Antiques Fine Art History News and Articles by San Cristobal

A Look Into the Invisible

De Chirico, Max Ernst, Magritte and Balthus: A Look Into the Invisible recently opened at the Palazzo Strozzi, Florence (where it will be on view through July 18, 2010) and it intrigues me for several reasons. First, of course and as always, because of the paintings in the exhibition. Pittura Metafisica, Dada, Magic Realism, Novecento Italiano and Surrealism--all of which are included--aren't exactly the Comfort Foods of art-historic movements. They're more like eating a small cup of that habañero chili that's too tempting to resist, even though you know it's going to keep you up half the night ... equal parts tantalizing and potentially disturbing.

Second, it's fitting that this show is in Florence. It was 100 years ago, sitting on a bench in Piazza Santa Croce in Florence, that Giorgio de Chirico (Italian, b. Greece, 1888-1978) watched the sunlight shift on the church facade in such a precise manner that Pittura Metafisica would be born as a movement. The Palazzo Strozzi is less than half a mile away, and who can turn down one of those full circle stories?

Finally, I keep thinking if I look long and hard enough, metaphysics as it pertains to a visual arts device may become as clear to me as it seemed to these painters. (Not that I am holding my breath. Some us gave up on philosophy after deciding that Descartes' "Cogito ergo sum" was a perfectly good stopping point.) Since we're unlikely to be in Florence together anytime soon, would you care to look at the online image gallery with me?

Image Credit:

René Magritte (Belgian, 1898-1967)
The Key to Dreams, 1930
Oil on canvas
81 x 60 cm (31 7/8 x 23 9/16 in.)
Private Collection
© Estate of René Magritte / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
A Look Into the Invisible originally appeared on About.com Art History on Sunday, March 14th, 2010 at 16:34:45.
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It's Women's History Month

A large part of Women's History involves extremely crucial but unremarkable tasks that have no place in the official canon. So when my daughter, who will probably someday make history, elbowed me just now and said, "Ma, do you know the date, even?" I had to check. It seems that I have been both remiss and extremely slow in thinking that it is still February-something. Possibly of 1990. It's all a blur, honestly.

To begin to make amends, here is Grace Hartigan's biography. I have long admired her work, though felt for her as a mother. She made a choice decades ago that benefited the art world, but deprived herself ... and her son ... of another, equally valuable (to my mind) fount of creativity.

I have long held that women making art have a tougher row to hoe than do their male counterparts, simply as a matter of biology and nature. I'd be interested in your thoughts, though, since mine are heavily biased/torn between the dueling thrills of making art and motherhood. Care to share?

Image Credit:

Grace Hartigan (American, 1922-2008)
New England October, 1957
Oil on canvas. 68 1/4 x 83 in. (173.4 x 210.8 cm)
Gift of Seymour H. Knox, Jr., 1958
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, N.Y.
© 2008 Grace Hartigan
It's Women's History Month originally appeared on About.com Art History on Thursday, March 11th, 2010 at 23:57:19.
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Saying Hello to an Old Friend
I'd like to mention the new Art History Plus blog to you for two reasons.

First, the author is knowledgeable and fun to read. I know this as fact, because she taught me (albeit unknowingly) how to make art history both friendly and approachable.

Second, the author, Andrea Mulder-Slater, taught me these things while she was the Guide to Art History at About.com. When she moved on to bigger and better things in 2003, it opened a door for me here. I will always feel grateful to Andrea for her kindness to me when I was a rookie, and remain an admiring fan of her love for art and art history. Please help me welcome her to the blogosphere, won't you?
Saying Hello to an Old Friend originally appeared on About.com Art History on Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 at 14:30:53.
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The Caravaggio Exhibition in Rome

2010 marks the 400th anniversary of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio's death. He was 39 when he died and had spent half of his life painting professionally. While Caravaggio's passing came as no huge surprise to his contemporaries, the rest of us have been trying to flesh out his chronology ever since. See, when he painted, he painted in bursts and, usually, out of necessity. There seem to have been long intervals in between painting bursts when life, flight and threats of imprisonment and/or execution took over. Given the circumstances and doing the math, quite a few too many Caravaggio canvases have surfaced over the centuries to be credible.

Caravaggio, on view at the Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome (February 20-June 13, 2010) addresses this thorny issue. Every canvas and panel in the show is an authenticated, universally-accepted work from Caravaggio's hand. Moreover, this select group of 24 works spans his 18-year career. And, finally, I can't even begin to imagine how difficult it must have been to negotiate all of these International loans to bring this exhibition together. The curators and every lender is to be commended--even those lenders who will be needing their Caravaggios back before the end of the show. (After all, it is an anniversary year and, clearly, the Bad Boy of the Baroque is a huge draw.)

If you can get to Caravaggio in Rome, run, don't walk. This isn't likely to happen again in our lifetimes. If you can't, we are a sad party of two. However, we can find solace in the generosity of the Scuderie del Quirinale, which has very kindly allowed us to display a Caravaggio image gallery.

Image Credit:

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (Italian, 1571-1610)
Bacchus, 1597
Oil on canvas
95 x 85 cm (37 3/8 x 33 7/16 in.)
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence
Image © Soprintendenza Speciale per il Patrimonio Storico Artistico ed Etnoantropologico e per il Polo Museale della città di Firenze

The Caravaggio Exhibition in Rome originally appeared on About.com Art History on Friday, February 26th, 2010 at 23:53:19.
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Wordless Wednesday - Milky Way

Courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, LLC, New York, NY

We lost a pioneering African American woman artist on this date (February 24) in 1978. To see who she was, the trails she blazed and the artistic legacy she left us, please click on the image.

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Wordless Wednesday - Milky Way originally appeared on About.com Art History on Wednesday, February 24th, 2010 at 21:25:25.
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A Sneak Peek at the Fisher Collection

Although this exhibition won't be opening for another four months, I couldn't wait to publish a preview for a number of reasons. First, the Fisher Collection is quite simply outstanding. The Gap store founders Doris and (the late) Donald Fisher had amazing eyes, buying works over the years because they liked them--which is really the most valid reason for collecting art. Furthermore, as the Fishers became more acquainted with collecting, they began to concentrate on acquiring all phases of their favorite artists' careers. Their 1,100 piece collection is a Modern art lover's Nirvana as a result.

Second, the Fishers so loved their art collection that they were prepared to build a new San Francisco museum in which to house it. Alas, the piece of land on which they settled--in the city's Presidio--met with planning resistance. Far be it from me to criticize any other city's planning choices, but it was rather alarming to think that San Francisco might lose the Fisher Collection entirely when their plans were shot down last year. Please believe me, many, many other institutions were actively courting the honor of housing this treasure trove.

When the San Francisco Museum of Art stepped up and made agreeable arrangements to (1) expand, including a (2) dedicated wing for the Fisher Collection and (3) grow its endowment fund, it was truly a win-win situation. The Collection will remain in the Fisher's beloved San Francisco, and SFMOMA has gone, in one fell swoop, into becoming a major player in the International art-loan scene.

So, if the inaugural exhibition comes at the end of June, why am I compelled to bring it up now? It's an appetizer, Folks ... a taste of things to come. SFMOMA is still in the process of raising funds towards its expansion and larger endowment, but has been so successful thus far that the long-term, renewable loan of the Fisher Collection has already been extended from 25 to 100 years. This, I think, needs as much public support as can be generated. And not just because the Fisher Collection and SFMOMA are both awesome in their own rights, but also because it benefits an area that has long held a special place in my heart. (Yeah. Once upon a time I sort of left [some of] it there, as the song goes.) Check out the image gallery and please join me in a hearty, "Way to go, San Francisco!"
A Sneak Peek at the Fisher Collection originally appeared on About.com Art History on Thursday, February 18th, 2010 at 00:24:41.
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Wordless Wednesday - Pick Apart the Allegory

Agnolo Bronzino (Italian, 1503-1572)
An Allegory with Venus and Cupid, ca. 1545
Oil on wood
146.1 x 116.2 cm (57 1/2 x 45 3/4 in.)
Purchased 1860
NG651
National Gallery, London

Here is the single best example of Mannerism as is found in many an art history tome.

For your Word~~less~~y Wednesday assignment, please describe the "allegorical" aspects of this tortured, elongated-limbed Ode to Love composition in 250 words or less in the comments below, in honor of Valentines Day.

I already "know" who's supposed to be Time, Fraud, Jealousy, Pleasure and Play in here, but would love to hear your 21st-century interpretations of this 16th-century piece. My personal hopes lay less in, "Flowers! Scented candles! And a cheesy teddy bear! Oh, my Darling, could you not also afford a politically correct diamond?" than in hearing from one's long-wed Darling, "Thank you for laundering my tighty whities for the eleventy-billionth time, in case I didn't say it the other 10,999,999,999 times ... uh ... um ... Venus?" (Obviously, nobody hipped Bronzino that True Love = Doing the Laundry as he painted this clothing optional panel.)

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Wordless Wednesday - Pick Apart the Allegory originally appeared on About.com Art History on Wednesday, February 10th, 2010 at 00:01:47.
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Kudos to LACMA's New "Reading Room"
Fellow art historians, can we ever get enough full and free access to sources? No. No, we cannot. In fact, I suspect that if we had our druthers, every text, dissertation, thesis, review, critical essay, exhibition and/or auction catalogue would live online in full (including footnotes) 24/7/365, forever and ever, amen.

Towards this is end, please join me in sending a collective namaste to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on its recently-launched Art Reading Room. The Reading Room's initial offerings are comprised of ten exhibition catalogues, mostly from the 1960s, and each is a gem. As in: hard to find, probably long out of print, and good luck to you if you're attempting to borrow them through Inter-Library Loans.

I've spent several hours today happily engrossed in Maurice Tuchman's New York School: The First Generation, Paintings of the 1940s and 1950s (1965), which is overflowing with verbatim quotes and group statements from Motherwell, de Kooning, Gorky, Rothko, Kline, Hofmann, et. al., and contemporary critical essays from Greenberg, Rosenberg and Shapiro (amongst other titans). Folks, it just doesn't get any better than this if you, like me, feel your geeky heart rate accelerate over the thought of getting your grubby little mitts on art-historic research.

As a huge bonus, all of the ten catalogues are offered "to go," meaning that you can download and save each in .pdf form. I prefer this myself, because it means I can resize the page to fit my monitor and use the search function at my leisure. As a warning--and, no, I am not warning you, you good Netizen--all copyright restrictions still apply, just as if one were reading a physical copy in one's local library. I mention this only because a few bad apples out there continue to believe that everything s/he finds on the Internet exists to lazily appropriate at will, with nary a thought about Fair Use laws or citing sources.

Anyway, please enjoy, and huge thanks to LACMA. Paying technicians to accurately scan full texts and hosting bandwidth are both expensive, so it behooves us to stand and applaud ... and pray that other institutions will follow suit as time and funds permit.

Kudos to LACMA's New "Reading Room" originally appeared on About.com Art History on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 at 18:47:45.
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Do You Think Exhuming Leonardo's Corpse Is a Good Idea?

Have you heard that a group of scientists and historians from the Italian National Committee for Cultural Heritage are seeking permission to dig up Leonardo's corpse? Yes, as reported in The Telegraph yesterday, it's true. You, like me, may now be asking yourself, "But, why? Do Leonardo's remains hold the key to a cure for cancer?" Would that this was the case but, sadly, no. The merry band of diggers are hoping to find the Master's skull in order to recreate his face to see if it matches the face in La Gioconda, commonly known as Mona Lisa. Are you listening, Mr. Brown? Do you see the miracles you have wrought with your keen art-historic insights?

I won't lie, I'm having a hard time with this. The curiosity end doesn't seem to justify the expensive means. On the other hand, I doubt that Leonardo would have had a problem with this plan. He was a scientist, after all.

What do you think? Please take our poll and feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

Do You Think Exhuming Leonardo's Corpse Is a Good Idea? originally appeared on About.com Art History on Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 at 15:31:03.
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Mike Mitchell Is With COCO

Many denizens of the scholarly art history crowd (if they even watch television) probably tune into Charlie Rose for late night entertainment. The rest of us have doubtless heard that NBC has stuck a fork into The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien after only seven months; it's done as of the Friday, January 22, 2010 taping.

For the past three weeks, the so-called Leno-O'Brien feud has (1) had a lot of comedic tongues wagging and (2) generated an enormous outpouring of popular support for O'Brien, his staff, his writers and the Tonight Show crew. And here is where I'd like to introduce you to Mike Mitchell, the artist who drew I'm With COCO, and whose Facebook page with the same title has over 607,000 fans as I type this. Mitchell does some interesting portraiture and illustration work in mixed-media/digital ... often sort of a mash-up of LowBrow, Steam Punk and old school video game art, combined with three cups of humor (my favorite: No Luck McGee), two tablespoons of pop culture references and a hefty dash of the macabre. Hard to describe, but you can see his gallery on Deviant Art for yourself.

Now, does I'm With COCO rank with Guernica or The Shootings of May Third, 1808 as powerful protest art? No, no one could make that claim with a straight face. It's worth noting, though, that a lot of great art was, is and will forever be generated out of protest and/or spontaneously, in reaction to some event. Five Internet dollars says that I'm With COCO will get its due in cultural sociology studies years from now but, in the meantime, it's always fun to meet a talented new (to me) artist like Mike Mitchell. Oh, and, for the record: I'm firmly in the pre-Gen X demographic that NBC seems to assume will tune in for Jay Leno's second stint as Tonight Show host. Please refer to the image above.
Mike Mitchell Is With COCO originally appeared on About.com Art History on Friday, January 22nd, 2010 at 15:33:05.
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