The Easel

22nd June 2021

Want to go deep inside a great artist’s mind? MoMA’s Cézanne exhibition is the one to see this summer

This “staggeringly beautiful” show highlights Cezanne’s “weird” experiments in composition. He wanted a way of using “color and rhythm” to give an image stability and order, qualities he felt the Impressionist’s work lacked. If expressing a “logic of organized sensations” meant sacrificing legibility, then fine. His focus was to “re-create the structure of experience out of the units of that experience”. And the result of these weird, abstract labours … the foundations of modern art.

The Brooklyn Museum Tells a Fascinating New Story in Its Decorative Arts Galleries

In newly renovated galleries the Brooklyn Museum is displaying its decorative arts collection in a “less Eurocentric” way. Not easy when everyone wants to see pieces by Tiffany, Bauhaus, Memphis. The influence of Japan (see the ‘Ginza Robot’ cabinet), China, and women all get more fulsome recognition. There is also an effort to highlight today’s social equity debates. Just as is happening in the painting galleries, it’s a “a stab at rewriting history”.