The Easel

23rd October 2018

What Was Delacroix Doing? Aside From Breaking Art History in Half.

Even as a teenager Delacroix hated the “fussy” neoclassicism of Ingres. Romanticism in his hands was expressive colour, looser brushstrokes, a certain vagueness of image. This did not make him a modernist but he had taken a dramatic step toward a modern style. No less an admirer than Cezanne said of one painting “You can find us all in this Delacroix”.

How Japanese Artists Responded to the Transformation of Their Nation

Just as photography challenged nineteenth century western artists so it also threatened Japanese woodblock printing. By 1900 the Japanese art form had nearly collapsed. It re-emerged in fits and starts, partly by developing a range of distinct styles. And, just as photographers had done, printmakers developed “an analytical gaze upon Japan.”

16th October 2018

Sarah Lucas

Lucas’s New York retrospective has been widely praised. Her sculptures use unglamorous materials and are both absurd and articulate – “dirty jokes are crafted without malice—though without mercy, either.” In an interview she admits “I am really not grungy at all. I might be using quite cheap materials, but I am always quite precise … a formalist even.”

‘Hilma Who?’ No More

Unable to sell her abstract work, af Klint blamed backward public tastes. In her will she prohibited exhibition of her work for decades after her death. What is now clear is that she was advanced and preceded the “breakthroughs” of abstract pioneers like Kandinsky and Mondrian. As one critic notes “Her artistic ship sails some of the deepest waters around.”