Widely used art history textbooks such as Gardner’s Art through the Ages present a distorted narrative of visual art from the early twentieth century on. They focus on countless modernist and postmodernist inventions—from “abstract art” to “conceptual art” and “performance art”—at the expense of traditionally representational painting and sculpture. The result is an utterly incoherent […]
abstract art, Academic Questions (journal), avant-garde, conceptual art, Gardner's Art through the Ages, performance art, traditional artA legendary rivalry existed between the two megastars of nineteenth-century French painting: the arch-Romantic Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863)—the subject of an exhibition now at the Metropolitan Museum, through November 12—and the inveterate classicist Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867).1 But on one thing they agreed: Drawing is the essential foundation of art. As Ingres famously declared, “Drawing is the probity […]
Damien Hirst, Delacroix, drawing, Ingres, Metropolitan Museum, Raphael, RubensThe opening next week of the major exhibition Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman & Designer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art1 prompts me to post the following brief item about a little-known side of this master. The awe-inspiring grandeur of Michelangelo’s work earned him the reverent epithet of “Il Divino” among his contemporaries. It is therefore remarkable to […]
Just in time for a new school year, the September 2017 issue of Scholastic Art magazine features ten paintings that students should know, because they form part of “our collective cultural history.” Surely a worthwhile undertaking for a publication aimed at middle school and high school visual art education programs—until one examines the works selected […]
10 Paintings to Know, Arnolfini Portrait, art education, avant-garde, Basquiat, cubism, Dora Maar in an Armchair, Grace Lin, Picasso, Scholastic ArtValentin who? Valentin de Boulogne (1591–1632), that’s who! But I must confess that I had never heard of this masterly painter before the landmark exhibition now at the Met, though I’ve been studying art history for more than half a century.1 Valentin achieved no small fame in his lifetime, however. Ranked high among the followers […]
17th-century painting, Annick Lemoine, Beyond Caravaggio, Caravaggio, Counter Reformation art, Keith Christiansen, Louvre, Metropolitan Museum, Valentin de Boulogne