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Showing posts from May, 2024

Rembrandt & van Hoogstraten: The Art of Illusion

It takes a split second these days to create an image, and how many millions are recorded daily on mobile phones, possibly never to be looked at again? You can see it all happening in the palatial surroundings of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, definitely one of those tick-off destinations on many travellers' bucket lists, where those in search of instant pictorial satisfaction throng the imposing statue-lined staircase for a selfie or pout for a photo in the café under the spectacular cupola. But we're not in Vienna for a quick fix, we're at the KHM to admire something more enduring in the shape of art produced almost 500 years ago by Rembrandt and his pupil Samuel van Hoogstraten that was intended to mislead your eyes into seeing the real in the unreal. Artistic deception is the story at the centre of  Rembrandt--Hoogstraten: Colour and Illusion , one of the most engrossing and best-staged exhibitions we've seen this year. And, somewhat surprisingly, a show wi...
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Opening and Closing in June

An exhibition of early 20th-century Ukrainian art from museums in Kyiv has been touring Europe since late 2022, and now it's coming to London. In the Eye of the Storm: Modernism in Ukraine, 1900-1930s will be on at the Royal Academy from June 29 to October 13, bringing together about 65 works. Kazymyr Malevych, Sonia Delaunay, Alexandra Exter and El Lissitzky are perhaps the best-known names.  Divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived. Those are the fates of course of the Six Wives: The Stories of Henry VIII's Queens at the National Portrait Gallery from June 20 (a bonus point if you can name them in the correct order). This exhibition, running till September 8, will look back through the centuries from depictions of the six wives in contemporary art and popular culture to the Tudor period and the paintings of  Hans Holbein the Younger .     Next door, at the National Gallery, there's another in their series of free medium-sized exhibiti...
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There's Still Life in Britain!

When the Louvre put on a huge retrospective of the genre of still life in 2022-23, there were only five works by British artists on show out of a total of nearly 170. Brits don't do still life? Wrong, as shown in  The Shape of Things: Still Life in Britain at Pallant House Gallery in Chichester, with some 140 artworks. Some are beautiful, some are arresting, some are utterly surprising; one or two are downright weird. Boring? Not these still lifes.  The show starts off traditionally enough, with paintings from the 17th and 18th centuries, some the work of immigrant artists from the Low Countries, but some home-grown: Right here in Chichester, the three Smith Brothers were among the earliest English artists to specialise in still lifes, and here you can see the work of the eldest, William, with a choice array of fruit , and of George, with as English a theme as you could get, a joint of beef .  The second room takes us into the start of the 20th century, where the e...
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Shop till You Drop, French Style

Everybody loves a bargain when they're out shopping, don't they? Here's a tip: Get over to Normandy this summer for a great-value exhibition at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Caen. And it's all about shopping:  Merchandise as Spectacle: Art and Retailing 1860-1914 . Because even if you're not a fan of trailing round the shops, this is a fascinating slice of art and social history packed with paintings, posters and film. And they're practically giving it away!  As cities took on a new shape in the 19th century, department stores were one of the modern wonders of the urban scene; along with railway stations they were the cathedrals of the Victorian age. And like cathedrals and railway stations, they were a motif that drew the modern artist. This is one of the great Parisian stores, Le Bon Marché, as seen by the Swiss-born  Félix Vallotton .   Obsequious mustachioed salesmen show off their fabrics to the choosy female customers. There's hardly room to squeeze your...
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Raymond Briggs: A Celebration

The Snowman has become an integral part of the British Christmas, with its come-to-life hero taking a small dressing-gowned boy for an adventure Walking in the Air . It's a 20th-century equivalent of Charles Dickens's tale of Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim. When The Snowman 's creator, Raymond Briggs, applied to go to art school at the age of 15, his interviewer was horrified to hear that he wanted to be a cartoonist. Today, he might be even more horrified to find out about  Bloomin' Brilliant: The Life and Work of Raymond Briggs at the Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft in East Sussex.   Briggs, who died two years ago, lived just a mile down the road from Ditchling, in the shadow of the South Downs. This joyful celebratory show looks back on a 60-year career that also gave us Fungus the Bogeyman , Father Christmas , When the Wind Blows and the story of his parents, Ethel and Ernest . Cartoons, picture books, graphic novels, for children perhaps, but actual...
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