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Month: June 2015

  • June 27: then the ho-hum things

    There is so much first rate art available these days, in museums, books, and on the web, that when you encounter a more typical mix of fine and less than fine, as in “Botticelli to Braque: Masterpieces From the National Galleries of Scotland,” recently at the de Young in San Francisco, the experience can be…

  • June 20: three wonderful things

    The recent show at the de Young in San Francisco, “Botticelli to Braque: Masterpieces From the National Galleries of Scotland,” was a decidedly mixed bag. Here we admire three particularly fine pieces; next week we’ll consider some of the duds and their deadening effect. Particularly fine: “The Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch” (c.1795)…

  • June 9: many faces

    Conventions in portraiture are much concerned with identifying social category. These Elizabethans can’t have been interested in making themselves the subject of some artist’s sensitive exploration of personality; they wanted their images to evoke grandeur. The more an earl’s portrait resembled a duke’s, the better he’d be pleased.   The same objective, group identification, applies…