The Easel

1st August 2023

‘Clearly a copy from the 19th century’—Old Masters scholars reject AI-attributed Raphael

Gareth Harris | The Art Newspaper | 26th July 2023

Technologists have used AI to attribute a much-debated painting to Raphael. Previously thought to be just a copy, this finding calls much connoisseurship into question, to the displeasure of Old Masters experts. Says one “This story is so perfectly AI; it can’t tell what’s real or not”. In response, a technologist claims that AI can detect “subtle differences, for example brushstroke patterns, colours, hues … in greater detail than the naked eye”. Recent pigment analysis is consistent with the AI finding. Expect more fireworks!

25th July 2023

Erwin Wurm: Trap of the Truth

David Trigg | Studio International | 21st July 2023

Wurm’s sculptures depict consumer items in funny ways – overweight cars, bendy trucks, couture bags on long spindly legs. It’s OK to laugh, but that just shows how skillfully Wurm uses his favourite “tools” – paradox, and the idea of the absurd. Does the price tag on a Hermes Birkin bag justify its prestige – it is, after all, just a bag. Yet we conform. “Advertisements give us this illusion of freedom, and we believe it, which is more than ridiculous.”

Private view: Albrecht Dürer

Holly Black | The World of Interiors | 18th July 2023

Dürer’s prints were the “blockbusters” of that age. His representation of mythical and religious stories was an obvious attraction but also conspicuous were items of technology – books, textiles, scientific instruments, clocks. These placed the images in contemporary Nuremberg, gaving his images a “hidden power” – an ingenious way to “bring together the visual codes of religion and myth with the vernacular objects of contemporary life.” Images are here.

Hardwick Hall tapestries: 440-year-old artefacts restored and displayed after two decades of work

Zena Hawley | Derbyshire Live | 21st July 2023

A 24 year renovation … OMG! The 13 Gideon tapestries were made in Flanders in 1578 and purchased by an Elizabethan aristocrat in 1592. They have hung in the same country house ever since. Because they are so old, so dirty and so big, the painstaking conservation (described here) has taken decades. A conservator estimates that the tapestries, now back on the same walls they have decorated for centuries, are good to go for “at least another 100 years”.

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