Tag Archives: Robert Hughes

bernini: don’t let the sun king go down on him

Bernini’s six months at the French court. A total failure. The artist who believed his gifts came from god would inevitably clash with a king who considered himself crowned by god. A collision of two forms of divine right as … Continue reading

Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Bernini:smoothing the bump on the bourbon shnoz

With Bernini perhaps the roots of heaven were made of stone. But Bernini and his short sejour in France at the behest of Louis XIV, was something short of heavenly and the divine…. …Nor could Bernini adjust to the customs … Continue reading

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

bernini and the brief french kiss

Bernini spent nearly six months at the French court, but except for a marble bust of the king, which had been commissioned as an afterthought, the trip was a failure. It was a foregone conclusion that an artist who believed … Continue reading

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

bernini from sun king to rome

In his fountain design Bernini returned to the Counter Reformation theme of the church triumphant, spreading through four continents , which were represented by personifications of four rivers- the Danube, supporting the papal coat of arms and accompanied by a … Continue reading

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

bernini: rockin’ on with the counter reformation

Pope Urban VIII took a fatherly interest in his gifted protege. When Bernini fell ill, the pope visited him twice a day in his palazzo near the Piazza di Spagna and once came with sixteen cardinals, whose collective blessing was … Continue reading

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

bernini: it ought to rock him

Bernini: behold the roots of heaven. They are made of stone… In 1623 Cardinal Barberini became Pope Urban VIII and, according to a probably apocryphal anecdote, told Bernini: “it is your great good luck, Cavaliere, to see Maffeo Barberini pope. … Continue reading

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

pluto and titanium men

Al this, as his critics have shown, in Pluto and Prosperina, where god is carrying off a terrified maiden, flesh yielding beneath his grasp is quintessential Bernini: highly theatrical sculpture of overstatement. Bernini’s oen grasp towards the heaven whereby the … Continue reading

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

jarring sales hustle and aesthetic goals

“Art in the native American mind enjoys the dubious importance attached to the devil in the medieval mind” – Alexander Harvey The artistic imagination enters only rather furtively into economic life. Artistic truth is still revealed not by the artist … Continue reading

Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

bumpy ride: back seat hider

Mobilize yourself. Come travel but forgo aesthetic or metaphorical niceties. Its a bumpy ride in the early days of conceptual art especially one aimed to outrage, aimed at the perceived social castration, aimed at a nightmarish urban vision. Disaffection personified … Continue reading

Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Modern Arts/Craft | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

canvas and the pound of flesh

The rape of Europa by Titian is probably the most celebrated painting in the collection of Old Masters assembled by Isabella Stewart Gardner at the turn of the last century. It hangs, all 70×80 inches of it, in a heavy … Continue reading

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