Category Archive: ART
All That Glisters is Not Gold
Archibald Prize, 2018 The Varnished Culture has already dripped its contempt over the Nobel Prize for literature. Now we can pronounce last rites for the Archibald, which this year is ‘won’ by Yvette Coppersmith, for her self-portrait (after George Lambert). But George W (1873-1930), whose portrait of a lady is the main image to this note (see above), knew how to paint. This latest prize-winner (see below) is a real shocker, not worthy of an art student, a vacuous, slapdash, iridescent cartoon… The pallbearers for the Archibald call themselves the “Art Gallery of NSW Board of Trustees”. They comprise: Mr…
Continue Reading →Get Thee to Getty
J Paul Getty Center, Los Angeles, April 2018 – We mentioned this great pavilioned village above L.A. containing the eclectic cache of zillionaire J. Paul Getty, with reference to his classical statuary. But he, and his trustees after him, have amassed a goodly stock of other stuff: You may recall this Abraham Solomon painting, “Waiting for the Verdict” from the cover of the Penguin edition of Bleak House, then in the Tunbridge Wells Museum…it’s now at Getty. It was fascinating to see the influence of ancient Mughal painting on high Flemish painting, including Rembrandt: Amid French empire parlours, and before works by Watteau, Tiepolo,…
Continue Reading →Time to Terminate the Sydney Biennale
Inspired
45 years, 70 artists, 35 countries, 7 locations…and virtually Nothing worth having Fido cock his leg on. At the risk of being “cute,” we’ll quote ourselves: Modern Art is, in the main, pure fraud. It operates on ruthless market principles, clothed in doubletalk and gobbledegook. It has abandoned aesthetics and no longer seeks, were it even able, to be evocative. We call it the *Post-Eternal Phase, because its representative works leave the mind as soon as the audience turns away and its work is complete as soon as the cheque is cashed. It is perfectly credible for Banksy to state that Art…
Continue Reading →Why Joe Ain’t Claude
JMW Turner had talent. No doubt. What he lacked were brains and application. His early work confirms his ability; his much-vaunted later ‘masterpieces’ are, in our humble opinion, travesties. Turner venerated Claude Lorrain, as he should. Compare any of JMW’s harbour-side daubs with this beauty by Claude, (main image, at the Frick Collection in NYC) and judge for yourself who takes the honours. Really, even Claude at is worst is superior: compare his mediocre ‘Delphi’ (1673)… …with Joe’s messy meteorological smudge, adding some badly-drawn figures as icing, of Aosta, (“Snowstorm, Avalanche & Thunderstorm”), both works @ the superb Art Institute Chicago:
Continue Reading →The Lady and the Unicorn
NSW Art Gallery, Sydney, April 2018 Prosper Mérimée (1803-1870), author of Carmen (1845), while Inspector-General of Historic Monuments of France, discovered these old wall rugs, c. 1500, hanging wanly at the otherwise inconsequential Chateau de Boussac, a couple of hundred kilometres south-east of Tours. Recognising their vivid design and luminous finish, he began the tortuous task of acquiring them for the State, where they were finally ensconced, safe from rats and the damp, in the Musée de Cluny in Paris. From early February until late June, they are in Sydney where all and sundry, even The Varnished Culture who objects…
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