“The eye must be opened to the true and wondrous life of nature, and the hand must be trained to do the soul’s bidding quickly, easily, and beautifully. This alone can be the aim of instruction in any of the pictorial arts.” Carl Gustav Carus, Nine Letters on Landscape Painting, Letter VIII. Johan Christian Dahl’sContinue reading “Johan Christian Dahl (1788–1857): Two Landscapes through Windows”
Tag Archives: art
Raphael (1483–1520): Drawings for the Vault of the Stanza di Eliodoro
The drawings considered here converge around Raphael’s decoration of the vault of the Stanza di Eliodoro. Their significance lies not only in the light they cast on the completed frescoes, but also in what they reveal about Raphael’s working practice, his movement between projects, his responsiveness to different visual sources and his adaptation of drawingContinue reading “Raphael (1483–1520): Drawings for the Vault of the Stanza di Eliodoro”
Rue Scribe: Giuseppe Casciaro (1861–1941) and an Italian Network in Paris
Giuseppe Casciaro’s association with Paris appears to have developed earlier than has often been assumed. Vito Carbonara notes that, in 1889, Pio Enea Cugeno referred to works by the young painter as already exhibited, or intended for exhibition, in the French capital. A further indication appears in April 1891, when the Gazzetta delle Puglie reportedContinue reading “Rue Scribe: Giuseppe Casciaro (1861–1941) and an Italian Network in Paris”
Corot: A Girl Reading
A young woman sits absorbed in a small book, her head inclined towards its pages in quiet concentration. Corot has reduced the setting to little more than a subdued arrangement of warm browns and ochres, relieved by the white of her blouse and the open pages before her, while the deep red of her jacketContinue reading “Corot: A Girl Reading”
Giovanni Andrea Donducci, detto il Mastelletta (1575–1655): Sacred Stories, Private Pictures and Imagined Landscapes
Giovanni Andrea Donducci, detto il Mastelletta Giovanni Andrea Donducci, called il Mastelletta, was born in Bologna in 1575 and died there in 1655. His career belongs to one of the most crowded and difficult moments in Bolognese painting: the period after the Carracci reform, when the city’s painters were working under the shadow of Ludovico,Continue reading “Giovanni Andrea Donducci, detto il Mastelletta (1575–1655): Sacred Stories, Private Pictures and Imagined Landscapes”
Giacomo Balla: From Divisionism to the Futurist Universe (Part One, Divisionism and the Photographic Real)
A note on images For reasons of copyright, I have not reproduced most of the works discussed in the text. Instead, each article is followed by a short gallery of selected works, with links to museum, collection or institutional pages where images can be viewed. Other works mentioned in the essay may also be foundContinue reading “Giacomo Balla: From Divisionism to the Futurist Universe (Part One, Divisionism and the Photographic Real)”
Giacomo Balla: From Divisionism to the Futurist Universe (Part Four, Futurism Beyond the Easel)
The frame, the easel, the room Balla’s Futurism did not move beyond the easel in a single leap. It first strained against the picture itself. In the works of speed, force-lines and iridescent interpenetration, the image no longer behaves like a stable view placed before the spectator. It presses against the limits of the support,Continue reading “Giacomo Balla: From Divisionism to the Futurist Universe (Part Four, Futurism Beyond the Easel)”
Tradition and Transformation: Velázquez’s Las Hilanderas / The Spinners / The Fable of Arachne (c. 1655–60).
Diego Velázquez, Las Hilanderas (The Spinners, or The Fable of Arachne), c. 1657–58, oil on canvas, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. (Credit: Wikipedia). « Ce qui m’a le plus ravi en Espagne, ce qui, à lui seul, vaut le voyage, c’est l’œuvre de Vélasquez. C’est le peintre des peintres ; je n’ai, cependant, été nullementContinue reading “Tradition and Transformation: Velázquez’s Las Hilanderas / The Spinners / The Fable of Arachne (c. 1655–60).”
Irreversible Consequences: Mancini and Manet
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons). At first glance, Antonio Mancini’s Dopo il duello (1872) and Édouard Manet’s Dead Toreador (c. 1864; exhibited independently as L’Homme mort in 1867) appear to belong to quite different pictorial worlds. Mancini’s painting centres on the frightened reaction of a child confronted with the aftermath of a duel, while Manet’s image presentsContinue reading “Irreversible Consequences: Mancini and Manet”
“The Sublime Heights of Laurels and of Parnassus”: Domenico Zampieri, Il Domenichino (1581–1641)
“Anyone, however, who considered only his lengthy contemplation of things might easily have judged him to be slow and lacking a natural gift, but when he was resolved in his mind and his art, then, with the muses leading him by the hand, he ascended to the sublime heights of laurels and of Parnassus.” GiovanContinue reading ““The Sublime Heights of Laurels and of Parnassus”: Domenico Zampieri, Il Domenichino (1581–1641)”
Inner Surfaces 