#arthistory

This week I've been mainly reading, no. 101

The problem with Martin Gayford's new book, Venice: City of Pictures (2023), is that its neither one thing nor another. It picks up many themes/issues from #arthistory but shies away from really developing these in detail, But,, equally there is too much #art & not enough more general discussion of #Venice the city for a recent visitor. Gayford seems unable to make up his mind what book he wanted to write & this falls between the stools

@bookstodon

En préparation du CM de lundi, nouveau plongeon dans l'oeuvre de Bernard Palissy 😍 avec cette conférence de Françoise Barbe et Anne Bouquillon, à l'auditorium du Musée du Louvre : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa5u_WY6BOQ

Pour la technique : à partir de 16:20

#histoiredelart #histoiredelartodon #arthistory #palissy #ceramique #XVIesiecle #renaissance #RenaissanceArt #louvre

This week(end) I've been mostly reading, no. 100.

Adelina Modesti's handsomely presented biography of Bolognese artist Elisabetta Sirani (2023), continues the reappraisal of #arthistory from a feminist angle. Focussing on the works of #art & the social environment of C17th #Bologna (which offered considerable support to #female #artists), Modesti's interesting (if occasionally a little dry) book will be of great interest to anyone seeking read an art history populated by women!
@bookstodon

Steeped in historic culture and Renaissance style, Rouen, France features "The Great Clock" or
"Le Gros Horloge," constructed in 1839, sitting upon an ancient stone arch. Visitors can climb into the clock, explore the mechanics, and capture a spectacular panoramic view of Rouen's timeless charm.

#saturday
#Saturdayvibes
#frenchhistory
#arthistory
#renaissance
#architecture
#travel

This week I've been mainly been reading, no. 97.

There's a well known saying in #arthistory that every portrait is a self-portrait (also attributed to Oscar Wilde). In Ia Genberg's The Details (2023) the narrator offers four portraits (three of former lovers, one of a parent0 which in the end reveal as much about her as those she is writing about. Its a well-crafted novella that presents a slowly emerging picture of a woman with less self-knowledge than she likely believes..

@bookstodon

This week I've been mainly reading, no. 92.

Hilary Fraser's study Women Writing Art History in the Nineteenth Century: Looking like a Woman (2014), is a great bit of #feminist recovery. Fraser explores how #women in C19th wrote about #art & what it tells us about female creativity 150 years ago. While at times getting slightly bogged down in the detail, overall this is a compelling work of #arthistory that (re)establishes forgotten female voices talking about art & artists

@bookstodon

This week I've been mainly reading no. 89.

James Elkins, What Painting Is (2000) is a strangely compelling discussion of the practice(s) of #painters using the extended metaphor of alchemy. Elkins manages to convince you that this is an interesting way of understanding what painters do when #painting by illustration of painterly practices & alchemic ones. Focussing on the surface of paintings, Elkins offers a idiosyncratic approach to understanding painting as process
#arthistory
@bookstodon

This week I've been mainly reading, no. 88.

Suzanne Valadon is not well serviced by
Catherine Hewitt's breezy biography, Renoir’s Dancer: The Secret Life of Suzanne Valadon (2017). It captures much of the whirl of her life & the succession of crises through which she passed, but the account of the #paintings themselves is relatively weak & without a good (other) book of reproductions to hand you'd be lost. Still if your interested in Valadon not a bad place to start

#arthistory
@bookstodon

#RIPHowardBecker who has died at 95.

As a (relative) latecomer to formalised #arthistory, and as a critical #politicaleconomist, I found his book Art Worlds to be one of the most plausible & convincing analyses of the social milieu in which art is produced.;

the book dovetailed really well with my own political economic position (hence why I liked it) & helped me configure where my interests intersected.

If you've not read it, I really recommend it; great stuff

@bookstodon
#sociology
#art

This week I've been mainly reading, no. 85.

Like all good #arthistory, Sheila Hale's massive (over 700 pages of text) Titian: His Life (2012) keeps on sending you back to #Titian's works. As a social history based biography, Hale explores the social & political context the surrounds Titian as well as his life, contacts & work. But, its a compelling read (for all its length) & is only let down by the paucity of reproductions. It you're interested in Titian, this is a 'must read'!
@bookstodon

This week I've been mainly reading, no. 84.

Sadly Wolf Mankowitz's satire on the #artworld, Exquisite Cadaver (1990), while containing some great satire of the #artmarket & the way in which #arthistory can be compromised by fakes, fails to really hold the (this) reader's attention. Told via dead dada & surrealist #artist' ghostly narrative, alongside a 'hard-boiled' semi-art-crime story & some faux documents, its disjointed character never quite coheres but offers some wry moments
@bookstodon

This week I've been mainly reading, no. 82.

In many ways Laura Cumming's' mash-up of #arthistory & personal memoir of her late father, Thunderclap: A memoir of art and life & sudden death (2023), is a great read. But, frustratingly often its account of Carel Fabritius (of Goldfinch fame) leaves you wanting to know the sources she is exploring (mostly unacknowledged). But, its a good read, if only suggestive (not cnlcusive) in its account of Fabeitius & his lost(?) work(s).

@bookstodon

August 11 - the birthday of Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714-1789) - the leading French landscape painter of the later 18th century. He achieved great celebrity with his #marine paintings. He was also one of the century's most accomplished painters of tempests and moonlight scenes. "Others may know better", he said, with just pride, "how to paint the sky, the earth, the ocean; no one knows better than I how to paint a picture".

https://stellar-art.pixels.com/featured/a-landscape-at-sunset-1773-claude-joseph-vernet.html

#arthistory #ArtistBirthday #vintage #tranquil