Titian’s canvases reveals the tweaks and changes he made as he worked over four hundred years ago. Find out more with Restorer Jill Dunkerton.

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Art: “An Introduction To Young Rembrandt” (Ashmolean Museum)

The Ashmolean’s 2020 Young Rembrandt exhibition is currently closed, but you can still visit virtually. Watch this introduction from exhibition curator An Van Camp, and explore the exhibition section by section at ashmolean.org

The Young Rembrandt exhibition charts the astonishing transformation of the Dutch master Rembrandt. Spanning the years 1624 to 1634, it traces how a young and unremarkable artist from Leiden became the superstar of 17th-century Amsterdam and one of the greatest artists of all time.

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