Rubens loved to draw his wife, Isabella Brant. The old Flemish master married her in the early 1600s when he was a young upstart. Peter Paul Rubens was popular and famous for his baroque paintings in his lifetime. The work of Rubens now lives in the collective unconscious as an […]
The Swiss painter Angelica Kauffman created her self portrait Colors as part of a series for the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Kauffman was one of two women who founded the Academy. Her four part series on crucial elements of painting still graces that art institution today. This one
The Red Jackson photograph by Gordon Parks sent me into a whirlwind of reactions from the first time I saw it. Encountering this black and white masterpiece in the Metropolitan Museum of Art feels like a lucky break at first. It’s a thoughtful photographic version of a Vermeer that’s still
Why is James Stuart wearing such fanciful duds in his Anthony Van Dyck portrait?
– The Order of the Garter
– Man’s best friend steals the show
– Performative emptiness
Why is the Robert Frank photograph Trolley New Orleans so important?
– Segregated seating in black and white
– A complex framework of composition
– Truth, hard work, and hope
What’s the story behind Manet’s painting Mademoiselle V. in the Costume of an Espada?
– Manet’s favorite model dresses the part
– Realness and violence in a blurred background
– A lurking unconscious portrayed in paint