The Easel

10th March 2020

David Jenkins discovers the new Aubrey Beardsley exhibition at Tate Britain

David Jenkins | tatler | 6th March 2020

Expecting a short life, Beardsley worked feverishly. He took up art at 18, his sensual black and white drawings instantly brilliant. Book illustrations cemented his reputation, their erotic content showing “an attitude to lust and sex that even Egon Schiele is hard pressed to match.” Then death, at 25. There is no lasting Beardsley movement, just his images of “the overheated, decadent days … that were London’s febrile 1890s”

Alona Pardo on destabilising the myths surrounding masculinity

Diane Smyth | British Journal of Photography | 17th February 2020

This photography exhibition has produced an absolute torrent of commentary. Masculinity is cultural and learned from stereotypes – musclemen, athletes, soldiers, fathers. “Generalisations”, protest some reviewers. True, but that doesn’t deny that stereotypes exist or that they are influential. This writer concludes that we need an “emancipation of masculinity” The take of another critic is that men share an overlooked quality – vulnerability.

Piranesi Drawings: Visions of Antiquity

Sarah Vowles | theidlewoman | 19th February 2020

Unable to succeed as an architect, Piranesi chose instead to make prints of ancient Roman buildings. Tourists on the Grand Tour loved them, making him the 18th century’s “greatest printmaker”. Architecturally sensible images gradually became towering edifices that Piranesi imagined for ancient Rome. Perhaps their fantasy element explains their lingering influence, like inspiring sets on the Hollywood film Blade Runner.

3rd March 2020

David Hockney: Drawing from Life review – stripping subjects down to their gym socks

Jonathon Jones | The Guardian | 26th February 2020

A few critics’ quibbles (too many Hockney shows, “the polished sweetness of Ingres”) don’t reflect the majority view. “Postwar art’s greatest draughtsman” says one. This writer agrees. “Hockney is a graphic master … the most dazzling display of his art I have ever seen. The intensity of Hockney’s self-inspection, fag in mouth, bears comparison with Rembrandt.”

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