Hammershøi is often compared to Vermeer because both painted interiors. From that point they diverge. Vermeer showed a moment’s stillness amidst daily activity. Hammershøi’s interiors are all quiet greys and pallid light, clutter conspicuously absent. Figures have their backs turned. Is everything OK here? “He observes rooms with the attentiveness of one watching for changes in the weather.”
Museums have only recently shown real interest in black artists. Likewise, “rigid” art history has blatantly ignored black figures that appear in European paintings (see The Easel, January 22). “Even basic facts about the relationship between blackness, black culture, and certain Modernists, like Manet and Matisse, have been omitted from the timeline of art history.”
Can an artist be too diverse? Goncharova’s vast output was surely, in part, a reflection of her life. Raised in not-quite-modern Russia she made folkloric-styled modernist paintings and books. Her later life in avant garde Paris brought acclaim for her costumes and sets for Ballets Russes. “Everything she did was fully realised and extremely powerful, yet … she remains enigmatic.”