Tag Archive for 'National Gallery'

Eyes Wide Open

Published on 24. 05. 2013 in commentary and criticism and pictorial arts. 1 Comment Tags: Federico Barocci, National Gallery, Paul Hills, Saint Louis Art Museum.

Study for the head of Saint Francis, c. 1571-76, black, red and white chalk and pink pastel, 34.5 x 28.8 cm., Edinburgh, National Galleries of Scotland

The great Barocci show at the National Gallery in London closed last Sunday. I’d been meaning to write something about it here since I saw it in its first weeks, but things got in the way and I never got around to it. The show, however, has stuck in my memory as a particularly exhilarating one, an excellent combination of great art and curatorial rigor, as well as a discovery for many, I’m sure. I had long admired Federico Barocci (c. 1533/35–1612) as a draughtsman, especially after the exquisite show at the Fitzwilliam in 2006, but had remained more tepid on his paintings. This show changed that, revealing as it did the simultaenously searching and visionary qualities of his work.

I still don’t have the time for a thorough write-up, but here are some scattered notes, written from memory: Continue reading ‘Eyes Wide Open’

Picks of the Week

Published on 25. 07. 2011 in comics and cartooning, letters and pictorial arts. Closed Tags: connoisseurship, Hooded Utilitarian, Leonardo, Michelangelo, National Gallery, Ryan Holmberg, Tatsumi Yoshihiro, Wallace Stevens.

The picks of the week from around the web.

‘New’ old masters. This seems to be the season of sensational (and ‘sensational’) discoveries. Headlining is the long-lost Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci, which has turned up in an American collection and will be exhibited publicly for the first time at the sure-to-be-unmissable National Gallery show in London this fall. Several highly respected specialists vouch for its authenticity and it does looks like an extraordinary painting — look at the refinement of the right hand, the translucence of the sphere and the distant expression, the almost non-presence, of Christ. It fits well into the master’s modus operandi, better than, say, that pretty drawing from a couple of years ago.

In other news, the Italian conservator, champion of the “Buffalo Madonna,” of which I wrote a while ago, has now made another find, this time in Oxford, which he also claims is by Michelangelo. And again, it seems obvious that his optimism knows few bounds.

The Illustrated Wallace Stevens at Hooded Utilitarian. The next week will see more than twenty artists illustrating selected poems of that great American master. I’m willing to bet already that few of them will be as hauntingly great as Anke Feuchtenberger’s, but am very much looking forward to seeing them all.

Ryan Holmberg on Shimada Kazuo and Tatsumi Yoshihiro. This is a bit old now, but I would be remiss not to link to the latest, and in some ways most impressive installment in Holmberg’s series on the birth of gekiga, in which he unearths an important missing link with what went before.

Jan Gossaert i Weekendavisen

Published on 25. 03. 2011 in hype & linkage and pictorial arts. Closed Tags: Jan Gossaert, National Gallery, Weekendavisen.

I denne uges Weekendavis står min anmeldelse af den store udstilling af Jan Gossaerts værker på Londons National Gallery at læse. Check det ud, og se endelig udstillingen hvis I har muligheden.