“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: travel
Luca Giordano (1634–1705) at the Casón del Buen Retiro: The Alegoría del Toisón de Oro and the Last Habsburg Court
Luca Giordano was born in Naples on 18 October 1634, the son of Antonio Giordano and Isabella Imparato. According to Maria Giovanna Sarti, his father was a picture dealer of Puglian origin and also a modest painter, and seems to have introduced him early to the practical world of painting. Although the sources report anContinue reading “Luca Giordano (1634–1705) at the Casón del Buen Retiro: The Alegoría del Toisón de Oro and the Last Habsburg Court”
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).”
Francesco Lojacono and the Changing Vision of Sicily
Francesco Lojacono (1838–1915), Palermo e il Monte Pellegrino da un terrazzo, 1874, oil on canvas, Novosibirsk State Fine Arts Museum. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons). Francesco Lojacono (Palermo, 1838–1915) occupies a central place in the history of nineteenth-century Italian landscape painting. Working for more than half a century, he transformed the representation of the Sicilian countryside fromContinue reading “Francesco Lojacono and the Changing Vision of Sicily”
Dosso Dossi (1486?-1542): Apollo, Fantasia and Form.
Dosso Dossi, Apollo (c. 1524–1525), oil on canvas, 191 × 116 cm, Galleria Borghese, Rome. “Dosso also knew how to add to his interpretations a certain wit, a sense of contrast, a boldness, that has led him to be associated with Ariosto and the Orlando Furioso. But his visions—enchanted and mysterious, dense with necromantic smoke—’are less aContinue reading “Dosso Dossi (1486?-1542): Apollo, Fantasia and Form.”
Anton Sminck Van Pitloo (1790–1837): Between Rome, Naples, and Northern Europe.
Pitloo, portrait by Pieter van Hanselaere (c. 1814). Source: Wikipedia. Even if one were to grant Pitloo only what is evident in his redemption of landscape from the servitude of mannerism and convention, the arts, newly guided toward a beauty drawn from the true, would owe him immense gratitude. But there is more. Pitloo tookContinue reading “Anton Sminck Van Pitloo (1790–1837): Between Rome, Naples, and Northern Europe.”
Light, colour and the vitality of motion: Introducing the world of Francesco Paolo Michetti (1851-1929).
The featured image of this article, Francesco Paolo Michetti’s 1877 self-portrait, (Palazzo Zevallos Stigliano, Naples) offers an introduction to the artist while also immediately conveying the light and colour characteristic of his work. In the words of Marina Miraglia: The half-open mouth and the intense, passionate gaze express that healthy fullness of life and thatContinue reading “Light, colour and the vitality of motion: Introducing the world of Francesco Paolo Michetti (1851-1929).”
Inner Surfaces 