14 Jun 2012
“Sir, rejoice with me, I have become God.”
The Inner Tradition in Christianity, the idea that Scripture and Christ’s teachings are allegorical in nature, is so little known that its impact on art has not been properly addressed. Those following the tradition know that God, as described
31 May 2012
Francis Bacon on Portraits and Crosses
I’ve just been reading a series of essays on Francis Bacon and have come across two quotes that I must pass on. A young doctoral student had some long conversations with Bacon in 1975 in which Bacon was saying that when he looks at a great pai
28 May 2012
Coins, tablets and Dürer
Coins draw groans. Walk into a roomful of coins in a museum and even the most ardent art lovers hurry through in the hope of finding some painting or sculpture on the other side. Nevertheless the designs on coins are one of the glories of Greek
24 May 2012
Durer: “For Christ’s sake, can’t you see that….
An article featured on the Home page of The Art Newspaper's website announces the opening of an important exhibition on Dürer. It reports, however, that Dürer’s Munich Self-portrait (above): “continues
19 May 2012
Every sculptor…....
Following one medieval image with another, Villard de Honnecourt’s 13th.-century sketch (above) of a stone-cutter sculpting his own foot conveys a message that every craftsman knew by heart, even in a different medium: every painter paints
18 May 2012
Joseph Leo Koerner and the Artist as Christ
Occasionally I see an image that turns on a light and helps illuminate an artist's way of seeing quite concisely. Fittingly, an illumination is one of them. The best book ever written on self-portraiture is probably Joseph Leo Koerner’s The Mo
12 May 2012
Chaos as the Source of Creativity
Chaos is the source of creativity. Chaos – some might say “controlled chaos” – increases the likelihood that two disparate ideas or forms will merge to create something new. That’s at least one theory of orginality.
11 May 2012
Face-off. Keep an eye on the details.
I try not to write too much about portraiture because pointing out “face fusion” time and again can become a bit repetitive. Occasionally, though, it is worth reminding readers, especially new ones, that even portraits that do not re
08 May 2012
Is Painting Art?
This website, EPPH, is founded on a few principles that bear repeating, especially for new users. One of the most important concerns art’s definition. What is art? We believe that drawing and painting are crafts, not arts. Almost any motiv
03 May 2012
Art’s Tradition of Secrecy
Great poets are great poets because they have reached heights of spiritual understanding inaccessible to the crowd. The starting-point depends on the individual; some are born prophetic, others somewhere along the way. Those who begin at the bot
26 Apr 2012
Canvas is Canvas
Most of the visual metaphors for an artist’s implements revealed here are related to their referent in art through their form, their function or some other more abstract link. A rifle or sword is long and thin like a paintbrush. They must be a
22 Apr 2012
Alpers on Rembrandt’s Lucretia (1666)
It’s always encouraging when I can cite another art scholar without comment, a historian in this instance who has so understood what is happening allegorically in Rembrandt’s Lucretia that no further explanation is necessary. This is
21 Apr 2012 | 2 Comments
Rembrandt and His Crucifixion (1631)
I can be very blind. Some time ago I added an analysis of Rembrandt’s Crucifixion in which I showed that Rembrandt had portrayed himself as Christ not out of delusions of grandeur but based on Christianity’s most fundamental principles
20 Apr 2012
Every Painter Paints HERSELF!
We get few complaints here (thank you!) but the ones we do receive are usually about gender. For those that are counting, then, two more women artists were added to the list last week: Judith Leyster and Adélaïde Labille-Guiard. An a
11 Apr 2012 | 2 Comments
Words on Words and Songs on Sound
My beat is art history and I’ve spent15 years reading nothing but non-fiction loosely or closely related to art. My knowledge of contemporary literature is tenuous at best; my familiarity with music worse but I have a belief ba
02 Apr 2012
Villard de Honnecourt’s Commentary on Life and God
Vassily Kandinsky was not just thinking of his own abstract works when he wrote that: "The greatest mistake one can make is to believe that Art is the reproduction of Nature."1 He was referring to all Art. I agree, as many of you know, but I arg
01 Apr 2012
Eureka! My Last Judgement on Michelangelo’s
Eureka!
For years I have struggled with the meaning of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment. The essay “Michelangelo’s Art Through Michelangelo’s Eyes” explains my overall understanding of the Sistine ceiling and the altar wall on whi
31 Mar 2012
Shakespeare’s Triggers
One of Shakespeare’s semantic tricks is to change the function of a word but still have it make sense. In the lines “To lip a wanton in a secure couch / And to suppose her chaste” the noun lip becomes a verb while wanton,
25 Mar 2012
Quotation of the Week #7
Edward R. Murrow, the famous American radio and TV journalist, did not have great portraits in mind when he said:
“The obscure we see eventually.The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer.”
23 Mar 2012
Poems are Animals
A recent exhibition posted an interesting quote by the poet Ted Hughes. It was somewhat out of their context but in ours because I, of course, argue that true art is like a visual poem. Remember as you read it that although many published poems
22 Mar 2012
Johan Zoffany
I just missed, by all accounts, a landmark exhibition at the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, the first major exhibition devoted to Johan Zoffany (1733-1810). It just moved to the Royal Academy in London where it will stay until June 10
21 Mar 2012
The Beauty of Concision
Just as brevity is the soul of wit, so concision in composition is beauty in art. A lyricist could have put that better but you get my point. Even if you don't, please take a look at how the little corner illustrated above, from Manet's
13 Mar 2012
Painting vs. Poetry
In the Renaissance there was a long-running debate over whether painting was as intellectual a medium as poetry. Poetry, whom no-one doubted was a “liberal” art, usually won the day as I believe it still would do in our contemporary
13 Mar 2012
Titian as Raphael
I've just added an entry on a little-known but very intriguing portrait by Titian, known simply as Titian's Portrait of a Gentleman. Painted around 1520, it is, I believe, Titian's tribute to the recently-deceased Raphael. Hanging in the Palazzo
09 Mar 2012
Turner Online
So many of Turner’s canvases are eye-shaped and his viewpoint so clearly Romantic and mystical that I cannot understand how so few people recognize that these images are taking place inside Turner’s mind behind his eyes. Simon Schama
06 Mar 2012
Quotation of the Week 6
Plotinus' advice on how to see God is equally, or you might think even more, true about art:
‘For one must come to the sight with a seeing power made akin and like to what is seen. No eye
04 Mar 2012
Advertising Art
Two prints by different artists, both American admittedly but more than thirty years apart, were in the same auction this week (top and bottom)1 using the same “hint” – for want of a better term – that the actual su
03 Mar 2012
How and Why Artists Steal
“It’s not always good to have ideas. Some people have a gift for coming up with ideas. But for those that don’t it is a real struggle. Oddly,” Paul Arden writes in his latest guide for creative wannabes, “the
01 Mar 2012
Oscars and Art 2012
Did you notice how so many of the Oscar nominations for Best Picture were movies about movies, including the winner The Artist? For those living in caves this winter, The Artist is a mostly silent film about a silent star unable to make the tran
27 Feb 2012
Degas on Reflection and the Great Masters
At the entry to a small, mildly interesting exhibition of Rembrandt’s engravings and their influence on Degas, the Metropolitan Museum has highlighted the following quote:
“What I do is the result of reflectio
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