The Ugly Duchess at the National Gallery is a shockingly good display. The highlight is undoubtedly the reunion of Quinten Massys’ An Old Woman with its pendant pair An Old Man (private collection). But the latter is also joined for the first time with its smaller oil-on-paper version (Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris), made either as aContinue reading “REVIEW | The Ugly Duchess: Beauty and Satire in the Renaissance – National Gallery, London”
Tag Archives: albrecht durer
THE BIG REVIEW | Dürer’s Journeys: Travels of a Renaissance Artist – National Gallery, London
Dürer’s Journeys: Travels of a Renaissance Artist at the National Gallery, London, although wonderful, is also a slightly messy exhibition. In fact, some of the thematic rooms are so good that you forget this is a chronology of his observations in the Alps, Italy, and the Low Countries. The backbone is Dürer’s sketchbook drawings, whichContinue reading “THE BIG REVIEW | Dürer’s Journeys: Travels of a Renaissance Artist – National Gallery, London”
REVIEW | Connect Art Fair 2019
In recent years, it seems as though there is a new set of art fairs popping up spontaneously on the calendar without a moment’s notice. Many of these tend to be derivative of others, exhibiting the same kinds of work and targeting the same minority of wealthy collectors. Yet dealers continue to exhibit in asContinue reading “REVIEW | Connect Art Fair 2019”
Encountering the Past
In a chapter of Cynthia Freedland’s book, Portraits & Persons, the philosopher proposes that portraits are images of persons that fulfil one or more of the following features: Likenesses Psychological characterisations Proofs of presence or ‘contact’ Manifestations of a person’s ‘essence’ or ‘air’ Such criteria may seem obvious but, in practice, they are particularly difficultContinue reading “Encountering the Past”
There’s more to Marcantonio Raimondi than just porn!
‘[…] Giulio Romano caused Marc’ Antonio to engrave twenty plates showing all the various ways, attitudes, and positions in which licentious men have intercourse with women; and, what was worse, for each plate Messer Pietro Aretino wrote a most indecent sonnet, insomuch that I know not which was the greater, the offence to the eyeContinue reading “There’s more to Marcantonio Raimondi than just porn!”
Nigel Ip | Visual Arts Writer & Art Historian 