Posted in Art on Jan 24th, 2013
ShareBeginning today, Studio Matters will go back into hibernation. I will continue to post under my own name on First Things, a monthly print journal devoted to religion, culture and politics. Please join me among the weblogs on First Things’ website.
If you wish, you can dial direct: http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/maureen-mullarkey/
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Posted in Art, Art History, Art Writing, Culture Cues on Jan 22nd, 2013
ShareI know many persons who have the purest taste in literature, and yet false taste in art, and it is a phenomenon that puzzles me not a little; but I have never known any one with false taste in books and true taste in pictures.
John Ruskin
John Ruskin was skeptical of the Victorian era’s flourishing publishing [...]
Posted in Art, Art & Money on Jan 18th, 2013
ShareAccording to Sartre, “I am what I have” is the reigning attitude of the bourgeoisie. Much as I dislike the word bourgeois and its historic uses, Sartre’s comment is on the money when it comes to art collectors. “I am my paintings.” Collecting is an upscale recreation, a game that confers the illusion of cultural [...]
Posted in Art on Feb 1st, 2012
ShareAS MANY OF YOU HAVE EMAILED to inquire—or scold—about, postings have been sluggish for some time. It is not good form to leave it at that. Time to be direct and own up to reality. Circumstances do not permit me to continue Studio Matters for the moment. It will start up again when life permits [...]
Posted in Art, Art History, Art Writing, Sacred Art, Things to Read on Nov 30th, 2011
ShareART HISTORIANS ARE NOT NECESSARILY the best commentators on art. They are primarily researchers: archival sleuths, inquirers, unearthers of fact. Gumshoes, the best of them. Some can write, many cannot. The discipline draws bookish sorts who are more at home in a library carrel, reading up on the words of some other member of the [...]
Posted in Art, Art History, Art Writing, Sacred Art, Things to Read on Nov 20th, 2011
ShareHASAN NIYAZI, impressario of Three Pipe Problem, had included a list of readings that informed his essay in the previous post, Navigating the Cognitive Philosophy of Michael Fried. I omitted the roster simply to conform more closely to the format of Studio Matters. The audience for this blog are, in the main, other working artists, [...]
Posted in Art, Art History, Art Writing, Painting, Things to Read on Nov 12th, 2011
Shareby Hasan Niyazi
CARAVAGGIO AND HIS FOLLOWERS IN ROME has arrived at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. Those unable to experience the majesty of the Baroque in person are left to ponder the substantial catalogue recently published by Yale University Press.
Featuring essays by exhibition organizers and notable scholars of the Baroque, Michael Fried’s [...]
Posted in Art, Art History, Art Writing, Sacred Art, Things to Read on Oct 25th, 2011
ShareONE PROBLEM WITH ART HISTORIANS-TURNED-JOURNALISTS lies in the requirements of journalism. The art pundit must be interesting; no matter if accuracy suffers. Diversion is the name of the game. Elegant and high-minded, to be sure, but diverting nonetheless. And there really is not time, given the copy deadlines of daily or even weekly publications, to [...]
ShareMODESTY IS NOT CHARACTERISTIC OF CONTEMPORARY CULTURE. Prevailing emphasis on self-assertion, and the pseudo-profundity that fuels it in the visual arts, leaves little room for the quietude and lucidity that are the hallmarks of Elizabeth O’Reilly’s painting.
O’Reilly brings to art an intuitive regard for man’s sense of place. It is a sensibility that makes the [...]
Posted in Art on Oct 10th, 2011
ShareCOLUMBUS’ SEAFARING ACHIEVEMENT HAS BEEN CELEBRATED in various Western nations for different reasons. Here at home, Columbus Day entered the calendar as a day to celebrate the contribution of immigrants—particularly Italian Catholic ones—to the United States. So, please, folks, let us not pull our skirts back from a magnificent mariner, who first set sail at [...]