The Easel

12th October 2021

Poussin and the Dance review, National Gallery: A youthful, light-hearted look at the French painter

Mark Hudson | The Independent | 8th October 2021

Poussin, the “father of French painting”, has a reputation for “emotionally remote”, even “stuffy” works. Well, that’s not the whole story. At age 30, Poussin went to Rome. Inspired by its ancient statues and sensual lifestyle, he suddenly started painting lighthearted – even bawdy – dance scenes. His later career returned to serious and sombre but, for a decade, Poussin painted “post-Renaissance rave art”. His “austerely beautiful” art was, for a time, not quite so inscrutable.

Gilbert & George, Full of Themselves Again

Michael Glover | Hyperallergic | 24th April 2021

Gilbert & George aim to provoke. In their coupledom, their opinions, their art, it has been a 50-year effort. Does it still ring true? The affirmative view highlights their message of inclusion, set against the harsher realities of urban London.  The linked piece, however, hints at a certain weariness. These “scalawags … are past masters of the titillating, half-meaningful, half-nonsensical, verbal provocation …What better place to enjoy all this spectacle than a well-appointed gallery in Mayfair?”

5th October 2021

Noguchi

Dominic Lutyens | The Design Edit | 27th September 2021

Noguchi would have disliked being described as ‘designer and artist’. For him, his tables, lights and sculptures were not fashion items but a reflection of the human activity associated those objects. Well, at least one critic doesn’t see Noguchi’s modernist designs as art, either. They have “no punch … no emotional or psychic energy, just … harmless creations”. Responds another “just because something is simple, modest and popular does not mean it is not art.”

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