26 Jan 2014 | 1 Comments
Trees as Paintbrushes
Looking out my study window in Italy something struck me that you might only notice in life not paint. Not far from the house, lower down, is a row of cypresses. When the wind blows, the pointed tops move back and forth over the distant landscap
22 Jan 2014 | 2 Comments
What’s Wrong with the Art World?
What is wrong with the art world? Why can't they see Van Gogh's self-portrait in the fireplace (above)? It is so obvious that a child would recognize it if shown. Whatever the reason, no expert can. That means that this colorful and late self-po
09 Sep 2013 | 2 Comments
Art’s Unknown Frown
Artists frown. Constantly. Why? Charles Darwin considered the corrugator, the muscle which results in a frown, as the most remarkable of the human face because it irresistably conveys the idea of mind.1 And that's why, in my opinion, artists hav
19 Nov 2012
Seeing Through the Artist’s Eyes
Michelangelo's Art Through Michelangelo's Eyes (2005) was my first publication because it demonstrates how important it is to look at poetic art that way, through the eyes of the artist. I have continued to show how the same method works wi
25 Jul 2012
Manet’s Little Cavaliers
Major artists are often inspired by earlier masterpieces yet when the young Edouard Manet entered the Louvre to copy whatever he wanted he chose an insignificant little painting. Yes, it was then attributed to Velazquez but Manet, with an in-dep
22 Jul 2012
Anthropomorphic Landscapes
Visual metamorphosis. It's my term to describe a compositional method long used by major artists but virtually unknown to the art world except in a few rare cases. The only major exceptions I can immediately think of are Martin Schöngau
23 Feb 2012
Faces in Our Minds
Humanity’s existence is so dependent on recognizing faces that our visual system specializes in it, reserving a large proportion of the brain’s neurons solely for that purpose. Amazingly we can even recognize a person in profile when we have
04 Feb 2012
Physiognomy and Every Painter….
In the previous entry we saw how Degas’ beloved Little Dancer Aged Fourteen is partly modelled on the physiognomic ideas of Johann Caspar Lavater (1741-1801) and others. I mentioned this because Lavater also wrote: “Every painter paints
26 Aug 2011 | 2 Comments
Quotation of the Week #1
"For a painter, it is probably twice as interesting if, while painting a nest, he dreams of a cottage and, while painting a cottage, he dreams of a nest. It is as though one dreamed twice, in two registers, when one dreams of an image cluster su
05 Jun 2011
Woody Allen’s a Great Master
I've just seen Woody Allen's latest film, Midnight in Paris. Spot on. Exactly as we explain great masterpieces. It's about an American writer, clearly Woody's alter ego, who gets lost in his own imagination. A car from the 1910&#
23 Nov 2010
Art and Eckhart
“Knowledge of Meister Eckhart’s work is indispensable to the understanding of medieval art, even though he has been almost totally neglected by those who like to call themselves ‘historians of art.’”
So wro
27 Oct 2010 | 2 Comments
Van Gogh’s Nose
Noses are important in art history. Ovid's middle name was Nose, or naso in Italian, and his Metamorphoses were for centuries artistic fodder for painters and sculptors alike. Maybe that's why Michelangelo was so interested in his own nose, tell
27 Oct 2010 | 2 Comments
Van Gogh’s Eyes
Cruising along the Lungotevere on a Vespa I had time to admire the vast self-portrait of Vincent on the back of a Roman tour bus. The poster, promoting yet another one-man show of his work, had a glorious reproduction of the artist in which ever
The EPPH Blog features issues and commentary.
