The Easel

23rd April 2019

In Venice, artist Luc Tuymans is going against the current

Nothing about Tuymans seems lighthearted. A “spectacular” retrospective displays his trademark paintings based on found images. Painterly and widely influential, they often allude to dark historic events. Figuring out these references is difficult because Tuymans wants his paintings to have multiple layers. Otherwise, he fears, they are just “propaganda or illustration.”

‘A Painter Not Human’

Coming from ‘provincial’ Sicily, Antonello struggled to get noticed. The modern view that he was the equal of Caravaggio or da Vinci is thus startling. Obsessed with depicting light and psychological detail, Antonello’s portraits are “utterly individual, unlike what any other artist was doing in his time or ours.” Of one portrait of Madonna reaching forward, “the greatest hand in Renaissance art”.