The Easel

6th December 2022

Denver Art Museum’s new look at Flemish old masters

Colleen Smith | Art and Object | 14th November 2022

Around 1500, and coming into its pomp, Antwerp prized the exquisite detail of Flemish gothic art. That is, until Italians started centering their art on the human figure. Flemish art gradually followed. This, together with newly developed oil paint that enabled greater tonal nuance, set the stage for the golden age of Dutch art. Stars like Rubens, van Dyck and Wautier drew on their traditions of careful observation to produce contemporary art that expressed “the vivid actualities of life”.

Aubrey Beardsley

Chloe Wyma | Artforum | 15th October 2022

Beardsley was gleefully transgressive and feasted on prudish Victorian England. Caricaturist, cartoonist, book illustrator, poster designer and, of course, artist, his career lasted just seven years. His love of the grotesque led a contemporary to accuse him of “blasphemies against art”. Yet his drawings and “serpentine” line remain instantly recognizable, as does his mixture of “coyness and acid observation, of tender description with shocking incident”.

29th November 2022

Painting is having a special moment: look at Amy Sherald

Waldemar Januszczak | Waldemar.tv | 14th November 2022

With her first solo show in Europe, Sherald wins a new fan. In the flesh, her portraits are full of subtlety and reveal her to be a “daring colourist”. More than that, though, they are about “strikingly and profoundly black” subjects, a group woefully absent from the art canon. These works “pull you in and make you imagine things about this modest but gripping cast. It’s what great portraiture has always done.  [They are] exceptional art” A recent interview is here.

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