29 Dec 2020
The Hanging of Myra Hindley
The Moors Murders resonate in British minds of the post-war generation. Myra Hindley killed 5 children with her boyfriend and sexually assaulted four of them. Myra’s mug shot and the horrific crime is burnt into the memory of many. So by 1995 wh
14 Nov 2015
Balla’s Initial Idea
The house in Rome of Giacomo Balla (1871-1958), an Italian Futurist painter, is a kaleidoscope of color and creativity. I haven’t visited it but came across this photograph online of four of his clothes hangers. A commentator transcribes the h
26 Mar 2015
Ssh! The Secret of Picasso’s Ear
Ears make sense as one of the five: touch, taste, sight, sound and smell. But who thinks about Picasso's ears? We mostly remember his eyes: deep, dark and powerful. Yet he himself - as I don't think has been noted before - seems to have been very
10 Dec 2014 | 1 Comments
Van Eyck’s Alpha and Omega
The world seems to work in our favor. Things happen which I used to call coincidence but which, in hindsight, are often far too fortuitous to be chance. Carl Jung described such events, at least the unusually important ones, as sy
02 Dec 2014 | 11 Comments
Your Go: Explain this picture!
OK, readers, this a chance to practice your own powers of perception and interpretation before I comment:
Explain below what this Crucifixion scene might mean and the oddity of Christ’s loincloth. I am drawing attention to that
24 Sep 2014 | 2 Comments
Reading Art: Manet, Picasso and Alfonso Ponce de Leon
My vision, like most people’s, is often cloudy which is why when the sun breaks and I gain some understanding, I get excited. You must excuse me. It may sometimes seem as if no-one before me has made similar observations. After all, all my ent
23 Apr 2014
Raphael, a Brother, and an Initial Idea
Art, according to EPPH, is esoteric, a visual primer on the Inner Tradition created by women and men every bit as spiritual as a robed monk, often more so. Indeed in the Middle Ages most artists were clerics or monks working in the scriptorium o
04 Feb 2014
A Musical Note and Letters
It's a red-letter day for Raphael. I have been showing a lot of letters recently, how Raphael and Renoir each used objects shaped like an R, how Manet and Matisse used M’s and Ingres used an I. And I doubt before this evening that anyone has e
28 Sep 2013
How Manet and other artists shoot their paintings
Have you ever shot your mother? Directors shoot movies and nearly everyone has made a snap-shot with a camera but few imagine that artists shoot paintings. In fact they have shot nearly every canvas with a gun in it since the devilish implements
18 Feb 2013
1+1=1: The Divided Self in Manet’s Railway
What is the girl up to? Who are they? What's happening? Why do they wear the same color clothes? Why is the girl's hair so odd?
In my explanation two years ago of Edouard Manet’s The Railway (1873) I noted that the extended arm of the
13 Feb 2013
Logos (no, not that one!) and Art
Foreign words can sometimes sound more intellectual than those we use in English. That's why when logos is mentioned in reference to art it generally refers to the beginning of St. John's Gospel and is set in italic…"In the beginning
11 Dec 2012
Memory Holloway and Picasso
Memory Holloway, an art historian at the University of Dartmouth, Massachusetts, has written a wonderful book on a magnificent group of etchings by Pablo Picasso. It is titled Making Time: Picasso's Suite 347. Suite 347 is the name given to
10 Nov 2010
Gauguin’s Method
I was reading about Gauguin today and his own explanation of The Vision after the Sermon: Jacob Wrestling with the Angel. It struck me that if I was trying to explain this image I would say the same: that the figures in the foreground represent
02 May 2010
Letters in the Art of All Periods
There are certain long-lived traditions within the history of art-making that, if known, add immeasurably to the viewer's interest and understanding. Among them is the subtle metamorphic inclusion of the artist's initials, one of the many lit
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