The Easel

27th June 2017

Lustre for life: how John Singer Sargent reinvented the watercolour

Jackie Wullschlager | ft.com | 23rd June 2017

By mid-career Sargent was booked solid doing portraits of the rich and famous. Watercolours were his way of relaxing. He never gave these works much emphasis but they now seem a substantial achievement. “Most of this show is lush prewar Sargent, who in watercolour really became modern, rewriting high culture as a threatened montage of changing perspectives, passing instants”.  A video is here (2 min) and images here.

The ‘August Sander’ Show At Hauser & Wirth Reaffirms Photography As Art Form

Adam Lehrer | Forbes | 1st May 2017

Physiognomy – the inference of personality from someone’s appearance – doesn’t work. But a century ago it motivated Sander to photograph thousands of his fellow Germans. “All of his subjects seem to wear labor like a badge. [Sander said] allow me to be honest and tell the truth about our age and its people”. Sadly, he didn’t prove the theory but did lay the foundations of fine art photography. Some images are here.

Image: Hauser and Wirth

13th June 2017

Portraiture rules, Part 1

Emily Catrice | Saatchi Gallery Magazine | 10th June 2017

Semiotics – the study of signs and symbols – is used to analyse a portrait of Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge. Her choice of a (very costly) painting rather than a (costly) photograph “demonstrates her assimilation into the royal family as only wealth can”. The image itself communicates “a modern monarchy consciously keen to assert itself as less ostentatious, yet as a powerful unfading institution nonetheless.”

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