Tag Archives: John Ruskin

service before show

The travails and perils of finding a home. In the case of the Duke of Wellington, it took on palatial magnitude. Poor chap. All he really wanted was a little place in the country to relax and hunt. But to … Continue reading

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the coxcombs move on

The late Victorian period for the Royal Academy was really the end , succumbing after a long and chronic respiratory illness. Frith’s The Private View from 1881, showed that the Summer Exhibition could still take a hold on the public, … Continue reading

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not a recorder of the “right” sentiments

Turner was perhaps the greatest of all British artists, but there was always the question of whether his most adventurous works were evidence of mental decay. Turner was the antithesis of Charles Eastlake, the head of the Royal Academy. Eastlake … Continue reading

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matters of taste and waste

Artistic dependency on money? Art as a cash crop, growing money and not the fertility of artistic endeavor. The effects of urban , cosmopolitan culture on the arts probably stretched back to the Renaissance, but it may have been Watteau … Continue reading

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color and the language of second nature

The power of color. Is color more a presence than a sign, a force, ” the most sacred element of all visible things.” Is color primary and not secondary to form? Is color fundamentally involved in the making of culture … Continue reading

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angels and the catastrophe of history:waiting for his master’s voice

Why do angels have wings? What do angels mean today? In early Christian times God’s messengers walked as men. But after the sweeping conversions of the pagan world, Christian artists found inspiration in the flying deities of ancient faiths dressing … Continue reading

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drawing on pre-human sources

Its an old idea. The typical John Doe sees an abstract expressionist painting, and explains to himself that there is no justice in this world. Why should the likes of Willam de Kooning, Jackson Pollock et al. be so immortalized … Continue reading

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castles of the imagination: architecture of the mind

Some great buildings are never built. It’s imaginary architecture. Painters over the centuries have conjured up fantastic towers, and refined and elegant mansions of the imagination. This is often a dream architecture that is occasionally gaudy, often improbable and almost … Continue reading

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LIKE MOURNING COACHES WHEN THE FUNERAL IS DONE

Extravagant showmanship, a proclivity toward the taking of calculated risks, and unabashed greed- all salient features of the Venetian way of life- are epitomized in Francesco Guardi’s “Il Ridotto” , which also sums up the decadence of eighteenth-century Venice and … Continue reading

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THE SINKING OF NARCISSISTIC DELIGHT

For a thousand years Venice held “the gorgeous east in fee” and set its own terms for the West. The Napoleon saw a bluff- and called it. … Napoleon himself commanded the French armies in Italy. But for five centuries … Continue reading

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