-
Michelangelo, the Head of Leda and a Royal Evildoer
We know Michelangelo (1475-1564) for this and that. We are amazed by the fact that he copied some Martin Schongauer engravings at the age of thirteen. We’ve heard rumors about his homosexuality. And although we’ve always liked Leonardo and his katanas better, we have to admit that the coolest Teenage Mutant Hero Turtle is named after Michelangelo. 452 years after his death, his works are still part of our pop culture. Any more proof needed for the greatness of this man? From January 17, the Phoenix Art Museum shows twenty-six of Michelangelo’s drawings from the collection of the Casa Buonarroti in Florence. Here’s the story of one of them. Michelangelo’s…
-
L’Art du graffiti
Le mouvement graffiti commença avec les expositions à la galerie Fashion Moda, à la Fun Gallery, au Mudd Club, et autres espaces ouverts au début des années 1980. Puis il s’étendit aux galeries établies de SoHo, de la 57e Rue, et du Salon de l’Art de Bâle. Il prit fin, quelques années plus tard, quand l’attention des critiques, des marchands d’art et des collectionneurs se porta vers de nouveaux engouements. Il existe nombre de raisons qui expliquent que les graffeurs du métro n’ont jamais reçu l’attention sérieuse donnée à leurs pairs. Tout d’abord, les compositions sur lesquelles ils basèrent leurs carrières, les voitures entières qui monopolisèrent l’attention, soit positive, soit négative…
-
Turner: From darkness to light
It was with watercolours demonstrating exceptional qualities that Turner first attracted public attention in the early 1790s, before he had yet turned twenty. As time went on, and as he developed his abilities as an exceptional oil painter, draughtsman and printmaker as well as a watercolourist, so too appreciation of his works flourished, to the extent that by 1815, the very year in which Lake of Lucerne, from the landing place at Fluelen was first seen publicly, an anonymous writer could term the artist “The First Genius of the Day”. However, during the 1800s and 1810s he was severely criticised for his use of white, so much so that both…
-
Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Lebrun : beauté, talent et modernité
Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Lebrun fut célèbre par son talent et par sa beauté. Son talent lui valut d’être admise aux académies de peinture de France, de Rome, de Parme, de Bologne et bien d’autres. Sa beauté lui valut d’être une femme à la mode, et l’agrément de son esprit de garder longtemps cette faveur qui l’entourait des gens les plus distingués de son siècle. Tout ceci se passait avant la première Révolution. Cette beauté, ce talent, cet esprit, furent dans tout l’éclat de leur brillante jeunesse sous le règne de Louis XVI, et la manière dont on accueillit et fêta ses avantages chez les princes et chez le roi prouve une…
-
This is what Art tells us about our History
Ask the question of the week – what does it mean to be British? – and the answer you might get from our metropolitan art galleries might be at once polymorphic and paradoxical, but also strangely consoling, in the way of the best culture, about the dark times in which we live. From the British Museum (The Celts), to the V&A (European Arts and Crafts, 1600-1815) to the Royal Academy (Ai Weiwei) and Tate Britain (Artist and Empire), many great British collections present a magic tapestry open to almost infinite reinterpretation. This dazzling collage of portraits, jewellery, sculpture, rare photographs, wax tableaux and sumptuous oriental prints underlines a simple, and…
-
Vishnu and His Avatars or How to Set Things Right
Hands up, who wants an avatar? I mean a real material manifestation of yourself, not a geeky graphical representation. — Okay, okay, you can put your hands down. Obviously everybody wants an avatar. Well, Vishnu has ten of them. That’s one of the benefits of being a Hindu god. Hinduism invented the whole concept! Also, he’s the preserver and protector of the universe. Now that makes one’s own existence seem quite irrelevant. Or has anyone here slept on a thousand-headed snake in the primeval ocean…? See!? So let’s make up for that with some knowledge about Vishnu’s avatars! Hindus believe in the idea of rebirth. A soul passes through different…
-
There's only one Mona Lisa! Why a 10-year study got it all wrong
After a decade of research, a scientist claims to have found the portrait of another woman under Leonardo’s greatest work. Here’s why he’s so mistaken Who is the Mona Lisa, really? There are two answers – and French scientist Pascal Cotte has got both of them wrong. Cotte has told a BBC documentary about his 10-year study of Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous painting using the Layer Amplification Method (LAM). When you look down through the layers of Leonardo’s painting, you see the fossils of his changing conception of the Mona Lisa. The first image he set down, Cotte says, was far less harmonious than the woman we see today…
-
David Bowie, pape de la pop
Vous avez raté l’exposition David Bowie is à la Philharmonie de Paris au printemps 2015 ? J’ai une bonne nouvelle pour vous : l’exposition itinérante conçue par le Victoria and Albert Museum de Londres continue sa tournée et s’est arrêtée pour quelques mois au Groninger Museum aux Pays-Bas (du 11 décembre 2015 au 13 mars 2016). Pourquoi y aller : Vous connaissez Groningue? Moi non plus. Raison n° 1. Vous avez fait le tour d’Amsterdam. Le Van Gogh Museum n’a plus de secret pour vous. La queue devant le Rijksmuseum vous donne des boutons. Raison n° 2. Vous êtes branchés culture et architecture. Raison n° 3. Vous aimez faire du vélo ? Les habitants…
-
Kunst ist da, wo die Bärte sind
Warum fahren eigentlich ausgerechnet Jan und Hein und Klaas und Pit mit? Weil sie Bärte haben! Das leuchtet unmittelbar ein. Mit Männern mit Bärten ist zu rechnen. Sie sind knallhart, furchtlos und trinkfest. Ihrem Wort kann man trauen, denn ein Mann mit Bart hat keine Geheimnisse. Bärte sind, nicht nur des gerade abgelaufenen Movembers und des Nikolauskultes wegen, hip. Prinzessin Leia trägt einen. Justin Bieber… na, sagen wir, er versucht sein Bestes. Und kein Geringerer als Gott hat den Trend schließlich erfunden. Auch einige der größten Künstler aller Zeiten trugen Bärte, Leonardo da Vinci, Dalí oder – der Witz darf in keiner Aufzählung fehlen – Bob Ross. Was aber hat…
-
Attack at an art show mistaken for performance art
Art Basel knifewoman who stabbed a stranger at the art show to ‘see her bleed’ is an aspiring architect at graduate school in New York Siyuan Zhao, 24, allegedly stabbed 33-year-old Shin Seo Young in the neck with an X-Acto knife at the Art Basel event in Miami on Friday An associate of Zhao has called her ‘understanding’ and said she recently moved from Oregon to New York City with graduate school plans Police said Young confronted the suspect, Siyuan Zhao, about purposely following her around the art show and bumping into her several times Zhao pulled out an X-Acto knife and stabbed Young in the right side of the…
This is an interactive art blog in multi languages, you will find new articles on artists, art history, exhibitions, etc. Contributions welcome.
You must be logged in to post a comment.