Tag Archives: Jean Antoine Watteau

artfully preserved

Posted on July 30, 2011 by Dave

The paintings may appear a bit superficial, an air of being quickly rendered and spontaneous, like Bob Ross “deep” , but they were painstakingly and deliberately wrought … Franz Hals is at the Met and the seventeenth-century Dutch master has … Continue reading →

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adrift: custom made and ready made

Posted on June 25, 2011 by Dave

Aesthetics and morality are not exactly the same thing. There is a popular view of Regency England as a period of endless rounds of shopping, traveling to the continent, parties, gaming and clothing. Beau Brummel was one of the symbols … Continue reading →

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conversation pieces

Posted on June 24, 2011 by Dave

The collage work of Peter Blake and Jann Haworth remains one of the most iconic works of design in pop culture. But, these types of original work are not created in a vaccum and there was an English tradition of … Continue reading →

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uffizi: arcadia cash n’ carry

Posted on June 22, 2011 by Dave

Zoffany, in the 1760′s was commissioned by Queen Charlotte to created a canvas that would immortalize the Uffizi, Florence’s major museum, and in particular the Renaissance treasures of the Medici collection. The visit to the Uffizi was a major goal … Continue reading →

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looking for the punch line

Posted on May 18, 2011 by Dave

There is always the question in art of private meaning within public purposes, a kind of personal humor characterized by a kind of sharing between joke and dream. As E.H. Gombrich asserted, there is always an underlying code that serves … Continue reading →

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owsley bear :looking for habitats of unreason

Posted on March 23, 2011 by Dave

A justifiable flight from reason? I human life inevitably alienating? At a very base and primal level does this alienation and its pathological impulse to dominate make an easy excuse to justify exploitation and thus rationalize our present societal structure?Was … Continue reading →

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Multiple personality art: 3d goth on the long way back

Posted on January 30, 2011 by Dave

He claims to be haunted by an alter-ego.And he is probably right. Perhaps more than one. He is also becoming a celebrity; making noise in the world of pop art and serious art with  haunting, surreal, and mysterious digital prints, … Continue reading →

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salon not saloon? : against the assaults of boors and madmen

Posted on January 25, 2011 by Dave

In practice the Academy became a closed circle of conventional talents , of men skilled equally in he manipulation of trite formulas for painting and the manipulation of advantageous personal contacts. The situation was deplorable, but it was also inevitable. … Continue reading →

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EYE CANDY FOR THE RULING CLASS: “Les Caresses Dangereuses”

Posted on December 13, 2010 by Dave

“Later, during the Renaissance, the mad were displayed in cages set up in the streets, or were visible through the bars on the windows of their cells in the as yet unreformed asylums. In fact, up until the early nineteenth century, Foucault tells us, … Continue reading →

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POMPEII: Dangerously Low Necklines

Posted on December 13, 2010 by Dave

When the ruins of Pompeii came to light, they caused a revolution in taste-stripping away rococo gilt, reshaping the female figure, and leaving a deposit of pseudo-Greek temples from Moscow to Mississippi- although what sometimes passed for “classical” would have … Continue reading →

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