The Easel

17th August 2021

Can We Ever Look at Titian’s Paintings the Same Way Again?

Holland Cotter | The New York Times | 12th August 2021

In London, this show was praised to the heavens. Now in New York, there is more rhapsodizing about Titian – “an ingenious dramatist … one of history’s magician paint-movers”. However, there is an elephant in the room. These paintings feature sexual violence and use the female nude as an “erotic emblem”. Titian’s client was a world-conquering ruler, so demure was not an option. Understood – but should we simply ignore the clash of “aesthetics and ethics”?

Joseph Yoakum and adventurous facts

Sophie Varin | Conceptual Fine Arts | 26th July 2021

Born in 1891, Yoakum didn’t create an artwork until 1962. After that – a torrent, about 2000 “radiant” works up to his death in 1971. Many are landscapes, done with ballpoint pen and coloured pencils and often only vaguely resembling actual places. These works express a “spiritual vision”, with improbable mountains and swaying cliffs. But we are “never entirely mislead … you believe what you see as much as you see what you believe”.

Journey of the treasures

Staff | Art Gallery of NSW | 16th August 2021

Amidst yet more turmoil, a timely reminder of Afghanistan’s great cultural heritage. Its northern region sat astride the Silk Road trading routes and was part of Bactria, the area ruled by Alexander the Great.  The so-called Bactrian Hoard, discovered in 1979, was one of the greatest archeological finds of the twentieth century. Sadly, much of Afghanistan’s remaining cultural inheritance has been destroyed. Further background on the Hoard is here.

Vanishing Point

Matthew Wilcox | Bonhams | 13th June 2021

Around 1900, Edward Curtis decided to photograph life in the 86 native American tribes. His near 30-year effort created a huge and unique record of indigenous life and culture. Some now think Curtis sanitized and exoticized tribal life, and it is true that Curtis did stage some images. Others, including some indigenous figures, think he was well motivated and created a cultural record that would otherwise not exist. “Truth [in photography] … is often not straightforward”.

A Meissen porcelain trove is set to shatter auction records

James Tarmy | Bloomberg | 13th August 2021

It takes something special for porcelain to get coverage in the art press. In 1720, Meissen was the first European manufacturer to successfully produce “hard paste” porcelain. For about 20 years – Meissen’s “golden age” – it kept this knowhow secret and produced glorious pieces to satisfy aristocratic tastes. Heading to auction soon is “one of the great collections in postwar memory”, eye candy of the highest order.

What’s in a Frame?

Erin Migdol | The Iris | 11th August 2021

The marriage of painting and frame may or may not be a happy one. Frames are primarily a protective device. Sometimes though, collectors choose a frame that exaggerates a painting’s status – or matches the colour of the sofa. Artists may prefer frames that emphasise the distinctiveness of their style. Museums usually try to match frame and artwork – “if the frame is doing its job correctly, it’ll disappear”.

10th August 2021

The epic style of Kerry James Marshall

Calvin Tomkins | The New Yorker | 9th August 2021

This beautifully written profile has an epic quality, reflecting the writer’s belief that Marshall is “a great artist, a virtuoso”. His works, “figurative but not realistic”, carry an historical narrative but with a contemporary feel. Cumulatively, they express Marshall’s grand theme – “there has always been more to the Black experience in America than oppression … Black lives have been and can be rewarding, diverse, and full of joy.”

Phillip King, constantly inventive British sculptor and former president of the Royal Academy – obituary

Staff | The Telegraph | 8th August 2021

King, like his friend and one time tutor Anthony Caro, started as an assistant to Henry Moore. By the early 1960’s both abandoned figurative sculpture for radical abstraction, often using painted steel. Both were acclaimed but Caro became the more famous. Perhaps King’s relentless innovation obscured an obvious signature style. Said he “[In painting] surface is everything. With sculpture, there is surface, but there is so much more going on behind”.

Little Canaletto’s sordid city in the sky – Bellotto: The Königstein Views Reunited review

Jonathon Jones | The Guardian | 21st July 2021

Frederick Augustus, ruler of Saxony, commissioned Bellotto to paint five large studies of his massive hilltop fortress. Reunited in London for the first time since they were painted, these works are an impressive vanity project. More than that though, Bellotto used these landscapes to express a new idea – the power of nature. With their panoramic views and sharp contrast of light and shadow, they are “the first true stirrings of Romantic storminess.”

Luchita Hurtado’s Spiritual Modernism

Max Pearl | The Nation | 4th August 2021

A profile of Hurtado who died last year. She painted prolifically for 70 years until getting her first solo gallery show in 2016 and first museum show in 2019. While absorbing influences from surrealism and abstraction, her work consistently explored the themes of “motherhood, the oneness of all things”.  Such themes were unfashionable in late 20th century art, but recognition finally arrived, especially via her late self-portraits. An interview with Hurtado is here.

Albert Pinkham Ryder’s “A Wild Note of Longing” — Mysterious to the Point of Holy

Franklin Einspruch | The arts fuse | 6th August 2021

As the Impressionists were conquering all, Americans were feeling a bit provincial. Among them, only Ryder could possibly be considered modernist. Was he the visionary modernist his contemporaries claimed? He stood out from the documentary style landscapists of his day with his awareness of surface texture and “brooding spirituality”. Undoubtedly, he was influential. But perhaps that is all – he successfully broke with the old without defining the new.

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