“Where’s the beef?”

I went to the non-library section of the Clark the other day for the first time in months to see “Dove/O’Keeffe: Circles of Influence“. Aside from its frankly dull title, it was a perfectly diverting show. I’d never really seen much of Arthur Dove’s work, and his choice to use metallic-colored paints in some frames [...]

Preschoolers v. Clement Greenberg

Daniel Siedell writes another post of note, reflecting on the well-established (to my eyes, at least, being an art historical child of the double-aughts) rift between formalism and, for lack of a more specific generalization, contextualism. For the non-jargon inclined, formalism is one way of looking at art in which one considers a painting, sculpture, or what [...]

March of the Nobles

So you remember that air-guitar cover band I saw rocking out across from Tunnel City a year and a half ago? They were back today, except with real instruments making some kind of transcendent noise outside of St. Pierre’s Barber Shop as part of Williamstown’s new(ish?) summer programming movement “Sundays at 6″. I love it [...]

Paging Dr. Spooner

Two weeks after my Hawaiian adventure, I was finally ready to indulge in some sushi again. Erin visiting up for the weekend was another good excuse, to be sure, as was the fact that I’d just finished marching in the Williamstown 4th of July parade.
This was New England small-town in all its glory. Seven massive [...]

The Art Ghetto

A snappy post by Daniel Siedell of University of Nebraska-Omaha (tip from AHN) considers “The Curse of the ‘Special Arts Issue’”, and how misguided editors (and complicit writers) doom their work to thematic ghettoes:
These editors actually believe they are are doing art and art writers a favor, you know, “celebrating the arts,” as it were, honoring them [...]

Spectral Bagpipes

The Utrecht school that brought you “The Steadfast Philosopher” now brings you “Alluring Bagpiper”, coming soon to the National Gallery of Art!
Start of classes has been actually pretty exciting. Last night the six majors doing art history theses sat for two hours briefing each on the work that’s been done so far. Curiously, my work [...]

Wintry Mix

I’ve been continuing work on my preliminary paper for my art history thesis this year. I’ve been reading the literature for months, so now I’m down to looking closely through the major catalogues to figure out what images I’ll want to focus on. It’s a little daunting, but my advisor has provided her usual excellent [...]

Vermeer for Today

Flying Fox: There are a handful of artists that have historically driven people to obsession. For Jonathan Janson it is Vermeer. Not only has he collected images and writings on Vermeer (adding a few of his own,) but in his investigation of Vermeer’s techniques he has executed his own paintings (see here for a release [...]

Attendant Nipples

It was a very strange week out of a long summer, and I’ll write about it when things are settled. But for now, a choice snarky quote from The Guardian about Italian censorship:
Over the table at which Berlusconi holds press conferences in Palazzo Chigi, Italy’s equivalent of No. 10 Downing Street, hangs a huge copy [...]

Ladislaus the Posthumous

While we’re still in the middle of writing one catalog at the Gardner, we’re also wrapping up production on a book that is headed out for printing. Little did I know so much of the work of an art historian crosses with those in the publishing world. When the final proof of this catalog came [...]