On 10 Sep, 2010 With
Scientific examination of The Madonna with the Iris was able to clarify, to some degree, the complex genesis of this work. Careful study of the infrared reflectogram revealed many changes made at different stages in the working process, and suggested that more than one hand might have been involved in the painting’s execution. Analysis of paint cross-sections showed that some finishing touches were added after varnish had been applied to the otherwise completed painting. A troubling attribution In 1945, National Gallery trustees approved the proposed purchase of ‘The Madonna with the Iris’. However, the painting’s problematic attribution engendered caution, and minutes of the Board Meeting for 3 May 1945 record: ‘… the Board must not purchase it as an authentic…
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On 9 Sep, 2010 With
‘I mean by a picture, a beautiful romantic dream of something that never was, never will be, in a light better than any light that ever shone, in a land no one can define or remember — only desire.” Sir Edward Burne-Jones’ home – The Grange “Nothing (with one small but important exception) remains of The Grange, where the Burne·Jones family lived for more than thirty years. It was in North End, Fulham, and consisted, from the eighteenth century on, of two red brick houses, standing back a little from the road, with iron gates and a short flagged path. Samuel Richardson had lived there from 1738 to 1754, (when his rent was put up to £40 p.a.), but there…
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On 9 Sep, 2010 With
For many years The Virgin and Child with an Angel was prized as Francesco Francia’s earliest known dated painting (faintly signed and dated 1490) and for representing, in the chalice held by the angel, the only known example of the type of object Francia may have produced during his presumed earlier career as a goldsmith. But in 1954 an apparently identical version surfaced in a London auction. A thorough investigation of both paintings was undertaken to determine which was Francia’s original. Side-by-side investigation In 1955 examination of the National Gallery painting found the wood panel,ground and paint layers to be reasonably consistent with 15th-century practice, although it was noted that the gessoground was a remarkably bright white. The imprimatura was a pinkish-brown. Although most unusual…
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On 8 Sep, 2010 With
In the 19th century the painting of Venus with three putti was thought to be by Sandro Botticelli. It was acquired by the Gallery with Botticelli’s famous Venus and Mars, although more was paid for the former work despite the fact that it is today the less well-known of the two pictures. The attribution of the painting now laconically entitled An Allegory has been downgraded, but this does not call into question its authenticity, however awkward and eccentric its design. Two Botticellis? In 1874 the sale of the collection of Alexander Barker, the son of a fashionable bootmaker, was eagerly watched in London. Even the Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, wrote to Lady Bradford that he meant “to rise early tomorrow…
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On 7 Sep, 2010 With
When this painting first appeared around 1930, it was praised as a work byBotticelli. Not long afterwards, however, the investigations of art historians and scientists revealed it to be an outright fake, made with the intention to deceive. Acquisition The noted art collector Lord Lee of Fareham bought the Madonna of the Veil in 1930 from an Italian dealer for the sum of $25,000. He subsequently bequeathed it to The Courtauld Gallery, London in 1947. Despite a lack of information about its origins, the picture was universally hailed by connoisseurs and academics as a masterpiece by Botticelli when it first arrived in London in the early 1930s. The directors of the Medici Society published the painting as a ‘superb composition of the greatest of…
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On 6 Sep, 2010 With
Photorealism Photorealism is the genre of painting based on using the camera and photographs to gather information and then from this information, creating a painting that appears to be very realistic like a photograph. The term is primarily applied to paintings from the United States art movement that began in the late 1960s and early 1970s. History Origins As a full-fledged art movement, Photorealism evolved from Pop Art and as a counter to Abstract Expressionism as well as Minimalist art movements in the late 1960s and early 1970s in the United States. Photorealists use a photograph or several photographs to gather the information to create their paintings and it can be argued that the use of a camera and photographs is an acceptance of Modernism….
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On 5 Sep, 2010 With
Maximalism Maximalism is a term used in the arts, including literature, visual art, music, and multimedia. It is used to explain a movement or trend by encompassing all factors under a multi-purpose umbrella term like expressionism. The term maximalism is sometimes associated with post-modern novels, such as by David Foster Wallace and Thomas Pynchon, where digression, reference, and elaboration of detail occupy a great fraction of the text. This sort of literature is also frequently described as hysterical realism, a term coined by James Wood, who argues that it is a genre similar to magical realism. Novelist John Barth defines literary maximalism through the medieval Roman Catholic Church’s opposition between, “two…roads to grace:” the via negativa of the monk?s cell and the hermit?s cave, and the via affirmativa of immersion in human…
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On 4 Sep, 2010 With
New European Painting emerged in the 1980s and has clearly reached a critical point of major distinction and influence in the 1990s with painters like Gerhard Richter andBracha Ettinger whose paintings have established and continue to create a new dialogue between the historical archive, American Abstraction and figurality, followed by painters like Luc Tuymans, Marlene Dumas and others. A third wave came with artists like Neo Rauch, Michaël Borremans and Chris Ofili. Bad boy, oil on linen, 66 inches x 96 inches by Eric Fischl Neo-expressionism and other related movements in painting have emerged in the final two decades of the 20th century in Europe and in the United States, but this New Painting is not expressionist. Rather it is a renovative kind of abstraction and…
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On 3 Sep, 2010 With
York Avenue HQ Illegal antiquities In 1997, a Channel 4 Dispatches programme alleged that Sotheby’s had been trading in antiquities with no published provenance, and that the organisation continued to use dealers involved in the smuggling of artifacts. As a result of this exposé, Sotheby’s commissioned their own report into illegal antiquities, and made assurances that only legal items with published providence would be traded in the future. Price fixing scandal In February 2000, A. Alfred Taubman and Diana (Dede) Brooks, the CEO of the company, stepped down amidst a price fixing scandal. The FBI had been investigating auction practices in which it was revealed that collusion involving commission fixing between Christie’s and Sotheby’s was occurring. In October 2000, Brooks…
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On 2 Sep, 2010 With
Superflat is a postmodern art movement, founded by the artist Takashi Murakami, which is influenced by manga and anime. It is also the name of a 2001 art exhibition, curated by Murakami, that toured West Hollywood, Minneapolis and Seattle. Description Superflat is used by Murakami to refer to various flattened forms in Japanese graphic art, animation, pop culture and fine arts, as well as the “shallow emptiness of Japanese consumer culture.” A self-proclaimed art movement, it was a successful piece of niche marketing, a branded art phenomenon designed for Western audiences. In addition to Murakami, artists whose work is considered “Superflat” include Chiho Aoshima, Mahomi Kunikata, Sayuri Michima, Yoshitomo Nara, Tatsuyuki Tanaka, and Aya Takano. In addition, some animators within anime and some mangaka are considered Superflat, especially Koji Morimoto (and much of the output of his…
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