Link to Post:
http://henrimag.com/blog1/?p=6342
Mark Stone reflects on the ever-present possibility to see and form anew through the act of painting.
Stone points to the self contained worlds in a late work by Picasso and a pastel by Degas. In the Degas, he writes, "everything feels close, contained. The surfaces are filled with crosshatches and heavy pastels. The beautiful bathers emerge through the lens and then find a thicker reality in Degas’ line, the flesh formed with each stroke of color, the line tracing the reality in front of us. These visions are not mine, and I’m not supposed to fill in the blanks, there are none to choose. I am supposed to look, to see something that’s not me. I am there with Degas, experiencing an entropic moment, understanding that this drawing is both image and being at once, a hybrid of visual existence."
Link to Post:
http://www.bigredandshiny.com/cgi-bin/BRS.cgi?article=2012-10-07-073239343819559949
Brian Christopher Glaser writes about Pablo Picasso's Rape of the Sabine Women, painted in reaction to the Cuban Missle Crisis. The painting is now on view at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum, Boston, MA.
Glaser writes: "Distressed by what was unfolding and no stranger to war (he operated a studio in Paris during the German occupation of the city), Picasso contacted a friend in the city and asked for slides of two masterpieces - Nicolas Poussin’s Abduction of the Sabine Women and Jacques-Louis David’s Intervention of the Sabine Women. Over the next four months Picasso projected the slides on the walls of his studio and worked on three small paintings depicting the fabled tale before starting his 4th and final in the series. The large 6 by 4 foot canvass, Rape of the Sabine Women—now on view at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and museum—stands as Picasso’s last great "history painting" and outcry against the atrocities of war."
Link to Post:
http://www.tnr.com/article/art/109362/picasso-black-and-white-the-guggenheim-reviewed
Jed Perl reviews the exhibition Picasso Black and White at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, on view through January 23, 2012.
Perl writes that "if black and white was sometimes a shorthand for Picasso - and even occasionally a copout - it was also a way of cutting away the fat, of getting to the essentials... for Picasso the monochromatic palette fueled both a classical reticence and austerity and a romantic feverishness and hyperbole. Although black and white can surely be a vehicle for virtuosic display, there is a nakedness about Picasso’s greatest black-and-white works, a sense that this supreme artistic trickster has decided to deny himself some of the tricks of the trade. Of course in the context of this exhibition, black and white encompasses a rainbow of grays, from silken to inky, from plangent to opaque."
Link to Post:
http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/103902/jed-perl-Rembrandt-woolf-fry
Jed Perl reviews the exhibition Picasso and Françoise Gilot: Paris-Vallauris, 1943-1953 at Gagosian Gallery, New York, on view through June 30, 2012.
Perl writes: "The fascination here is not so much in the great works this exhibition contains - although there are a few - but in the sense of a visionary struggling to move forward, searching in past triumphs for the catalyst to future discoveries... there is no modern artist who has struggled more mightily than Picasso to reconcile the rival claims of sentiment and design."
Link to Post:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2012/apr/25/vollard-suite-mind-picasso-british-museum
Jonathan Jones previews the exhibition Picasso Prints: The Vollard Suite at the British Museum, London, on view from May 3 - September 2, 2012.
Jones asserts that "lay bare his imagination and his creative energy like nothing else he ever did. If every painting by Picasso were to vanish, and only this series of prints survived, his genius would still be obvious from this work alone. Guernica grows out of its imagery: in a sense (especially with its black and white palette) this famous painting is simply a translation to mural scale of the intense symbolism and mythic power of the etchings in the Vollard Suite."
Link to Post:
http://altoonsultan.blogspot.com/2012/01/make-it-new-what-is-originality.html
Altoon Sultan blogs about what constitutes originality in art by asking: "Is Ezra Pound's modernist injunction to 'Make it new' useful?"
She continues: "I believe that time to be alone, time to work, and to think, time to be open to the world, are necessary in order to find our true selves in the cacophony of influences. Finding that self, the one that leads to original and unique thought, is what is so difficult..."
Link to Post:
http://chloenelkin.wordpress.com/2011/12/28/fond-memories-of-the-courtauld-the-spanish-line/
Chloe Nelkin blogs about the exhibition The Spanish Line: Drawings from Ribera to Picasso at The Courtauld Gallery, London, on view through January 15, 2012.
Nelkin writes that "This is the first exhibition in London to focus on the tradition of Spanish draughtsmanship and marks the culmination of a major, four-year, research project; one of its aims is to highlight how Spanish artists drew inspiration from the Dutch and Flemish schools – their work and ideas having been transmitted through the study of prints, as can now be seen, in part, by the bold graphic lines of the drawings."
Link to Post:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/11/art-review-modern-antiquity-picasso-de-chirico-getty-villa.html
Christopher Knight reviews the exhibition Modern Antiquity: Picasso, de Chirico, Léger, and Picabia in the Presence of the Antique at the J. Paul Getty Museum, on view through January 16, 2012.
Knight writes that the exhibition "considers myriad ways in which ancient Greek and Roman art -- the epitome of Western tradition -- interested painters more commonly regarded as radical... the timely issues raised in 'Modern Antiquity' are challenging. And they breathe bracing life into the Getty Villa: When you leave the modern show, the ancient Greek and Roman collections suddenly look a bit different."
Link to Post:
http://blog.art21.org/2011/11/04/william-harsh-on-tradition-anonymity-picasso-and-the-barbaric-yawp/
DeWitt Cheng shares wonderful excerpts from a conversation with painter William Harsh.
Of Picasso Harsh notes: "“One of my favorite quotes from Picasso… 'The kind of painting I like is the kind you can drive a nail through.' … Physical, clear, no question…. You nail it, you nail it, it's like artillery, to the right, to the left, you get it…. Picasso is a great engineer. He is a great nailer, and he just wants to nail it in the right place. Guston was like that, too, It's an ethical position as well: the correct and just distribution of forms."
Link to Post:
http://www.16miles.com/2011/08/flowers-for-summer-at-michael-werner.html
Andrew Russeth reviews the exhibition Flowers for Summer at Michael Werner Gallery on view through September 10, 2011. The show features paintings by Picasso, Kurt Schwitters, Sigmar Polke, Peter Doig, Eugène Leroy and others.
Russeth writes that the "... simple title and self-explanatory premise [belie] the high quality of work on view. That Schwitters, for instance, hangs above a spare and elegant Sigmar Polke, just a few black lines curving over a green cloud. It's a minor work — Farbprobe (Color Study), it's called — but it's also a prototype for a good percentage of the abstract paintings being made today."
