Comments for Studio Matters

Comment on View Through the Fallopian Tubes by Christi P. Aguirre

Christi P. Aguirre — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 12:55:52 +0000

Who would have ever envisioned the need to fight for, of all things, contraception in 2012? Women’s reproductive rights are being eroded. Because of government interference with women’s healthcare decisions, these women artists felt the need to express their concerns in the way they know best. They have gotten creative with the image, the shape, the form, the essence of the uterus and we have presented them all in an exciting and visually arresting format of high density and over-the-top repetition of one thing: the uterus.

Comment on I Am What I Have by Studio Matters

Studio Matters — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 17:01:08 +0000

Yes, absolutely, there are different kinds of collectors. The term, though, does not quite
apply to what you describe. Buying art simply to live with, to learn from, or to support friends,
is not the kind of collecting I was referring to. It was the speculative collector—a relatively new
phenomenon historically—and the social climber (“I have three Matisses. How many do
you have?” “My Picasso is bigger than yours.”) that was my subject.

Comment on I Am What I Have by Marthe Lépine

Marthe Lépine — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 16:48:04 +0000

I suppose there are various kinds of collectors… A relative of mine usually made a point of purchasing at least one painting at each show that some of her friends who were artists, because she had a good paying job and believed in helping her friends at least recover the cost of putting the show on. It resulted in an interesting collection of works by artists from her area; and she eventually gave me over 21 works. And, as an artist myself, I enjoy getting pieces by other artists I know, as well as the ones I studied with, or under. This is also a collection, but there is absolutely no intend to “invest in art” for the purpose of gaining from the works increase in value. However, I was very pleased recently when I was going through financial problems and discovered that an Inuit print I had purchased 40 years ago just as a “souvenir” of a particular area where I had had a job, had now multiplied 10 times in value. It certainly did help, but I had not purchased the print for that reason.

Comment on View Through the Fallopian Tubes by Brushman

Brushman — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 18:00:25 +0000

Meet my gall bladder. Where should I send the knitting?

Comment on View Through the Fallopian Tubes by Helen R.

Helen R. — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 13:40:20 +0000

The Snatchel Project? That wouldn’t be “snatch” as in slang for vulva, would it? Could it? Guess so. Talk about the ennobling effect of art!

Comment on January 1, 2013 by Christopher S. Johnson

Christopher S. Johnson — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 19:19:41 +0000

So good to have you back, Maureen!

Since Maureen won’t toot her own horn, it’s left to me. She has a very fine review in the Weekly Standard of what sounds like a very bad book, Alex Danchev’s Cezanne: A Life.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/postmodern-c-zanne_665182.html?nopager=1

British novelist Julian Barnes weighs in on the same in the TLS. He likes the book a bit more, but comes to the same conclusion as to the book’s overblow claims. Worth reading.

http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1179756.ece

Also, this lauditory review of a new Titian biography by Sheila Harper was a enough to get me to buy the book (but I haven’t received it yet, much less read it).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/a-new-biography-of-the-incomparable-venetian-artist-titian/2012/12/12/9fd0a324-4300-11e2-8061-253bccfc7532_print.html

Comment on January 1, 2013 by Lin

Lin — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 21:26:43 +0000

So glad you’re back! What stillness and concentrated moments those two Renaissance paintings convey. And the color and patterning in the icon direct my eyes right to what’s going in the center. These images are very healing, good for the soul.

Comment on January 1, 2013 by mm

mm — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 18:05:05 +0000

Always appreciate your posts. Blessings for the new year.
MM

Comment on Picturing Mary Magdalene by Studio Matters

Studio Matters — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 12:48:43 +0000

That is a good question, Alberti's Window, but no, not a grant. There are more routes into art history than that for a writer enamored of the West's patrimony of sacred art. As he acknowledges, his father was an artist. His own love of Italian art was sparked by a week in Florence while on return from active duty in 1956. He went into the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine to get out the rain and stumbled into the Brancacci Chapel: "I had never seen anything like it. I had never heard of Masaccio. . . . But I did know that I was in the presence of something rare, a profoundly moving witness to life . . ." Kiely had been a student of literature and, as he admits, knew nothing of art history. In 1991, he was invited to be a Visiting Professor at Villa I Tatti, the Harvard U. Center for Italian Renaissance Studies. He came again in 2009. The book was a long-simmering project of love.

Comment on Picturing Mary Magdalene by H Niyazi

H Niyazi — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 08:23:06 +0000

Thank you for this recommendation Maureen, I very much look forward to seeing more of Mr Kiely’s work on the saints.

It is not uncommon to have non-art historians writing about art. This being said, the focus of Early Modern art history has changed it seems. The legacy of Panofsky, Wind, even Freedberg still looms large over the genre and many that are not familiar withmore recent publications will think the modus operandi has not changed.

Published only in 2011, volumes by Marcia Hall and Alexander Nagel have largely gone unnoted outside scholarly circles, despite their great approachability and fascinating summation of patterns and concepts in Renaissance art in a modern, fresh manner – no elaborate nomenclature in Latin and French, no internal ahistorical (Friedian) musing. It’s all good stuff, and not enough people are reading about it!

Kind Regards
H