Years ago this engaging little “portrait of a miniaturist” in the Legion of Honor in San Francisco was attributed to Fragonard. Then it was demoted to “unknown.” “Unknown” is rather a comedown from “Fragonard”, but the piece is just what it was before: briskly and confidently painted (how decisive the hair is–and check out the…

When I’m at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco I always stop to admire Goya’s portrait of Don Ramon de Posada & Soto (1801). It’s painted in thin, flat washes, here and there showing hints of the red ground–a very spare rendition. But when you come to the medal on his chest, the handling…

The recent San Francisco show of the great Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) was the first time I had seen so many of his works together. I expected them to be fine, and many of them were; what surprised me was the soft and not always satisfactory dividing line between his reality-based semi abstractions on…

When I think of Eugene Boudin (1824-98) it’s usually in connection with his lively and elegant scenes of vacationers on the coast. These pieces are remarkable for their inventive groupings of costumes and furniture running tightly along the band of the sea, pressed between a glorious sky and a vacant foreground, with near and far…

I first came across this delightful little piece, attributed to “the circle of Sebastian Stoskopff” (1597–1657), on the web, quite by accident. It’s become a favorite.  Okay, the cat is cute, but it’s observed in a very even-handed manner along with the fish, the hay, the lantern, and everything else. What we have is a…

In traditional visual art it’s the artist’s attitude and manner of attack (style) that distinguishes one piece from another. For better or worse, the object is self-explanatory. In conceptual art, the point is not the object–the vision, the insight–but the concept itself: Here is something you haven’t seen before, that only I do. And that,…

I love the caps and lids I see along the sidewalk in my neighborhood. Nothing stays as it was when it was new; things wear and crack and sometimes almost disappear in all the wearing and cracking around them.                     Notice the little brass loops:  …

Robert Frank, who has the keen eye for the significant and often storytelling moment, has taken many arresting photos. Here the fascination is in the disconnectedness of all the bits of information–the naked child, the flag, the headline–the absence of any coherent narrative–the complexity of a moment in the world.     photo: pinterest.com

  One remarkable aspect of the work of John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) is his astonishing range—so great that you have to wonder where the essential Sargent is to be found. His portrait of Dr. Pozzi isn’t the most vulgar portrait in American art (that would be William Merrit Chase’s “Miss Dora Wheeler”) but it’s in…

I’m quite taken with the work of the Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui. He does big pieces assembled from aluminum strips taken from empty liquor bottles, punched and pieced together with copper wire. So far, so good. But I wonder whether, as one museum label asserts, these pieces offer “a commentary on our global economy of…