The Easel

10th April 2018

EASEL ESSAY: Not just for “nerds”: vivid stories from the Old Masters

Morgan Meis and Keith Christiansen | The-Easel | 10th April 2018

Why do we still pay attention to Old Masters paintings? There are a handful of famous names – Rembrandt, Vermeer, Velázquez, Michelangelo – toward whom adulation seems obligatory. Yet, walking the galleries of a major museum, you quickly realize there are many others. With their ornate gilded frames and often perplexing subjects, why should their works command modern attention? Indeed, why do museums continue to acquire them?

Keith Christiansen, a self-confessed addict of paintings by the Old Masters, is the John Pope-Hennessy Chairman of the Department of European Paintings at New York’s Metropolitan Museum. Recently Morgan Meis, Contributing Editor of The Easel, talked to Keith about the modern relevance of these works. Keith’s response to the topic was, well, emphatic.

Stray Dog

Ian Buruma | The New York Review of Books | 10th April 2018

Great essay. “Moriyama [is] interested in the dreams that cities sell. [He] doesn’t need Tokyo to give us his vision of modern urban life, of the marks human beings have made on the world. These are often lurid, ugly, aggressive, and destructive. But they can also contain a perverse kind of beauty. It takes a great artist like Moriyama to make us see it.”

Unknown Unknowns Come Sweeping In: On Geoff Dyer’s “The Street Philosophy of Garry Winogrand”

Geoff Nicholson | LA Review of Books | 4th April 2018

Winogrand, it seems, “lost it” later in his life Perhaps it was failing health, perhaps artist’s block. “Winogrand knew as well as anyone that he’d lost it, and he thought the best way to get it back was to take more and more photographs until he became good again.” Some of the fruits of that effort are now the subject of a book. More images are here.

Milan’s Fondazione Prada sheds light on Italy’s Fascist past on eve of country’s elections

Hannah McGivern | The Art Newspaper | 6th March 2018

Mussolini was laid back about art – provided it supported fascism. Government-staged exhibitions were propagandistic, hugely popular and many artists participated. By being open to all styles and artists, Italy’s “visual culture” was in effect gradually harnessed to the fascist cause. A “landmark” exhibition according to one critic. More images are here.

The Berkshire Museum Gets the Final Green Light to Sell Works From Its Collection, Ending a Long-Running Saga

Julie Halperin | artnet news | 6th April 2018

Berkshire museum has won a protracted battle to raise money by selling key artworks. Having satisfied the court about its financial difficulties, the museum can proceed with its sale. One key work will be purchased by another institution and kept on public display. Few on the ‘losing’ side seem happy. Says one “I think the precedent here is, frankly, disastrous”.

Tony DeLap’s hybrids of painting and sculpture are impossible objects

Christopher Knight | LA Times | 16th March 2018

California’s “light and space” art (also called ‘finish fetish’ art) is cerebral – quiet pieces with exact, immaculate surfaces, manipulating light and geometric shapes. DeLap was an early contributor and is viewed mainly as a painter. However, the reviewer admits, “painting … is almost never the main event.  [B]eyond the painting’s edges, the possibilities are several.”

3rd April 2018

America’s Cool Modernism: O’Keeffe to Hopper review – a whole new story

Laura Cumming | The Guardian | 1st April 2018

American artists in the inter-war years were challenged. How could they express the emerging Modern Age in their art? Further, how best to do this with a uniquely American voice. One critic finds their response “timid and detached, devoid of human warmth”. This writer concedes that it’s beauty is “dour” but maintains it offers a “whole new chapter of the story … the birth of cool”.

Frank Auerbach’s Splintered Labyrinth

Christopher Moore | Randian | 22nd March 2018

Elegant essay on Auerbach and his famously repetitive painting style. “Each Auerbach portrait does not represent a personality per se; each picture is Auerbach’s rather than, foremost, a portrait or a caricature. In truth, every one of the paintings is the same, but lined in a row from start to an un-finished finish, not one would appear the same as any other.”

The 6 Most Provocative Pairings at the Met Breuer’s New Sculpture Show

Julian Jimarez Howard | Garage | 23rd March 2018

Sculptures of the human body try to replicate a real human presence. Traditionally, they have been white and flawless. An “exceptionally provoking” show attempts to broaden the canvas, so to speak, to make sculpture more inclusionary. “Excellent … a morgue, a menagerie, and (perhaps?) a mea culpa on behalf of historically-flawed museums everywhere”.

What Iran’s dazzling art tells us about its civilisation

Joobin Bekhrad | bbc.com | 23rd March 2018

Three cheers for cultural diplomacy. Iran’s Qujar dynasty (1785 – 1925) provided lamentable governance but supported dazzling cultural achievements. An exhibition of the “art of the courts” – paintings, decorative arts – has opened in France. “Sumptuous, iconic, and wholly novel” says the writer. A reciprocal show from the Louvre has opened in Tehran. More images are here.

Delacroix returns spectacularly to the Louvre

Jackie Wullschlager | ft.com | 28th March 2018

Delacroix was “the most singular, contradictory, extreme artist of the 19th century. [He] invented paintings that depend on whorls of expressive colour, surface rather than structure, the pleasure of gleaming skin over anatomical precision.” Forty years after his death and inspired by his innovations, the Impressionists came charging through. Multiple images are here.

Sean Scully with David Carrier

David Carrier | The Brooklyn Rail | 5th March 2018

A critic once described Scully’s stripe paintings as having “grandeur”.  In interview he does come across as focused on grand themes. Past inspiration – “discord, the way people and ideas compete for survival.” Present inspiration – “to rescue abstraction from remoteness” The art world – “[it] has changed dramatically … Paris, London, and New York no longer call the shots as they did”.

How Art Historians Cracked the Case of Enigmatic Japanese Painter Hasegawa Tōhaku

Allison Meier | Artsy | 9th March 2018

Tōhaku was one of the great artists of late 16th century Japan. But where did he come from? A painting in New York may answer this question. He was probably a rural painter who moved to Kyoto and, at some point, changed his name. Impressive if true – Kyoto was known for its bold techniques while Tōhaku’s later works are nearly minimalist. More images are here and a video here.

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