Hokusai at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts
With his Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, Katsushika Hokusai, whose prints are currently on exhibit at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, seems to reinvent the very idea of point of view over and over again. He must have traveled widely
Girl in a Red Dress
(Link to Girl in a Red Dress by Paula Mondersohn-Becker in the Harvard Art Museums archive) Sometimes a work of art finds its own context within us. Some paintings are felt so deeply and so personally that any sort of discussion
Russian Icons
The Museum of Russian Icons in Clinton, Massachusetts, is housed in a building so beautifully constructed, largely of wood that I’d like to move into it. I feel I could live very well there. The rooms are spacious but not
Harriet Leavens (1802–1830) by Ammi Phillips
Ammi Phillips (1788–1865) was an itinerant portrait painter working his way across Connecticut, Massachusetts, and the state of New York in those earliest days of colonial New England. Though his work spans five decades, not much is known about him.
Animal Imagery and Color—The Work of Franz Marc
"Your paintings remind me of the work of Franz Marc." I received this comment (and, I think, compliment) some months ago from a young visitor to my website. It immediately reminded me of a 1912 painting of Marc's entitled Deer
Louisa Matthiasdottir
I only became aware of this Icelandic artist a few years ago after seeing a review for a posthumous show of her work in New York City. Shortly afterward, I bought a book about her, and since then, I routinely
Gauguin’s “The Spirit of the Dead Watching”
Gauguin’s “Spirit of the Dead Watching” (1892) The spirit in this painting reminds me of some of Rufino Tamayo’s human creatures. Here’s a large white eye and white lips etched into a dark face. The body is a hooded, cowl shape.
Lenore Tawney’s Mysterious Moments
“A Dry Cry from the Desert” (sculpture 1970) A wooden box—smooth and unfinished—perhaps of pine and still retaining the resinous smell of pitch. At the rear of the box—a drawing of a skeletal hand. In front of this—a three-dimensional skeletal hand—lightly
Tàpies and Discontinued Line
Línia discontínua (Discontinued Line), 1967 Mixed media on canvas Link to image in the Fundación Juan March (scroll to middle of page) All parts of this picture are white—not white exactly though, not the same white as new-fallen snow, not a winter white,
Rufino Tamayo—The Creatureness and Spirituality of “Seres Humanos”
In many of his figurative paintings, the Mexican painter Rufino Tamayo makes human beings look strange. We have to look at them as if we’ve never seen such creatures before. He portrays human beings—in Spanish, seres humanos—as creatures and as
Cathedral
Cathedral belongs to a series of paintings I've been working on for the last year or so. These 20 images on canvases measuring 30" x 30" had their genesis in sketches I made at the Asian Civilization Museum in Singapore