The Easel

26th January 2021

The Gloopy Glory of Frank Auerbach’s Portraits

Jason Farago | The New York Times | 21st January 2021

A ‘national treasure in Britain, Auerbach gets few shows in New York. Given one though, critics there are wowed. One ponders the show’s “almost heroic dimension”, a reflection of Auerbach’s “obsession with the painterly stroke”. This writer marvels at the intense, condensed Auerbach gaze: A portrait of the artist’s wife “appears to be just a dense knot of thick golden strokes. You looked at someone for a whole year and saw … this?”

From Medicis to Mythologies: How Sandro Botticelli Became One of History’s Most Influential Artists

Angelica Villa | ARTnews | 25th January 2021

Coinciding with a Botticelli portrait coming to auction is this somewhat textbook-ish essay. The Medici’s patronage allowed Botticelli to tackle the more ambitious pictures that now underpin his reputation. Often these blended mythology, Christian parable and deft gestures to Florentine politics. Those politics were nothing if not volatile and, once the Medicis lost power, Botticelli reverted to stern medieval painting conventions.

5th January 2021

The meteoric rise of Angelica Kauffman RA

Jenny Uglow | Royal Academy | 2nd January 2021

This show calls Kauffmann a “superwoman and influencer”. Quite! Swiss born, she trained in Rome before moving to London. There, her insightful portraiture chimed with the new interest in “the ‘self’, in the gap between … face and heart”. Made a founding member of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1768, she subsequently returned to Rome wealthy and “the most famous female artist in the age of Enlightenment”. Images are here.

Older links
Newer links