The Easel

12th November 2019

Tutankhamun review – thrills and fun as King Tut gets the Hollywood treatment

Jonathon Jones | The Guardian | 2nd November 2019

What else is there to say about Tutankhamun? Only that which is so obvious it is overlooked. He was young, frail, an inconsequential ruler. The gold is fabulous but more impressive is the exquisite craft and refinement of lesser objects. Everyday objects like food containers give the show “real warmth”. And vulnerability; “they remind you that this is about death and the craving for something beyond it”.

Bridget Riley

Beth Williamson | Studio International | 5th November 2019

Riley says of her own work: “One moment, there will be nothing to look at and the next second the canvas seems to refill, to be crowded with visual events.” Her favoured tools are the optical effects of patterns and the way colours jostle against each other. One critic thinks this is now passé. Really? Illusion has long been a central preoccupation of art. It’s difficult to see Riley as other than a strong contributor to that ancient tradition.

5th November 2019

A New Exhibition Shows Women as Artists, Not Muses

Helen Lewis | The Atlantic | 29th October 2019

The Victorian era Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood painted pretty but hapless women in need of (male) rescue. No wonder they are ridiculed. Were the women members of that group better artists? The above piece praises them, perhaps out of sisterly obligation. A tougher view is that few had much talent. A clear exception was Evelyn De Morgan, whose masterful touch “makes the wan pre-Raphaelite men who surround her look like wimps.”

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