Tag Archives: Anthony Van Dyck

collection with the public purse

Charles I was Britain’s most discerning and energetic royal patron, buying much art and encouraging many continental artists. With his ascension to the throne in 1625, it was a turning point in English connoisseurship. Charles had grown up under the … Continue reading

Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

she bought what she wanted: money’s worth

It was a palace of paintings. For conservative old Beantown, she was simply startling and an individualist; she erected a Venetian pleasure dome in the Back Bay and filled it with masterpieces for the public to enjoy. …In 1892 Mrs. … Continue reading

Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

blissful idleness

Perhaps the greatest of all social revolutions, and one of enormous economic consequences not that profoundly explored, began in the eighteenth-century,when Europe grew not only rich enough to support a large class of non-workers, but also began to organize the … Continue reading

Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

ROYAL COLLECTORS: DROLL PRINCES AND PRICELESS PAINTINGS

Sometimes, it may be wiser to not have loved and lost, or to have bothered even loving at all…especially in the case of the portraits of King Henry VIII’s wives. Nonetheless, the British royal Collection is a fascinating grouping of … Continue reading

Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Miscellaneous, Visual Art/Sculpture/etc. | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

PAINTED FROM MEMORY: PETER PAUL PAINTING JOY

“Like many people, I have trouble with Rubens’s nudes, especially the female ones: all that smothering flesh, vibrantly alive but with the erotic appeal of a mud slide. (Rubens, owing to moral constraints of the time, rarely worked from nude … Continue reading

Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Miscellaneous, Visual Art/Sculpture/etc. | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment