Visual arts
Ego: The Strange and Wonderful World of Self-Portraits, BBC FourFriday, 05 November 2010
Albrecht Dürer painted himself as Jesus (pictured below). Luckily, he was blessed with the looks, the hair and the initials – echoing the geometry of his golden locks the A straddles the D in his inscribed paintings. And when this German messiah of... Read more... |
Journey Through the Afterlife: Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, British MuseumThursday, 04 November 2010
Those ancient Egyptians, they loved life! So much so that they even conceived of an afterlife that differed hardly at all from the one on Earth, only better: they didn’t get sick and they carried on just as before, to eternity – which might sound... Read more... |
Leon Kossoff, New Works, Annely Juda Fine ArtMonday, 01 November 2010
It is one of the enduring mysteries of Leon Kossoff’s art. How does someone who uses such thick, impastoed paint and such muddy, earth-toned colours make his work so light, so delicate, so filled with grace? The more you look, the more mysterious... Read more... |
Cézanne's Card Players, Courtauld GalleryFriday, 29 October 2010
Give me a small side order of Cézannes over a great feast of Gauguins any day. This small, perfectly formed survey will surely be noted as one of the best exhibitions this year, the type of exhibition at which the Courtauld Gallery clearly excels:... Read more... |
Pioneering Painters: The Glasgow Boys 1880-1900, Royal AcademyThursday, 28 October 2010
If you'd been a painter at the time of Impressionism, what would you have done? Rushed to Paris to become a disciple of Manet or Monet? Taken the Symbolist route with Odilon Redon or headed to Brittany to whoop it up with Gauguin and co? No, the... Read more... |
Subject: Re: Arts Cuts (Reply All)Friday, 22 October 2010
It began with a review of 100 Years of German Song. Roused by a comment to a reader (see Igor's comment below), Fisun was moved to email Igor in support of his trenchant views on arts funding. It wasn't long before other writers at theartsdesk got... Read more... |
Thomas Lawrence: Regency Power and Brilliance, National Portrait GalleryFriday, 22 October 2010
Thomas Lawrence was a child prodigy; from the age of 11 he supported his family by making pastel drawings of the fashionable elite who spent the season in Bath. The next step for an aspiring young artist was to learn how to paint in oils and... Read more... |
Fashion Gallery: Future Beauty - 30 Years of Japanese Fashion, Barbican GalleryThursday, 21 October 2010
Exhibitions about fashion tend to divide the public. Those passionately interested in fashion go to them; everybody else doesn’t. There’s a prevailing view that we already hear enough about top models, superstar designers and their attendant... Read more... |
Art Gallery: The Museum of EverythingWednesday, 20 October 2010
Whether you think the weird world of Walter Potter is cute or creepy, there’s little doubt that the Victorian taxidermist, and creator of humorous tableaux in which fluffy creatures enact human scenarios, has acquired some standing in the art... Read more... |
CarlosWednesday, 20 October 2010
The full-length version of Olivier Assayas's saga of Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, alias Venezuelan super-terrorist Carlos, was originally a three-part series for French TV and runs to five-and-a-half hours. Even the "short" cinema cut runs to two-and-a-... Read more... |
The Genius of British Art, Howard Jacobson, Channel 4Monday, 18 October 2010
Howard Jacobson, fresh from his Booker Prize triumph, was on an admirable mission last night: to rescue the good name of the Victorians. He wanted us to stop caricaturing our 19th-century forebears as prudish, self-righteous, pompous and... Read more... |
Venice: Canaletto and His Rivals, National GalleryMonday, 18 October 2010
People love Canaletto, and the title of this exhibition - which puts the setting of the paintings above the artist who did them - gives a good idea why. Venice as a place and an idea is perennially popular, and Canaletto gives us the... Read more... |
