Kathe Kollwitz in Berlin: the moral conscience of Germany

June 26, 2015, 10:53 am

≫ Next: Richter/Pärt at the Whitworth, Manchester: no broken hallelujah

$

0

0

Did any German artist confront the suffering of the first half of the twentieth century as directly as Käthe Kollwitz did? Through the years of war, political turbulence and social strife that defined her life, Kollwitz kept alive the moral conscience of Germany. For fifty years Kollwitz lived and worked in working class Prenzlauer Berg, in … Continue reading Kathe Kollwitz in Berlin: the moral conscience of Germany

---

Richter/Pärt at the Whitworth, Manchester: no broken hallelujah

July 11, 2015, 10:30 am

≫ Next: Ravilious at Dulwich: dot and speck and dash and dab

≪ Previous: Kathe Kollwitz in Berlin: the moral conscience of Germany

$

0

0

Just as the Red Queen in Through the Looking Glass asks, ‘What do you suppose is the use of a child without any meaning?’ so the question might arise, ‘What is the use of art without meaning?’ Should a person enter the room at Manchester’s Whitworth Gallery in which the work of Gerhard Richter is … Continue reading Richter/Pärt at the Whitworth, Manchester: no broken hallelujah

Ravilious at Dulwich: dot and speck and dash and dab

July 1, 2015, 1:05 am

≫ Next: Expressionists in Berlin (Impressionists, too)

≪ Previous: Richter/Pärt at the Whitworth, Manchester: no broken hallelujah

$

0

0

One morning in 1934, Eric Ravilious set off with a sketch pad from his home in Brick House, Great Bardfield, Essex. He didn’t go far – just around the corner, in fact, to where a repair yard for steam engines was filled with derelict farm machinery and abandoned vehicles of all kinds. In one corner an old … Continue reading Ravilious at Dulwich: dot and speck and dash and dab

Expressionists in Berlin (Impressionists, too)

June 28, 2015, 3:30 am

≫ Next: Brief glimpses of art and music in Berlin

≪ Previous: Ravilious at Dulwich: dot and speck and dash and dab

$

0

0

Impressionism is usually seen as the antithesis of Expressionism, but while we were in Berlin we queued for over an hour to see a stunning exhibition at the the Alte Nationalgalerie, on Museum Island – snappily titled on the banners, ImEx – which brings together a lavish helping of paintings from both movements, presenting them in … Continue reading Expressionists in Berlin (Impressionists, too)

Brief glimpses of art and music in Berlin

June 27, 2015, 3:29 am

≫ Next: In pursuit of Bruegel: Berlin and Two Monkeys in chains

≪ Previous: Expressionists in Berlin (Impressionists, too)

$

0

0

Guide books aren’t much use in Berlin at the moment if you’re trying to work out where to see what in the city’s main museums and art galleries. Everything is being reorganised: some galleries like the Neue Nationalgalerie – the main gallery for modern art – are closed for refurbishment, while the extensive programme renovation … Continue reading Brief glimpses of art and music in Berlin

In pursuit of Bruegel: Berlin and Two Monkeys in chains

August 20, 2015, 8:08 am

≫ Next: In pursuit of Breugel: Madrid and The Triumph of Death

≪ Previous: Brief glimpses of art and music in Berlin

$

0

0

It’s only a small painting – barely seven inches by nine – yet (though I know such comparisons are invidious) if I were asked to list my ten favourite artworks this would be one of them. Pieter Bruegel’s Two Monkeys is haunting, mysterious and profound. Two Monkeys is one of two Bruegel paintings that we …

In pursuit of Breugel: Madrid and The Triumph of Death

August 26, 2015, 12:42 pm

≫ Next: York Art Gallery: a bit potty

≪ Previous: In pursuit of Bruegel: Berlin and Two Monkeys in chains

$

0

0

Don DeLillo’s massive novel Underworld opens with a prologue called ‘The Triumph of Death’.  The title comes from the Bruegel painting that hangs in the Prado in Madrid – the first Bruguel we ever saw in the flesh (so to speak), visiting there on an Easter break in 2003. As spectators watch the closing minutes …

York Art Gallery: a bit potty

August 31, 2015, 5:51 am

≫ Next: Jackson Pollock at Tate Liverpool: wrestling with a blind spot

≪ Previous: In pursuit of Breugel: Madrid and The Triumph of Death

$

0

0

I went over to York last week to visit my sister, and while I was there we popped into York Art Gallery which recently reopened to the public after an £8 million revamp. However, my sister and a good number of York residents are justifiably outraged by the fact that it now costs £7.50 to …

---

Jackson Pollock at Tate Liverpool: wrestling with a blind spot

September 1, 2015, 10:39 am

≫ Next: Bruegel in Vienna, part 1: through the seasons

≪ Previous: York Art Gallery: a bit potty

$

0

0

Well I tried, didn’t I? I have to admit, I’ve always had a blind spot where Jackson Pollock’s concerned. So I was not that keen on seeing Jackson Pollock: Blind Spots at Tate Liverpool. But I was persuaded by my daughter – who was blown away by the Pollocks she saw in MoMA a few years …

Bruegel in Vienna, part 1: through the seasons

July 3, 2015, 3:31 am

≫ Next: Bruegel in Vienna, part 2: Religion, politics and war

≪ Previous: Jackson Pollock at Tate Liverpool: wrestling with a blind spot

$

0

0

For true believers, the Bruegel room in Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum must be the holy grail. Though paintings by the artist occupy two rooms in the Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels, they are interspersed with works by his two sons. But the room in Vienna is a concentrated showcase of the whole spectrum of Bruegel’s … Continue reading Bruegel in Vienna, part 1: through the seasons →

Bruegel in Vienna, part 2: Religion, politics and war

July 4, 2015, 2:34 am

≫ Next: Bruegel in Vienna, part 3: ‘Peasant’ Bruegel

≪ Previous: Bruegel in Vienna, part 1: through the seasons

$

0

0

In the first part of this appreciation of the Bruegel room in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, I looked at Bruegel’s paintings of the seasons. This time I want to explore a group of paintings that share a preoccupation with religion, politics and war. These paintings may have been inspired by religious themes, but Bruegel … Continue reading Bruegel in Vienna, part 2: Religion, politics and war →

Bruegel in Vienna, part 3: ‘Peasant’ Bruegel

July 5, 2015, 2:22 am

≫ Next: Antony Gormley: Being Human

≪ Previous: Bruegel in Vienna, part 2: Religion, politics and war

$

0

0

So far this in this series of posts celebrating the Bruegel room in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, I have looked at Bruegel’s paintings of the seasons and the works which share a preoccupation with religion, politics and war. In this final post I want to explore examples of the kind of work that resulted … Continue reading Bruegel in Vienna, part 3: ‘Peasant’ Bruegel →

Antony Gormley: Being Human

November 11, 2015, 7:13 am

≫ Next: Peter Lanyon: Soaring Flight

≪ Previous: Bruegel in Vienna, part 3: ‘Peasant’ Bruegel

$

0

0

Alan Yentob’s film for the BBC’s Imagine strand last week made a powerful case for Anthony Gormley being one of the most original and profound of British artists at work today. In Antony Gormley: Being Human, Alan Yentob followed the sculptor to recent exhibitions of his work in Paris and Florence, and explored the influences … Continue reading Antony Gormley: Being Human →

Peter Lanyon: Soaring Flight

November 24, 2015, 10:03 am

≫ Next: Celts: Art and Identity

≪ Previous: Antony Gormley: Being Human

$

0

0

During the 1950s, the small harbour town of St Ives in Cornwall played host to an astonishing group of painters that included some of the leading modern artists of the time. Among them were Alan Davie, Terry Frost, Patrick Heron – and Peter Lanyon. Of them all, only Lanyon was actually Cornish. He died too … Continue reading Peter Lanyon: Soaring Flight →

Celts: Art and Identity

November 29, 2015, 10:07 am

≫ Next: Ai Weiwei at the RA: Everything is art. Everything is politics

≪ Previous: Peter Lanyon: Soaring Flight

$

0

0

The other day I received an email advising me of the line-up for the next Celtic Connections in Glasgow. But who were the Celts – these people who now lend their name to a festival that ‘celebrates Celtic music and its connections to cultures across the globe’? Hoping for an answer to this question, a … Continue reading Celts: Art and Identity →

---

Ai Weiwei at the RA: Everything is art. Everything is politics

December 2, 2015, 11:09 am

≫ Next: David Jones: Vision and Memory at Pallant House

≪ Previous: Celts: Art and Identity

$

0

0

Ai Weiwei’s work is not unusual in drawing upon the artist’s own life experience for inspiration, but there is none of the solipsism of Tracey Emin’s Bed in his art. Ai Weiwei’s installations, sculptures and videos – which I saw last week in his powerful, moving and deeply serious exhibition currently at the Royal Academy … Continue reading Ai Weiwei at the RA: Everything is art. Everything is politics →

David Jones: Vision and Memory at Pallant House

December 17, 2015, 6:38 am

≫ Next: Matisse in Focus at Tate Liverpool: The Snail’s last outing

≪ Previous: Ai Weiwei at the RA: Everything is art. Everything is politics

$

0

0

There’s a self-portrait David Jones painted in 1931 when he was in his mid-thirties. In Human Being he depicts himself almost as a boy, an unworldly youth with a thoughtful, quizzical look in his eyes who radiates a sense of inner strength. His hands are delicate, sensitive, almost feminine. At Pallant House Gallery in Chichester … Continue reading David Jones: Vision and Memory at Pallant House →

Matisse in Focus at Tate Liverpool: The Snail’s last outing

January 18, 2016, 3:51 am

≫ Next: Hieronymus Bosch back in his old home town

≪ Previous: David Jones: Vision and Memory at Pallant House

$

0

0

Matisse in Focus at Tate Liverpool brings together fifteen paintings from the Tate collection to provide an overview of the artist’s work across five decades. Its centrepiece is The Snail, the largest and most popular of Matisse’s cut-out works; after this show closes, it will never travel outside London again. For such a small exhibition, … Continue reading Matisse in Focus at Tate Liverpool: The Snail’s last outing →

Hieronymus Bosch back in his old home town

February 25, 2016, 2:47 am

≫ Next: Hieronymus Bosch: visions of Hell and earthly delights in an astonishing exhibition

≪ Previous: Matisse in Focus at Tate Liverpool: The Snail’s last outing

$

0

0

After dark in the old town of ‘s-Hertogenbosch, it’s easy to imagine that I am walking in the footsteps of Hieronymus Bosch. For even though he died 500 years ago, the street plan is unchanged from the lanes and alleyways with which he was familiar in the last decades of the 15th century. The painter … Continue reading Hieronymus Bosch back in his old home town →

Hieronymus Bosch: visions of Hell and earthly delights in an astonishing exhibition

February 27, 2016, 12:56 am

≫ Next: Vermeer’s ‘Little Street’ Discovered!

≪ Previous: Hieronymus Bosch back in his old home town

$

0

0

The first picture that you see when you enter the exhibition, Hieronymus Bosch: Visions of Genius, at Noordbrabants Museum in the painter’s home town of ‘s-Hertogenbosch depicts a careworn traveller making his way through the kind of landscape you can still see if you step beyond the town’s medieval battlements. This is The Wayfarer (study … Continue reading Hieronymus Bosch: visions of Hell and earthly delights in an astonishing exhibition →

Vermeer’s ‘Little Street’ Discovered!

March 17, 2016, 9:07 am

≫ Next: Out and about with the Hague School

≪ Previous: Hieronymus Bosch: visions of Hell and earthly delights in an astonishing exhibition

$

0

0

It’s one of my favourite paintings. A view of ordinary houses in an ordinary street, the weathered brickwork, window leads and wooden shutters finely detailed, and a few incidental details of everyday life – two children at play, a woman sewing in a doorway, while another is glimpsed in a side passage reaching into a … Continue reading Vermeer’s ‘Little Street’ Discovered! →

Out and about with the Hague School

March 25, 2016, 11:09 am

≫ Next: Van Gogh: from the dark into the light

≪ Previous: Vermeer’s ‘Little Street’ Discovered!

$

0

0

I guess we’re all familiar with the way in which the French Impressionists shook up the art world in the 1870s by depicting landscapes and scenes from modern everyday life often painted outdoors using bright, pure colours applied with rapid, often visible brush-strokes. What I didn’t know – until I found some of their paintings in … Continue reading Out and about with the Hague School →

---

Van Gogh: from the dark into the light

March 29, 2016, 7:24 am

≫ Next: Forest, Field & Sky: Art out of Nature

≪ Previous: Out and about with the Hague School

$

0

0

After encountering the artists of the Hague School in the Rijksmuseum, I walked across Museumplein to the Van Gogh Museum where I found further evidence of the connections between these painters. There is so much to absorb at the Van Gogh Museum, and elements of the story are so familiar, that I focussed on the … Continue reading Van Gogh: from the dark into the light →

Forest, Field & Sky: Art out of Nature

May 4, 2016, 7:41 am

≫ Next: Paul Nash at Tate Britain: searching for a different angle of vision

≪ Previous: Van Gogh: from the dark into the light

$

0

0

We approached Forest, Field & Sky: Art out of Nature, last night’s documentary on BBC Four presented by Dr James Fox, with great anticipation since its subject was a form of art that has inspired us both – and provided the subject of many blog posts here. Fox didn’t disappoint, focussing on just a few … Continue reading Forest, Field & Sky: Art out of Nature →

Paul Nash at Tate Britain: searching for a different angle of vision

November 27, 2016, 7:18 am

≫ Next: John Berger: 90 years of looking, listening and seeing (re-post)

≪ Previous: Forest, Field & Sky: Art out of Nature

$

0

0

Paul Nash first discovered Wittenham Clumps, two ‘dome-like hills’ in Oxfordshire with a ‘curiously symmetrical sculptural form’  in 1911. Between 1912 and 1946 he would paint them repeatedly as he sought to encapsulate there and in other places (such as the South Downs and the stone circles of Aylesbury) the idea of a ‘spirit of … Continue reading Paul Nash at Tate Britain: searching for a different angle of vision →

John Berger: 90 years of looking, listening and seeing (re-post)

January 3, 2017, 4:58 am

≫ Next: An Adrian Henri mini-exhibition: ‘The poet in him wrote poems containing images that the painter in him wanted to paint’

≪ Previous: Paul Nash at Tate Britain: searching for a different angle of vision

$

0

0

Until I have time to gather my thoughts in response to the death of John Berger – here is a re-post of my appreciation to mark his 90th birthday in November. (Avoid at all costs the mean-spirited obituary published by the Guardian. Instead, try these two perceptive pieces: A Smuggling Operation: John Berger’s Theory of … Continue reading John Berger: 90 years of looking, listening and seeing (re-post) →

An Adrian Henri mini-exhibition: ‘The poet in him wrote poems containing images that the painter in him wanted to paint’

February 11, 2017, 8:01 am

≫ Next: Yves Klein at Liverpool Tate: vision of cosmic infinity – or a crock of shit?

≪ Previous: John Berger: 90 years of looking, listening and seeing (re-post)

$

0

0

I received an email from the Victoria Gallery & Museum alerting me to the fact that an exhibition of work by Adrian Henri was ending that day. Henri has a special place in my heart because I arrived in Liverpool just at the tail-end of that moment when Liverpool in the1960s was a focal point … Continue reading An Adrian Henri mini-exhibition: ‘The poet in him wrote poems containing images that the painter in him wanted to paint’ →

Yves Klein at Liverpool Tate: vision of cosmic infinity – or a crock of shit?

February 13, 2017, 2:28 am

≫ Next: Public View: celebrating 300 years of the Bluecoat

≪ Previous: An Adrian Henri mini-exhibition: ‘The poet in him wrote poems containing images that the painter in him wanted to paint’

$

0

0

In 1961, Piero Manzoni filled ninety tin cans with his own excrement. A label on each can identified the contents as ‘Artist’s Shit’, contents 30gr net freshly preserved, produced and tinned in May 1961.’ Each was numbered on the lid (the Tate owns number 004). Yves Klein’s work, currently on display at Tate Liverpool, is … Continue reading Yves Klein at Liverpool Tate: vision of cosmic infinity – or a crock of shit? →

Public View: celebrating 300 years of the Bluecoat

March 6, 2017, 9:09 am

≫ Next: To plant a tree: a love song to a magnolia planted thirty years ago

≪ Previous: Yves Klein at Liverpool Tate: vision of cosmic infinity – or a crock of shit?

$

0

0

The Bluecoat is 300 years old. Miraculously, the oldest building in Liverpool city centre has twice survived the threat of destruction (post-war city planners thought it would be a great idea to replace it with an inner-city ring road) to become one of the UK’s oldest arts centres. Completed in 1725, after two centuries serving … Continue reading Public View: celebrating 300 years of the Bluecoat →

---

To plant a tree: a love song to a magnolia planted thirty years ago

March 31, 2017, 8:00 am

≪ Previous: Public View: celebrating 300 years of the Bluecoat

$

0

0

Sitting in a darkening room yesterday as evening came on, I sensed snowflakes falling beyond the window. Torn by a western wind and rain that had fallen throughout the day, the falling shards of ghostly white were the petals of the magnolia tree that stands in our front garden, planted by us thirty years ago. … Continue reading To plant a tree: a love song to a magnolia planted thirty years ago →