602. Gold Ground Best: Lorenzo Monaco, David (1405-10). David strikes a commanding pose, holds a ‘cither’ realistically on his knee, and has the most human face in the gallery. The gold background sets off the beautiful green, pink and blue of David’s robes. Worst: Cenni di Francesco di Ser Cenni, St. Catherine Disputing and Two […]
For more than 50 years Claude Monet has been one of my favorite artists, but while there are works I like more than others, I had never systematically analyzed his different periods vis-à-vis my taste. Three recent experiences, however, have shown me that I don’t like all Monets and led me to rate the “good” […]
Without being pretentious but in an effort to look at familiar art more closely, I herewith embark on a project to evaluate the Met’s collection gallery by gallery, selecting the best and the worst – or, rather, my favorite work and least favorite, for I do not confuse my opinion with quality. (To see a […]
Three days, three modern and contemporary art fairs in New York with no duplication, except for a lot of Warhol at each. TEFAF was far and away the classiest, in a beautifully decorated 67th St. Armory, tulips overhead and white wall hangings. This was not a fair to buy at, except for the very wealthy […]
Ten Highlights of Our Trip to Arabia. 1. Museum of Islamic Art (Qatar). Everything I hoped it would be: the ‘essence’ of Islamic architecture filtered through the geometric modernism of I.M. Pei. Wonderfully sited with a breathtaking interior: minimal yet full. Each object was given its own space and spotlight; everything seemed important, except maybe […]
Reflections on visiting the Prado and more: Merely by painting The Spinners, Vulcan’s Forge and Las Meninas, Velazquez earned his place at or near the top of Western Europe’s great artists. His royal portraits are honored next, but it’s hard to say how they would have made his reputation today – especially given the unattractive […]
Mnuchin, a local gallery that presents museum-quality shows, rounded up works from the ’80s by Sean Scully, one of my favorites for his rough, building-block construction works. In the ’80s, however, he hadn’t yet found his winning formula. He was advancing toward it, and that in itself was interesting to see; but compared to his […]
The Met’s second big fall show opened last week, and as usual it is big: something like 40 of the 60 known paintings by Valentin de Boulogne – from the Louvre, above all, plus the Vatican, Indianapolis and several venues in Rome and Florence – have been gathered and, unfortunately, hung together. Unfortunate, because so […]
A quick but labored walk through the Met’s newest blockbuster exhibition, Jerusalem (1000-1400), made me wonder if I was ‘arted out,’ if I was going to museums out of habit or sense of duty and no longer able to truly enjoy myself. Yes, there were a few things that caught my eye, but for the […]
The age-old, unanswerable question came to mind as I pondered two equally compelling objects on back-to-back days in San Francisco (8/13-14/16). The first was the “strandbeest” at the Exploratorium in an exhibit titled “The Dream Machines of Theo Jansen.” There were actually several on display, including one that was operational. Contraptions made largely of PVC […]
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