Stourton's book was published in 2017I knew Kenneth Clark (1903-83) from watching his Civil­is­at­ion series on tv in 1969 and from his involvement with one of my favour­ite art historians Bern­ard Beren­son. And more recently I read Kenneth Clark: Life, Art and Civil­isation by James Stourton (Collins, 2016). Born in 1903 into a wealthy textile-based family, Clark…

Lue lisää

Irina Antonova (1922-2020) was born in working-class Moscow. Dad Alexander Antonov trained as an electrician, and was an early member of the Bolshevik party from 1906. Her Lithuanian mother, Ida Heifetz, studied to be a singer then met Alexander in Kharkov Ukraine in the Civil War. Alexander was frequently absent and unfaithful. In 1929 he took…

Lue lisää

The first London coffee house was opened in 1652 by Pasqua Roseé, a member the English Levant Co. that traded with Turkey. In Smyrna-Izmir, he found a taste for the dark stim­ulant drink. With time, each British coffee house  developed its own partic­ul­ar clientele, literary, political, financial and shipping-related. From the coffee house came the Gentle­man’s Clubs and City instit­utions…

Lue lisää

Geelong lad Arthur Streeton (1867-1943) studied at the Nat­ional Gallery School of Art in Melbourne from 1884-7. In summer 1886 he painted with Frederick McCubbin and Tom Roberts in Mentone. In 1887 he camped and painted with Louis Abrahams, Tom Roberts and Frederick Mc­Cub­bin on a rural property in Heidelberg. Thus The Heidelberg School of…

Lue lisää

Tissot, Bad News/The Parting, 1872,  69x91 cm. National Museum Cardiff Jacques Tissot (1836-1902) fought in the Franco-Prussian War to defend Paris, as part of the Paris Commune. His 1870 art evoked the period of the French revolution. But it wasn’t a happy time for the Commune; he left Paris for London in 1871 and spent a decade as an…

Lue lisää

In the Christian tradition, journeying was associated with conversion: all pil­g­rim roads potentially led to Damas­cus. All Christians were stained with sin in his life, but individuals’ motives for going on pilgrimage differed from person to person: to seek health care; ful­fil pil­grim­age vows made during crises; do penance for sins; give thanks for blessings…

Lue lisää

The Med­ici: Portraits and Politics 1512–1570 exhibition was at Met­ropolitan NY in 2021. The catalogue by the same name exp­lored how the art­ists end­owed their works with a clearly styl­ish character that identified Fl­orentine por­t­rait­­ure. With 90+ notable paint­ings, scul­pt­ur­es, works on paper and me­d­­als, this volume was written by a team of lead­ing international auth­ors…

Lue lisää