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July 26: Lawrence v. Gainsborough
These two pieces by Sir Thomas Lawrence (left) and Thomas Gainsborough (right) hang on opposite walls of the same room at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. This hanging seems appropriate, because while the subjects were both very fancy ladies, the intentions behind their portraits could hardly be more different. …
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July 19: Matisse: a range of quality
We tend to get spoiled in art books and museums, which focus on an artist’s finest work. Clarifying to the eye, therefore, are shows such as “Matisse from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,” now at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. The show isn’t trying to be comprehensive; it’s…
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July 12: surfaces
Picking up on my comment last week about Vuillard’s soupy tabletop: in that piece, soupy is a defect because it confuses that shape, and also because it’s inconsistent with the handling of the paint elsewhere, which is either pretty lean or pretty rich and lumpy. But there are ways and ways to handle surfaces. Here we look at…
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July 5: a favorite: Vuillard’s “The Conversation”
The typical work of Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940) is characterized by intricacy of design and richness of color. This early piece (painted when he was about twenty-three) is more economical than most. The striking thing about it is the boldness and variety of its shapes. Look at them one by one: the dress on the wall (if that’s what…