art say what?

Speaking of Parmigianino (whew, quite the effort to spell that...

annotatedplaylist — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 19:13:55 +0200

Speaking of Parmigianino (whew, quite the effort to spell that one correctly), here is something by him that is easy to love, especially if you can’t get on board with his other works (though I just say give it time, it all just might grow on you). This is his self-portrait in a convex mirror. It’s a painting that captures the young artist right as he’s coming into his own career-wise, as well as in regards to his artistic style.

The year 1524 marks his move to Rome, where the exposure to different artists both young (Giulio Romano! Rosso Fiorentino!) and old/dead (Michelangelo and Raphael) end up shaping his interpretation of the Mannerist style. My old friend Stokstad (not really, we’ve never met, even though it feels that way) describes this style as being “calm but strangely unsettling,” which is something that I can definitely agree with.

Regardless, here we see a young man on the cusp of the beginning of all things. He is staring us down, looking directly at us as a challenge… it’s almost as if he’s daring us to notice him and take note of his talent. Which, after seeing his paintings—and even more so, his drawings— is pretty hard not to do.

Francesco Mazzola, called Parmigianino, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, 1523-4. Diameter: 24.4 cm. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

Parmigianino! At last!

annotatedplaylist — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 18:44:00 +0200

As a fan of both Parmigianino and Joshua Reynolds, today’s discovery of this long-lost red-chalk drawing is especially exciting.

It’s a sketch for his famous The Madonna of the Long Neck (1535-40, currently at the Uffizi in Florence), i.e. the painting that everyone gets in their survey class to illustrate the tenets of Mannerism. The drawing itself is a series of studies, not really a full sketch of the entire work, but double sided and extremely telling of the artist’s creative process.

(Image taken from the Art Newspaper article cited above.)

What’s cool about this is that while it was missing for 30 years, it was found right where it was supposed to be. It was in the earlier edition of Popham’s landmark catalogue raisonné of Parm’s drawings that the exact location was listed, not, as could be expected, in the more frequently consulted and accessed 1971 edition that only named the institution. Thanks to someone doing research on works of art found in Joshua Reynolds’s personal collection (at the Met, no less), was he able to track down this important drawing’s location as it was at one time the property of Reynolds. It was listed in the 1953 edition as being “bound in a ‘1792 grangerised Bible’ from Augustin Daly,” which upon further investigation, was found exactly where it should have been: on the shelves at the library of the Huntington.

I think it’s always cool when two worlds collide, in this case with one of the greatest Mannerist painters and a seemingly unrelated, yet prolific in his own right (and many others) painter from the eighteenth century. It’s a small world, even when you take into account all the hundreds of years of art that has been produced.

Make sure and read the whole article from The Art Newspaper above (or here if you don’t want to scroll up again).

Supposedly mind-blowing Matisse exhibition on view at the Met

annotatedplaylist — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 12:02:36 +0100

Supposedly mind-blowing Matisse exhibition on view at the Met:

I haven’t seen it, but I believe it when they say that it’s stunning.

On view until March 17.

A snapshot from my time in Houston a few weeks ago. This was...

annotatedplaylist — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 21:35:04 +0100

A snapshot from my time in Houston a few weeks ago. This was taken right outside the Rothko Chapel (it’s behind me). Sadly, I don’t have any shots of the inside since I think photography isn’t permitted (plus, it was such a beautiful moment that I didn’t want to disturb…).

If you haven’t been, put it on your list of things to do before you die. Every Rothko for me is an intense meditative experience in itself, but having multiple large canvases enclosed in a single space makes for something incredibly mind-blowing. For a little bit of background on the place and the art installed therein, I’ll let Simon Schama do the ‘splaning (ends around 2:18, but I highly recommend watching not only the rest of the episode, but the whole series, which is aptly named The Power of Art).

Sotheby’s specialist Tobias Meyer describes Rothko’s...

annotatedplaylist — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 16:11:45 +0100

Sotheby’s specialist Tobias Meyer describes Rothko’s works as giving you an “overwhelming feeling of going into another space.” It’s totally true, and it’s the main reason why I love his canvases so much.

Rothko Goes For Tons at Sotheby's

annotatedplaylist — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 16:07:24 +0100

Rothko Goes For Tons at Sotheby's:

No. 1 (Royal Red and Blue) by Mark Rothko sold for over $75 million last Tuesday at Sotheby’s. It’s a beautiful piece.

My obsession continues… I found our lovely lady in red on...

annotatedplaylist — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 09:46:00 +0100

My obsession continues…

I found our lovely lady in red on the cover of this book, which I guess begins to settle the question of whether or not our sitter is a Medici or not. According to the book, the painting is by Bronzino, not Pontormo (even though the Frankfurt museum that owns the painting still maintains its attribution of the latter) and of Maria Salviati, mother of Cosimo I de’ Medici (sister of Francesca, see previous post). I haven’t finished reading the chapter yet, but they seem pretty convinced. Stay tuned for more thoughts on this deepening saga!

More information about the book:
Medici Women: Portraits of Power, Love, and Betrayal by Gabrielle Langdon (Univ. of Toronto Press, 2007).

Time-Traveling Sleeves

annotatedplaylist — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 11:38:00 +0100

Jacopo Pontormo (maybe Bronzino?), Portrait of a Woman in Red, 1532-35. Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt.

I remember this painting from my undergrad survey class (or maybe it was Italian Renaissance?), mainly because we had spent the better part of two hours looking at mainly Florentine portraits in profile from the 1400s, which as great as they are, can get a bit monotonous (yes, women were being displayed as being pieces of property owned by their husbands. Yes, their overly idealized features meant that they weren’t true, representational depictions of the sitters. YES, we understand that pursed lips and dead gazes were supposed to insinuate modesty). So you can imagine my surprise when this painting popped onto the screen and the prof said that it was painted in the 1530s.

I was stunned! This painting was used to show the shift from profile portraiture to 3/4 view and, while I won’t go into all of the gender politics of such portraiture, I can say that I was floored by the modernity of this picture. From the modeling of the facial features, to the subtle variations of the colors and the well-executed chiaroscuro, to even the cut of the gown: everything screamed post-1800 to me.

(An example of a profile portrait, Botticelli’s Portrait of Simonetta Vespucci, 1476-80, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin.)

This brings me to the subject of this post, namely the dress of our lady in red (~~whom I always thought was a Medici, but I think I’m wrong about that~~ who might be a Medici descendant or a member of a family closely allied to them). Two of the things that sent my costume-focused mind reeling were the full sleeves and the high waistline. They are both features that were common in women’s dress from the 1830s (with a slight resurgence in the 1850s). See this example from the V&A’s collection:

Obviously, there are some distinct differences with the Italian version: the dress seems to be multifaceted, with a blouse under the red jumper-like overdress. The black sleeves don’t seem to part of the red capped part, but instead seem to be an undershirt. These thing aside, the overall shape of the gowns, with the puffy sleeves and off-the-shoulders neckline, are strikingly similar and definitely recall each other. From the portraits that I have seen from the Florentine cinquecento, dresses like this aren’t so common. Dresses from Lorenzo Lotto’s paintings bear certain similarities in my mind, but, besides the fact that he wasn’t active in Florence, the waistlines were lower and a bit more consistent of the picture that I have of Renaissance dress. This raises several questions, but I’m sure many of them could be answered by just a tiny bit more of research, so I’ll hold off on posing them (I’m the furthest thing from being an expert on Renaissance dress, so I feel like I’m slightly out of my league here).

One more fun fact about our sitter’s clothing is that the color scheme recalls that of the heraldic colors of two families that were associated with the Medici family (this woman might have been Francesca, the granddaughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent). Red and white were the colors for the Salviati family, while red was the dominant color featured in the Cybo coat of arms. For more information, check out the exhibition catalogue for the 2004 show Pontormo, Bronzino, and the Medici: The Transformation of the Renaissance Portrait in Florence (Philadelphia Museum of Art, cat. no. 24). It provides some good information on the questions surrounding the identification of the sitter, which I find to be absolutely fascinating.

In any case, it’s interesting to compare examples and see how costume from the 1830s could be influenced by fashion that preceded it by three hundred years, whether or not it was intentional. Time travel aside, it’s also fascinating to see how specific types of clothing can vary within a certain period.

Special thanks to James Clifton of the Blaffer Foundation for help in my quest to identify the sitter.

I went to go see the new James Bond film Skyfall this weekend,...

annotatedplaylist — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 11:35:06 +0100

I went to go see the new James Bond film Skyfall this weekend, and, not surprisingly, the highlight of the whole thing for me was the scene filmed in the National Gallery in London’s room 34. Even though a picture by Turner is the subject of their discussion, we are treated to ample views of two very awesome paintings by eighteenth-century British artists in the background.

Joseph Wright of Derby’s An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768) and Thomas Gainsborough’s Mr and Mrs William Hallett (‘The Morning Walk’) (1785) can be seen in blurry relief behind Mr. Bond and the new Q, and I must admit that I was so giddy with excitement that I almost completely missed what they were talking about. They also changed angles at one point and consequently afforded us a (significantly blurred) view of room 33 and the massive Drouais portrait of Mme de Pompadour (1763-4). I almost died at that point, I’m not going to lie.

So if you do end up seeing Skyfall, keep your eyes peeled for these gems. Or, even better, pay them a visit the next time you’re in London. The NG is always free and they have generous opening hours.

Photo courtesy of Indiewire.com

Exhibition review written by yours truly: "Pride and Prejudice: Female Artists in France and Sweden, 1750-1860"

annotatedplaylist — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 11:14:36 +0100

Exhibition review written by yours truly: "Pride and Prejudice: Female Artists in France and Sweden, 1750-1860":

Click above for the review of the exhibition I linked to a couple of weeks ago currently on display at the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm.

Teaser: an afternoon spent at the Lipperheide Costume Library in...

annotatedplaylist — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 15:34:34 +0200

Teaser: an afternoon spent at the Lipperheide Costume Library in Berlin. Yes, that’s Hollar you see there on the left.

More soon!

These pictures come from a recent visit to Täby kyrkby, just...

annotatedplaylist — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 15:26:00 +0200

These pictures come from a recent visit to Täby kyrkby, just north of Stockholm. In the church that gives the town its name (“kyrkby” meaning church village) are beautiful vault paintings by Sweden’s most well-known medieval church painter, Albertus Pictor. Completed in the 1400s, the vaults hold narrative cycles of many biblical stories, including Jonah and the Whale and the Expulsion from the Garden. The altarpiece comes from Luebeck in Germany (1400s as well, if I remember correctly) and the pulpit from Stockholm’s former castle, Tre Kronor. The wall painting of a man playing chess with Death that is found in the staircase going up to the organ loft served as inspiration to Ingmar Bergman (the Knight even says, when Death asks him how he knew that he played chess, that he had seen it in paintings).

New Exhibition: Pride and Prejudice, Female Artists in France and Sweden in 1750–1860

annotatedplaylist — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 14:48:04 +0200

New Exhibition: Pride and Prejudice, Female Artists in France and Sweden in 1750–1860:

This new exhibition is a closer look at female artists in the eighteenth (and 19th!) century in both France and Sweden. It’s actually fairly large, involving paintings, drawings, prints, and pastels. Worth seeing if you’re in the Stockholm area.

27 September 2012–20 January 2013 at Nationalmuseum, Stockholm.

Adjoining lecture: Thursday 17 January, 6 pm

Royalists and Revolutionaries: Women Artists and the French Revolution
Laura Auricchio, Associate Professor of Art History, Parsons The New School for Design.

The Exclusive Life of a Jet-Setting Painting

annotatedplaylist — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 11:34:00 +0200

The Exclusive Life of a Jet-Setting Painting:

A bit of insight into what it’s like for popular paintings to travel (in this case, Hoppner’s Morning Sun).

If you’re in London (haha, when do I ever NOT start a post...

annotatedplaylist — Sun, 22 Jul 2012 21:48:14 +0200

If you’re in London (haha, when do I ever NOT start a post with those words?), you should definitely check out Leighton House Museum. The former residence and studio of nineteenth-century artist Frederic Leighton (of Flaming June fame) has been recently (and meticulously) restored and is now open again for the public’s enjoyment (OK, it’s been a couple of years, but still).

It was built in 1877-79, but he continued adding to it for the rest of his lifetime. I went recently for the first time and was blown away. Literally. It’s such a fabulous space, especially the ground floor, with its Arabic influences and carefully selected array of objets d’art. Outside of the first two rooms, which show this influence quite heavily, there’s a careful segue to the more minimalist arts-and-crafts movement style of decorating, with its simple colors and decorative schemes (like in the drawing and dining rooms). Nothing about the house was overwhelming; on the contrary, everything progressed in a smooth transition from one area to the next. Quite the peaceful museum experience!

Photography isn’t allowed inside, so the picture above was snuck in while going through his second-story studio. It was just gorgeousness upon gorgeousness, and I don’t even like late nineteenth-century aestheticism. (And, just for the conservation-minded of you out there, those are reproductions of prints, not the real thing.)

Leighton House Museum
12 Holland Park Road
London
W14 8LZ
Closest tube: Kensington High Street (or Holland Park, but bring a map since it’s a bit swirly to get there).

huffingtonpost: Much attention has been paid to Mona Lisa’s...

annotatedplaylist — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 00:05:23 +0200

huffingtonpost:

Much attention has been paid to Mona Lisa’s smile throughout the years, but this week her skeleton is winding up in the spotlight. Italian archaeologists announced Tuesday they found the skeleton of Lisa Gherardini, believed to be the model for Leonardo’s masterpiece, which currently hangs in The Louvre in Paris. Found near the convent of Sant’Orsola in Florence, the bones will be sent to the Department for the Conservation of Cultural Property for an examination.

Experts believed Mona Lisa’s identity was discovered after notes from 1503 were discovered in the margin of a book in which an acquaintance of Leonardo da Vinci wrote that Leonardo was currently working on a portrait of Lisa Gherardini. 16th century art historian Giogrio Vasari was another reliable source to identify Gherardini as the model, writing about it in his Lives Of Artists. Giuseppe Pallanti, a historian who has written three books delving into Mona Lisa’s story, determined after 25 years of research that Leonardo’s father was Gherardini’s neighbor in Via Ghibellina.

The hunt for Gherardini’s remains has been ridden with controversy, as many of her family members believe her body should be left in peace. Her descendent Natalia Guicciardini Strozzi, an Italian princess, told The Telegraph that the search for her bones was a “sacrilegious act.” The princess then asked: “What difference would finding her remains make to the allure of Leonardo’s painting?”

Italian Archaeologists Believe They Found Skeleton Of The Real Mona Lisa

I was in Oslo last week and got to see not one, but two versions...

annotatedplaylist — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 01:19:00 +0200

I was in Oslo last week and got to see not one, but two versions of Munch’s iconic work, The Scream, in person. One was at Nasjonalmuseet, and the other at the Munch Museum. The former didn’t allow photography, but thankfully the latter did, and I’m glad that I was able to capture the context in which they chose to display it. The Scream wasn’t originally a triptych, but Munch did return several times to the theme of anxious and desolate people walking across the same bridge in Oslo. I think that’s why the museum chose to hang these three works together.

Here’s the oft-quoted, erm… quote by Munch that explains his impetus for committing this image of desperation to canvas:

I was walking along the road with two friends. The sun was setting, and I began to be afflicted with a sense of melancholy. Suddenly the sky became blood-red. I stopped and leaned against a fence, feeling dead-tired, and stared at the flaming clouds that hung, like blood and a sword, over the blue-black fjord and the city. My friends walked on. I stood riveted, trembling with fright. And I felt a loud, unending scream piercing nature.

Powerful stuff, huh?

My viewing these paintings was preceded by a visit to Tate Modern’s current exhibition, Edvard Munch: The Modern Eye (on view till 14 October 2012). I highly recommend going through it if you have the chance— it really gives a lot of insight into the artist, his work, and his inspiration.

Peter Paul Rubens, The Judgement of Solomon, 1617. Oil on...

annotatedplaylist — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 00:57:00 +0200

Peter Paul Rubens, The Judgement of Solomon, 1617. Oil on canvas. As seen at Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, April 2012.

This painting is interesting for many reasons. First off, it seems like it was acquired by Christian IV around 1645 and has remained in the collection ever since (pretty impressive, in my opinion). Secondly, the colors in this canvas are apparently split between warm and cool colors (the reds and yellows on the left versus the blues and silvery-grays on the right). The goes along with the represented story, as the true mother of the child in question is shown wearing the warmer, more sympathetic tones, while her cold-hearted counterpart (as well as the executioner) is draped in the hues that suggest her moral frigidity. Thirdly, I just love the way Rubens paints faces; the false mother’s pinched cheeks and pointy nose are just so full of character.

It’s all worth taking a closer look at, so if you ever find yourself at SMK (which you really should go to, as they have a stunning collection), do take some time out to sit in front of this massive canvas and soak up all the details.

Dolci’s Saint Mark as seen at Christie’s last...

annotatedplaylist — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 14:53:00 +0200

Dolci’s Saint Mark as seen at Christie’s last Tuesday morning. Not as striking as his smaller Madonnas, but it will certainly do.

(Est.: £450,000-650,000, realized: £457,250)

July 3rd was no ordinary Tuesday for Christie’s.

annotatedplaylist — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 02:59:00 +0200

July 3rd was no ordinary Tuesday for Christie’s.