What, for other artists, might be considered excess—excess energy, excess emotion, excess ambition, excessive quantities of paints and other materials for making paintings—is, for Joan Snyder, a minimum of what a painting requires. She belongs to the school that labors in the belief that Too Much Is Hardly Enough. As a consequence of this painterly Read More
It was not to be expected that an exhibition called Landscape at the Whitney Museum of American Art would have much, if anything, to do with, well, landscape, which my dictionary defines as “A view or vista of scenery on land …. A painting, photograph, or the like depicting such a scene.” After all, landscape Read More
The French painter Edgar Degas (1834-1917) was in some respects the most misunderstood artist of his generation. While his character and his talents disposed him to honor tradition—it was said that the Louvre was Degas’ temple and Ingres his god—he’s nonetheless been identified by art historians as an ally of the Impressionist avant-garde. Owing to Read More
The French painter Edgar Degas (1834-1917) was in some respects the most misunderstood artist of his generation. While his character and his talents disposed him to honor tradition—it was said that the Louvre was Degas’ temple and Ingres his god—he’s nonetheless been identified by art historians as an ally of the Impressionist avant-garde. Owing to Read More
Given the horrific history of Germany in the modern era, it was not to be expected that German art from the period would have much to do with scenarios of sweetness and light. A culture of violence and intolerance was bound to produce an art dominated by violent emotions and a sense of dislocation and Read More
It had not been my intention to return to the subject of the Jean Hélion exhibition at the National Academy Museum any time soon, but after reading Roberta Smith’s lengthy and altogether malicious attack on the artist in The New York Times of Aug. 5, I believe a rebuttal is needed. Jean Hélion (1904-1987) was Read More
It had not been my intention to return to the subject of the Jean Hélion exhibition at the National Academy Museum any time soon, but after reading Roberta Smith’s lengthy and altogether malicious attack on the artist in The New York Times of Aug. 5, I believe a rebuttal is needed. Jean Hélion (1904-1987) was Read More
To fully understand the exhibition called Pioneering Modern Painting: Cézanne and Pissarro 1865-1885, which has been organized at the Museum of Modern Art by Joachim Pissarro, the painter’s great-grandson (who is also a MoMA curator), it has to be remembered that the two featured patriarchs of pictorial modernism began their public careers as Read More
It’s odd now to recall a time when the word “decorative,” as applied to the paintings of Matisse, was a term of critical reproach. “Decorative” was then taken to signify something shallow or superficial; it also suggested the pleasures of a self-indulgent hedonism—the opposite of everything deep and profound in art. The association with pleasure, Read More
The French painter Jean Hélion (1904-1987), whose work is the focus of a compelling exhibition at the National Academy Museum, was a man of strong moral and intellectual passions—so strong, indeed, that when he changed the course of his art, turning to a highly charged realist style after achieving great distinction as an abstractionist, it Read More
