Last week I saw the Giorgio Morandi show in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (closing Dec 14, 2008). Of the many branches in the family tree that can be traced between painters, Morandi leads, among others, directly to Paul Cezanne. In a New Yorker article by Malcolm Gladwell (Late Bloomers, Oct 20, 2008), he quotes a letter to Cezanne's from his friend Zola to the then young, undeveloped … [Read more...]
Pictorial Art
While jostling to view a show of 19th century French paintings last week, I thought about how the popularity of Impressionism can sometimes obscure its genius. Monet’s inscrutable touch, temperament and crystalline vision, conjuring appealing sights, can mask his stunning originality. Throughout his long life he expended enormous physical and emotional effort to create his paintings. As I looked … [Read more...]