#arthistory

This week I've been mainly reading, No. 78.

Preparing for an #arthistory & #politics course I am (re)running as a retired visiting lecturer, I've been considering Amy Whitaker's Economics of Visual Art (2021) for students. Its a breezy, largely successful attempt to get the sociology of art & economics to intermesh, which balances some good exploration of economic issues with examples from the #artworld. Although (perhaps) a little to US in focus, it remains an instructive read.
@bookstodon

Whether you're skipping “Barbie” or are excited to see the film, it's worth remembering how artists have used the doll to dismantle the very ideas she represents.

#Art #ArtHistory #Barbie

https://hyperallergic.com/834650/the-complicated-legacy-of-barbie-in-art/ 

This week I've been mainly reading, No. 75.

Alicia Foster's Gwen John: Art & Life in London & Paris (2023) is a bit of highly readable (lightly #feminist) revisionist #arthistory that dismisses the passive story of the #artist to replace it with a tale of a strong-willed #painter seeking her particular place in the #artworld. Foster, engages with previous accounts & moves beyond to develop a really plausible account of Gwen John & her work.
Fully illustrated, this is a real treat!
@bookstodon

This week I've been mainly reading, No. 74.

Kristen Collins & Bryan Keene (eds), Balthazar: A Black African King in Medieval & Renaissance Art (2023) builds on a Getty Museum exhibition from 2020 & is an excellent entry point to the growing literature on the image of #Black people across #arthistory. Lavishly illustrated & with lots of well-referenced sections to guide further reading, at times its origins in exhibit labels is perhaps a little too obvious but a vital read anyway!
@bookstodon

Billie Zangewa's Constant Gardener (2014) is a meditation on the incidence of death in #africanamerican communities - the graves are many & need attending. Its a subtly powerful image in mixed media which really moved me this morning (when it was circulated by Artists of Colour at the other place).

#arthistory
@artistsofcolour
#artists

July 05 - the birthday of Louis-Léopold Boilly - French painter and draftsman. A gifted creator of popular portrait paintings, he also produced a vast number of genre paintings vividly documenting #French middle-class social life. His painting Un Trompe-l'œil introduced the term trompe-l'œil ("trick the eye"), applied to the technique that uses realistic imagery to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects exist in 3 dimensions.

https://stellar-art.pixels.com/featured/theater-box-the-day-of-the-free-performance-1800s-louis-leopold-boilly.html

#arthistory #ArtistBirthday

According to Pliny the Elder, the ancient Greek painter Zeuxis once painted a portrait of grapes that was so realistic it was said to have attracted birds. It's believed that this story is what inspired the popularity of grapes as a subject in later European art.

#WyrdWednesday #Art #ArtHistory #AnicentGreece #Myth #Folklore

🎨 : Jan Davidsz. de Heem

This week I've mainly been reading, No.71. Rona Goffen's detailed (& at times dense) Renaissance Rivals: Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, Titian (2002), redraws the #arthistory of the early C16th as a series of rivalries that drove each of the named #painters to new heights of achievement. That the would 'compete' while not implausible, is never really justified, but other than that this is a convincing & readable retelling of #renaissance advances in #painting & #sculpture.
@bookstodon
#art

This week I've been mainly reading, No.70. Suzanne Oberhardt sets ou in Frames within Frames: the Art Museum as Cultural Artifact (2001) to expand our view(s) of the #artmuseum. To the repository & institutional critique frames she adds the idea that art museums increasingly have a character defined by their place in popular culture. While offering some interesting insights, the pluralist structure sadly sacrifices a clear conclusive argument for only suggestive probes.
#arthistory
@bookstodon