Tenebrism is a word surprisingly seldom used in discussions of Caravaggio and other 17th-century painters. When it is, it is often thought to simply be another word for chiaroscuro. But it actually has a distinct characteristic that defines it. […]
The whereabouts of a masterwork by 19th-century French painter Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) were unknown between the time of its recorded sale in 1850 until 2018, when it was discovered in a Paris apartment. Now it’s coming to live in the US. […]
If your exposure has been primarily to Western art, it can be difficult to fully appreciate the artistry of icons. Knowing something about the underlying iconography and typologies, and putting aside expectations of artistic originality and realism, will make these deeply symbolic images more accessible. […]
He’s such an obscure figure today that he doesn’t even warrant a Wikipedia entry — but he must have been Somebody, to have been the subject of this outsized painting by Charles LeBrun, court painter to King Louis XIV. In 2014, at the time of its acquisition, Thomas P. Campbell, then-Director of the Metropolitan Museum of […]
The “inside story” about works of art always get my attention, especially if it’s a lost-work-now-found, or a flea-market discovery that turns out to be worth millions! This story is both. […]
The Renaissance was a time when Christian piety and rational discovery challenged and justified each other — and Leonardo da Vinci was a man of his time. Everything he did, he did with purpose. […]
An important museum in it’s art historical niche, the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA) in Santa Fe NM, holds the premier collection in the world of contemporary art by Native American, First Nations and other Indigenous peoples. Read how Native artists contribute to mainstream art movements — without losing touch with their diverse cultural traditions. […]
In the oldest church in America is the San José Bell, said to have been commissioned in Spain in 1356. It was virtually undamaged when it crashed 50 feet to the ground from the bell tower in 1872. A miracle? Or just a superb metal alloy? […]
The Oldest Church in the US reminds us that, although ours may not be as “fancy” as the great cathedrals of the Middle Ages or the Baroque churches of the Catholic Reformation, the stories they tell of generations past are equally fraught with sacrifice and suffering, hope and faith. […]
Creative process des not flow entirely without thought. Subconscious, yes. Thoughtless, no. And it is the artist’s thought process that intrigues me. I like the “wonder” of it. […]