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What Boston Loves
In an attempt to manipulate the power of the Internet, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston used crowdsourcing to select pieces for its ongoing exhibition, Boston Loves Impressionism. During the month of January, the MFA held an online vote every week, garnering up to 41,000 votes. This exhibition explores the predominating artistic taste of Bostonians. It neither focuses on the Impressionist movement nor on the individual artists, but rather highlights the connection Boston feels towards each piece. The top three selected works are undeniable favorites. Van Gogh’s Houses at Auvers received the most votes, surpassing Claude Monet’s Water Lilies by at least 1,000 total votes. The only sculpture in…
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Art from the Land of the Rising Sun
Japan, in comparison with many other countries, is rather small, though it ranks tenth amongst the world’s highest populations. More fascinatingly, it has one of the richest and most eclectic art histories to speak of when considering it on its own. Yes, various countries in Europe do this or that, and Africa has a slew of artistic variety, but we’re just talking one country – 6852 islands, if you really want to talk about how amazing Japan’s universally-acknowledged solidarity is. Continuously infiltrated by other powers (China, Russia, Germany’s money, and the United States), art in Japan has successfully maintained a focused and healthy presence in the art world since the…
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Join the Club
If I were to ask you what Camille Pissarro, Dermot Morgan (Ted), Abraham, Christmas, William, Steve Martin, God, Time, and Marlon Brando have in common, would you be able to come up with the solution? I’ll give you a couple of seconds… Father! They have all been referred to as “Father”. Many people (especially the British amongst us) will have heard of, and spent many an evening laughing at, Father Ted. Fathers Christmas and Time are personifications, both of whom appear in the Chronicles of Narnia interestingly enough. Father William is the hero of Lewis Carol’s satirical poem in Alice in Wonderland, and Father Abraham and God the Father are…
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Can (and should) life truly imitate Art?
At first glance I thought this exhibition was about something else entirely – bodies covered in tattoos (to which I am entirely approving). But now that I am well informed, I’ve got some things to say. Are photographs art? Sure, sometimes, certainly not all the time, just have a look at my memory card. But are they Art, capital A, meant to be scrutinised, reviewed, and studied for centuries to come? I’m not so sure. Painting is an expression of one’s mind, heart, and imagination. The colours we interpret, the way things make us feel, whatever happens to be going through our heads at a particular moment in time. Paintings…
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Zwischen Realismus und Impressionismus, zwischen privatem und öffentlichem Raum
Der französische Impressionismus hat viele große Namen hervorgebracht: Bazille, Cézanne, Degas, Gauguin, Manet, Monet, Sisley, Morisot, Pizarro und Renoir, um nur einige zu nennen. Sie alle waren Impressionisten, strebten nach einer Erneuerung der Kunst, waren der Freilichtmalerei verpflichtet und trotz gleicher Ziele war doch jeder für sich einzigartig. Ergänzen Sie der (Un-)Vollständigkeit halber diese Aufzählung noch um einen weiteren Künstler, der in der deutschen Kunstgeschichte erst in den letzten Jahren wirklich Beachtung fand: Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894). Der Künstler, der bisher noch mehr Bedeutung als Mäzen und Sammler erlangte und in enger Freundschaft zu Monet, Renoir und Sisley stand, wurde zum ersten Mal 1994 in einer größeren Ausstellung in Paris gewürdigt.…
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Almuerzo sobre la hierba y ratones en la despensa
Con el afán de presentar sus colecciones al público de una forma diferente, el Nationalmuseum ha organizado una exposición sobre la Francia del siglo XIX y la vida moderna que surgió en ese convulso siglo, concretamente en el período comprendido entre la Revolución Francesa y el estallido de la primera guerra mundial. Por algún motivo, lo primero que se me viene a la mente a la hora de hablar sobre este tema es la conocidísima fábula del ratón de campo y el ratón de ciudad. De forma resumida, con plena consciencia de que existen infinitas y sutiles variaciones, cuenta la historia de un ratón de ciudad que invita a un…
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Impressionist, and proud
Underdogs have taken note and reclaimed terms that were once hurtful or derisory: ‘queer’ has become a positive label for the LGBT community, ‘nerd’ and ‘geek’ are no longer insults but badges of honour (thanks in part to the Gleeks), ‘slut walk’ participants have tried to de-stigmatise the word, and the Tea Party movement’s ‘tea-baggers’…well, that’s a bad example. But this ‘current’ propensity for linguistic reappropriation is not such a modern phenomenon… The Impressionists came to be known as such after a 10-year battle for recognition. In 19th-century France, artistic esteem could only be attained by recognition by the Academy of Fine Arts and the displaying of their artwork in…
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Vollard y el desbordamiento de Picasso
Ambroise Vollard, considerado el principal marchante de arte contemporáneo de su generación, fue uno de esos hombres que se hacen a sí mismos. Llegó a París en 1887 sin apenas contactos ni referencias, pero su habilidad para los negocios y su visión artística le permitieron convertirse en el audaz impulsor de grandes artistas como Cézanne, Gauguin, Degas, van Gogh, Renoir, Bonnard, Vuillard y Picasso, que fueron subestimados en sus inicios. Entre las arriesgadas operaciones que lo llevaron a ser quien fue, Vollard obsequió algunos cuadros a Pablo Picasso a cambio de una extensa colección de grabados que se conocen como la «Suite Vollard». Pocos son los museos que se pueden…
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The Self-Indulgence of the Self-Portrait
The self-portrait: an frank insight into the soul of an artist or a web of lies? Self-Portraits are the epicentre of the Metropolitan Museum’s current exhibition: ‘Rembrandt and Degas: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’, presenting early self-portraits by the artists side by side for the first time. Featured below: left, Rembrandt van Rijn, Sheet of Studies with Self-Portrait (detail), 1630-1634 and right, Edgar Degas, Self-Portrait (detail), c. 1855-1857: With the mass production of improved glass mirrors, the Early Renaissance in the mid-15th century saw a wave of self-portraits amongst painters, sculptors, and printmakers alike. A range of self-depictions were produced, from the humble sketch to extravagant biblical…
This is an interactive art blog in multi languages, you will find new articles on artists, art history, exhibitions, etc. Contributions welcome.
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