Burlington Contemporary is the Burlington Magazine’s free online platform for reviews and research on international contemporary art.
Burlington Contemporary is the Burlington Magazine’s free online platform for reviews and research on international contemporary art.
The never entirely dormant controversy over Turner's will was revived by the huge and unexpected success of the Bicentenary Exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1975. The Fine Rooms at Somerset House, first home of the Academy, were being renovated at much the same time, but without any explicit use in view, so the two problems were soon linked. Somerset House was seen as the ideal home for Turner, preferably in the form of an independent Turner Museum and centre for Turner studies housing the water-colours and drawings as well as the Tate's oils.
Among the collections of early Italian art in the Pushkin Museum, Moscow, our attention was drawn to a small Annunciation, previously attributed to an unknown Florentine master of the fourteenth century (Figs. 1-5). The style of this painting, however, as well as its highly original manner and treatment of colour led me to discover its actual author: Simone dei Crocefissi, a typical master of the Bolognese school of painting.
A detailed account of the contents of Charles Jervas's (c.1675-1739) studio appears in the sale catalogues of his collection of pictures, prints, and drawings. The only other early English source which equals and indeed surpasses the Jervas sale catalogues in its thoroughness is the Executors' Account-Book of Sir Peter Lely, 1679-1691. The Exectuors' Account-Book also allows an exceptional insight into the actual workings of a major studio.
The National Gallery of Scotland has acquired Gavin Hamilton's gigantic canvas Achilles lamenting the death of Patroclus (Fig.8), executed in Rome c.1760-63 as part of the series of six paintings illustrating Homer's Iliad on which Hamilton worked from before 1760 until 1775 or later, and foisted onto various different but obliging patrons. This picture and the Duke of Hamilton's Farewell of Hector and Andromache (Fig.7) are the only two now extant, so that the appearance of the other four, together with the essential unity of the six as a series, can only be estimated by means of the engravings made for Hamilton by Cunego.
(Fig.7) are the only two now extant, so that the appearance of the other four, together with the essential unity of the six as a series, can only be estimated by means of the engravings made for Hamilton by Cunego.The appearance of Atala by François-René de Chateaubriand in April 1801 created a major sensation on the French literary scene. This short story of the love between two devout savages, Chactas and Atala, against the exotic backcloth of the North American forests offered the public a combination of passion and highly-coloured descriptive prose which it found irresistible. Between 1801 and 1805 the novel was published in no less than eleven editions, most of them illustrated.
Chardin chronology is in confusion, not least because those dates which he wrote on his pictures are notoriously difficult to read. A firm date for an important painting from what is probably the seminal period of his development is therefore to be treasured. Such has emerged from the recent cleaning of the Hunterian Lady taking tea ('Une Dame prenant son thé', Fig.26), not on the front of the canvas where the date can still be read variously by those with an inclination to do so, but on the back.
', Fig.26), not on the front of the canvas where the date can still be read variously by those with an inclination to do so, but on the back.Three letters from Gavin Hamilton to John Nay, the 4th Marquess of Tweeddale, now on deposit on the National Library of Scotland, reveal something of that painter's early aspirations. They were written in 1755 and 1756, by which time Hamilton had made a name for himself as a portrait painter. Although by this date he had painted the striking portrait, now in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, of William Hamiltion of Bangour, in which an austere mood of neo-classicism is fully realised, most of his portraits of this period are more conventional and less severe, like those he painted of the beautiful Gunning sisters.
The history of Italian Early Renaissance architecture has shared the fortunes of Renaissance historiography in general. Inevitably, the Vasarian view left its imprint: Quattrocento architecture as a new beginning of architecture all'antico modo after the aberrations of the Middle Ages. Brunelleschi, the great innovator, led the way. The others, Michelozzo, Rossellino, Alberti, the Sangallo clan, the provincial masters, followed in his wake.
after the aberrations of the Middle Ages. Brunelleschi, the great innovator, led the way. The others, Michelozzo, Rossellino, Alberti, the Sangallo clan, the provincial masters, followed in his wake.Stucco is of the essence of South German Baroque architecture. yet in the literature it is treated as a step-child. The difficulty is that he documents are mute over anything beyond contracts and bills; what the stucco is doing, and to what extent the stuccador was creatively involved in its design, are largely matters of conjecture. What can nonetheless be teased out of the evidence despite these constraints is superbly demonstrated by the book under review.
The reconstruction of the city of Noto in south-eastern Sicily on a new site after the almost total destruction of the old town by the earthquake of 1693 is one of the most interesting chapters in the history of Baroque town-planning. The town is much visited by students of architecture - and by English tourists since its 'discovery' by the Sitwells in the 1920's - and a mass of documents about its rebuilding survive; but the story has never been told in print.
The Hogarth literature is now supplied with a relatively short and assimilable biographical and critical study. Jack Lindsay twice acknowledges his debt to Ronald Paulson's Hogarth: His Life, Art and Times (1971) and The Graphic Works (1965). Doubtless other shorter studies will be aided by Paulson's extensive research, one of the more remarkable aspects of which is the lightness with which it is borne and the readability and clarity which belie the length and scholarship.
(1965). Doubtless other shorter studies will be aided by Paulson's extensive research, one of the more remarkable aspects of which is the lightness with which it is borne and the readability and clarity which belie the length and scholarship.Professor Burke's English Art 1714-1800 has been long awaited. The preceding volume in The Oxford History of English Art was published in 1957; the succeeding volume in 1959. Joseph Burke started work on his book in 1949, the Preface is dated June 1973, the volume was published in the summer of 1976. If it had been published some fifteen years earlier English Art 1714-1800 would have been welcomed, as it were its two immediate companions in the 1950's, as a valuable pioneering work bringing together in an intelligent and instructive way the current knowledge of artistic developments in eighteenth-century Britain - or rather England, as one would have written then and as the title of this volume is now anachronistically forced to name it.
Sir Thomas More (1477/8-1535) has probably never been a widely loved figure; even his martydom has not caught the general imagination. Shaw, who might have written a brilliant play about him, chose that other martyr, St Joan, and it was left to Robert Bolt to turn the key elements in More's story into a huge success, at first on the stage (1960) and then on the screen (1966), helped by a superb central performance from Paul Scofield. The film version of A Man For All Seasons is being shown during the course of the National Portrait Gallery's current exhibition (until 12th March) which celebrates the 500th anniversary of that good man's birth and is aptly titled 'The King's Good Servant'.
is being shown during the course of the National Portrait Gallery's current exhibition (until 12th March) which celebrates the 500th anniversary of that good man's birth and is aptly titled 'The King's Good Servant'.At the suggestion of Fleur Cowles, an International Trustee of the World Wildlife Fund, the British Museum has mounted a special exhibition, entitled 'Animals in Art' which is open until 25th February. There are over 600 items, very well displayed, and ranging from Paleolithic bone engravings right up to Beatrix Potter and Picasso. The material is divided into thematic sections: Hunting, Signs and Symbols, Stories and Fables, Pets and so on.
has mounted a special exhibition, entitled 'Animals in Art' which is open until 25th February. There are over 600 items, very well displayed, and ranging from Paleolithic bone engravings right up to Beatrix Potter and Picasso. The material is divided into thematic sections: Hunting, Signs and Symbols, Stories and Fables, Pets and so on.For most British visitors, there will be many discoveries and surprises among the French landscape drawings and sketches of the eighteenth century showing at the Print Room of the British Museum until 12th March. The variety of types of drawing ranges basically from casual sketchbook vignettes of nature to larger, more elaborate nature studies, to more precise images prepared for publication, to 'finished' drawings in their own right for collectors, and in addition two important groups of études in oil on paper.
180 years ago James Barry vigorously encouraged the Royal Academy to publish the King's newly discovered anatomical drawings by Leonardo - without success. Now, following the drawing's recent removal from their 1930 volumes and their separate remounting, a substantial selection has been placed on display in the Private Rooms of the Royal Academy until 19th February, accompanied by Jane Roberts's careful catalogue and an introductory essay by Dr Kenneth Keele.
The name of the Belgian painter Alfred Stevens pops up frequently in accounts of Impressionist painting. In 1862 Manet used Steven's Paris studio in order to pose Mariano Camprubi's Spanish dance troupe for the painting now in the Phillips Collection, Washington; Stevens, along with Champfleury, was to accompany Manet to Spain in 1865, although in the end both Champfleury and Stevens begged off and Manet made the trip alone.
