Tag Archives: England

Natural World Art: “Ten Artists Who Celebrated Nature” (Christie’s)

From Christie’s article (April 22, 2020):

Ivan Shishkin Siverskaya 1896 Christie's
Ivan Shishkin “Siverskaya” (1896)

From Switzerland to South America, from the South of England to the coast of Maine, they have been moved by mountains, oceans, deserts, plains, lakes and forests — we hope you will find their art every bit as stirring as we do

Russia’s pine forests

Siverskaya, located 70km south of St Petersburg, was a popular summer retreat for Russian city-dwellers in the 19th century. It was in Siverskaya and its neighbouring woods that Ivan Shishkin — one of Russia’s most famous landscape painters, dubbed ‘the patriarch of forests’ — created some of his best-known works.

Peak of Mount Emei (1958) - Huang Junbi - Christie's
Peak of Mount Emei (1958) – Huang Junbi

Mount Emei, China

Mount Emei in Sichuan, southwest China, is the highest of China’s four sacred Buddhist mountains, reaching to 3,099 metres. The mountain is a place of pilgrimage, where dozens of temples and monasteries have been erected, and has been an inspiration for artists for centuries.

Wednesday 22 April, 2020 marks 50 years since the declaration of the first Earth Day in 1970 — an occasion on which to reflect on our natural world, and perhaps take action to help sustain it. In celebration of this anniversary, we look back on a selection of artists for whom nature — and our planet — has been an inspiration and guide. 

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Art & Landscape: Gardens & Grounds Of The Natural History Museum, London”

The Museum’s gardens were originally set aside for future expansion of the building, but when money ran out they became an outside space for the public. They haven’t just been for show – over the years they’ve been a burial ground for whales, they’ve hosted a secret war bunker, and they’ve been converted to a farm complete with eight Sussex pigs.

The Natural History Museum in London is home to over 80 million specimens, including meteorites, dinosaur bones and a giant squid.

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Video Tributes: British Race Driving Legend Sir Stirling Moss (1929-2020)

Sir Stirlin MossPaying tribute to a racing icon and sporting legend. Rest in peace, Sir Stirling Moss. We’ll miss you.

Sir Stirling Craufurd Moss, OBE was a British Formula One racing driver. An inductee into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame, he won 212 of the 529 races he entered across several categories of competition and has been described as “the greatest driver never to win the World Championship”.

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Art History: “Emotional Expression” In Artwork Of Venetian Painter “Titian” (National Gallery Video)

The way Titian painted was unlike other artists of his day. With little in the way of preliminary drawings, Titian worked very freely straight onto the canvas. Watch artist Andy Pankhurst show us how Titian would have worked.

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Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio, known in English as Titian, was an Italian painter during the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near Belluno. During his lifetime he was often called da Cadore, ‘from Cadore’, taken from his native region.

Exhibition Tour: British Illustrator Aubrey Beardsley (Tate Britain)

Although our galleries are temporarily closed we wanted to share the Aubrey Beardsley exhibition at Tate Britain with you. Join Tate curators Caroline Corbeau-Parsons and Alice Insley as they discuss the iconic illustrator’s short and scandalous career.

Before his untimely death aged twenty-five, Beardsley produced over a thousand illustrations. He drew everything from legendary tales featuring dragons and knights, to explicit scenes of sex and debauchery. His fearless attitude to art continues to inspire creatives more than a century after his death.

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Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (1872-1898) was an English illustrator and author. His drawings in black ink, influenced by the style of Japanese woodcuts, emphasized the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He was a leading figure in the aesthetic movement which also included Oscar Wilde and James McNeill Whistler.

City Praise: “London, Hong Kong, Toronto, Milan & Rio de Janeiro” (Podcast)

The Urbanist Monocle 24 Podcast logoWe ask our housebound editors and correspondents across the globe to reflect on what they cherish about the places in which they live and to pen a love letter to their cities: London, Hong Kong, Rio de Janeiro, Toronto and Milan.

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Art: Virtual Exhibition Tour Of “Picasso And Paper” (Royal Academy)

Experience our Picasso and Paper exhibition from your own home in this video tour of the galleries, created before the Royal Academy had to close its doors due to coronavirus.

Picasso didn’t just draw on paper — he tore it, burnt it, and made it three-dimensional. From studies for ‘Guernica’ to a 4.8-metre-wide collage, this exhibition brings together more than 300 works on paper spanning the artist’s 80-year career.

Installation views of the Picasso and Paper exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts. © Succession Picasso/DACS 2020. Exhibition organised by the Royal Academy of Arts, London and the Cleveland Museum of Art in partnership with the Musée national Picasso-Paris.

New Museum Exhibitions: “Andy Warhol” At The Tate Modern, London (Video)

Although our galleries are temporarily closed we wanted to share the Andy Warhol exhibition at Tate Modern with you. Join Tate curators Gregor Muir and Fiontán Moran as they discuss Warhol through the lens of the immigrant story, his LGBTQI identity and concerns with death and religion.

Meet the man behind the brand. It’s a Warhol you might not know, with some artworks you may not have seen before.

Find out more about the exhibition here

 

New Literary Podcasts: Author James Shapiro On “Shakespeare And Plagues”

Octavian Report Rostrum PodcastsOctavian Report “Rostrum” spoke with him about a major theme in Shakespeare’s work and life: disease. Specifically, pandemic plagues, which ravaged London repeatedly throughout Shakespeare’s career, shuttering the theaters, and which appear (obliquely and otherwise) in some of his greatest plays.

The latest episode of the Rostrum’s coronavirus series features James Shapiro, the Larry Miller professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University, and a leading expert on Shakespeare. Shapiro has published widely on this subject, most recently Shakespeare in a Divided America. He is also an advisor to the Royal Shakespeare Company and to the Public Theater.

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James S. Shapiro (born 1955) is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University who specialises in Shakespeare and the Early Modern period. Shapiro has served on the faculty at Columbia University since 1985, teaching Shakespeare and other topics, and he has published widely on Shakespeare and Elizabethan culture.

 

Art & Humor Spotlight: 56-Year Old British Painter Harland Miller’s “Iconic Penguin Book Covers”

From a Maddox Gallery website (March 20, 2020):

Harland-Miller-Ill-Never-Forget-What-I-Cant-RememberMiller’s Penguin book covers and ironic titles catch the art world’s eye

These covers are closer to still life studies, rather than two-dimensional posters. Experimenting with different paper sizes and angles, he occasionally shows their spines, and the shadows they cast. It is a celebration of books as treasured objects. His drawings – in particular his studies for his large-scale oil paintings with their notes scribbled down the margins – are some of his most intimate works to date.

The ensuing images are humorous, sardonic and nostalgic at the same time, while the painting style hints at the dog-eared, scuffed covers of the Penguin classics themselves.

Starting with Jay Jopling in 1996, when Miller exhibited in a group show at London’s Institute of Contemporary Art, his works have garnered many a famous fan. Amongst which are AC/DC’s guitarist Angus Young, David Bailey, and Elton John – whose work amusingly, if a little painfully, bears the title ‘International Lonely Guy.’

George Michael, with his Harland Miller piece ‘Incurable Romantic Seeks Dirty Filthy Whore‘ commanded  £237,500 in the posthumous auction of his art collection last year.

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