As seen yesterday, even if you manage to find the vantage from which a painter sketched a real-life scene, history, changes in perspective, and the artist’s own agenda might mean you’ll never actually be able to see the world from that same perspective. Still, it’s sure fun to try. One of the more interesting examples of pairing art with ... Read More »
Without a doubt, Johannes Vermeer’s painting “View on Delft” (above, 1659 – 60, courtesy of The Mauritshuis in the Hague) is the most famous vista of that Dutch city which was home to the artist, and the school of light-infused, painstakingly rendered school that both supported him and grew in fame and influence due to his contributions and guidance. ... Read More »
Pablo Picasso was no slouch—in his 92 years, scholars estimate he created over 50,000 works (1,885 paintings, 4,100 sculptures and ceramics, and some 12,000 drawings.) As many of his pieces appear in museums, thousands more are in the hands of wealthy and not-so-wealthy collectors. Still, the sale of his “Tête de Femme (Jacqueline)” (detail, above), a 1963 portrait of ... Read More »
Yes, it’s been 400 years since the infamous Italian artist and party boy Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio left this world under shadowy circumstances. To toast the life and death of Rome’s rock star of chiaroscuro, the Scuderie del Quirinale is offering up a look back at his work and influence in an exhibition starting on the 20th of this month. ... Read More »
A fascinating little piece in the New York Times today looks at the once-contentious relationship between the Renaissance arts scenes of Florence and Rome through two current exhibitions just a few neighborhoods away from each other in Manhattan. While Rome is represented in one corner by the Morgan Museum & Library’s Rome After Raphael exhibition, which features a slew ... Read More »
In Vienna, Austria, today, the Kunsthistorisches Museum unveiled a masterful restoration of Joannes Vermeer’s legendary masterwork, “The Art of Painting” (c.1666, left). More than just an example of one of time’s greatest painters portraying the practice of his own craft while at the height of his powers, the work is a political and historical hot potato—a national treasure of a ... Read More »
Edvard Munch was not what one would call a happy soul. After all, this was the man who painted “The Scream”. By the age of five he had lost his mother to disease, his favorite sister followed her nine years later, his father was an overly pious depressive, and madness, poverty, and ill health haunted the family. After studying ... Read More »
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