Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
A painting from the Hermitage called "The Flight into Egypt" is the centrepiece of a Titian exhibition in London. The piece has just been restored and hasn't been seen outside Russia in well over a century. Is it really a Titian?
On the trail of the lost Leonardo mural. Was it, as was assumed for centuries, demolished and irrevocably lost? Or was it perhaps merely hidden from view, covered over, preserved by Vasari behind the surface of his own fresco?
Interview with Eric Kandel, giant of modern neuroscience. Discussion centres on the science of aesthetics (how the brain responds to art), and the rise of Modernists in 19th century Vienna
Where does art come from? Who owns it? And how and why do we value it? Art world insider considers recent books that peer into murky business of the art trade. Who among owners, dealers, buyers and sellers is pure?
Just what the headline says. Interview with Wolfgang Beltracchi. German painter of fake expressionists. "I recognised what was special about a particular artist, in order to do it just a little better than he had managed himself"
On Monday 21 August, 1911, a man named Vincenzo Peruggia walked out of the Louvre with the Mona Lisa hidden under his jacket. No one saw him take it, and for more than 24 hours no one even realised it was gone
Notes from a year spent working as a junior at Sotheby's in New York. "Paintings with red in them usually sell for more than paintings without red in them. Warhol’s women are worth more, on average, than Warhol’s men"
On the Renaissance Portrait exhibition in New York. "What makes this art so significant is how it turns toward the individual, toward the secular as the subject of art, rendering the face with the 'natural' features of the person"
"In old age Hockney has acquired a clumsy bravura. He is surrounded by sycophants. What fire he once had has become a thing of ash and ember." Review of show at Royal Academy, "the grand old whore of Piccadilly"
Sympathetic, very readable profile of Lucian Freud. Great painter who did some of his finest work in his old age. "His charisma was crucial to his method. It was what made his models bear happily the long ordeal of sitting for him"
Recent research throws some light on how the brain makes aesthetic judgements, on art or even wine. We presume our appreciation of an object is determined by its innate qualities. But in reality there are many more factors at play
Writer blags entry to Vatican’s pornographic bathroom, La Stufetta del cardinal Bibbiena. Decorated in 1516 by Raphael with series of erotic frescos, including a "randy goat-god Pan leaping from the bushes with a monstrous erection"
