Where does vernacular art – like quilt making – fit in the art world? Should it be compared directly to mainstream art? Or, does it belong in its own category, such as “outsider art”. Categorization seems beside the point if mainstream and self-taught artists have “converged on compositional commonalities that make many people’s eyes respond in equivalent ways.”
Finally, after multiple plans and years (decades) of trying, New York’s beloved Frick Collection has an approved renovation. Notably, the contentious removal of its garden that undermined the previous plan has been abandoned. Advocates describe the latest plan as “respectful”; to one opponent it’s “a vote for blandness”. Law suits could be next.
Facing huge demand for his society portraits, Gainsborough relaxed by drawing landscapes. And he wasn’t just doodling. Unlike highly geometric French landscapes, he showed “picturesque” nature – irregular and meandering. It was a new vision of nature making him the “progenitor of an English landscape tradition” carried forward by Constable and Turner. “He was a one-man avant-garde.”