ARTES MAGAZINE

John James Audubon. The name brings to mind the majestic beauty and grace of a vast collective of wildlife portraiture. However, it is crucial to remember Audubon’s detailed scientific observations as well, for his work in that capacity is still valid today. Fascinated by the natural world around him, Audubon’s ability to capture image and [...]

The history of Paris porcelain (known familiarly in France as vieux Paris) began around 1770 and refers not to a single manufacturer, but to more than thirty porcelain sources, based within the City of Paris between the mid-1700s and the end of the Second Empire in 1870. The term was not actually used until the [...]

 Two recent exhibitions looked at the multiple stories woven into textiles. Navajo Textiles: Diamonds, Dreams, and Landscapes was a year-long exhibition in three themed rotations held at the University of Colorado’s Museum of Natural History in Boulder, Colorado (May 31, 2009 – May 31, 2010). Trading Cloth and Culture was the spring exhibition at the [...]

This is a tale of two historic homes in a beautiful seaside, New England town, and of how visionary zeal and coincidence braided history, friendship and a passion for things beautiful together in a most unusual way… On May 1, 1915 Alfred Vanderbilt boarded the Lusitania bound for Liverpool as a first class passenger. It [...]

 The Grand Canyon is wild and unforgiving. But it is also one of the most stunning landscapes on Earth—a place for recreation, reflection and reverence. A beautiful Smithsonian exhibition allows us to marvel at this natural wonder without camping equipment, emergency rations or rappelling ropes.   Featuring 60 framed photographs, Lasting Light: 125 Years of Grand [...]

The museums of Washington, DC are renowned for their exhibitions of eminent artists. Only infrequently however–in that city of policy and politics–do three exhibits appear in tandem, showcasing the work of artists who contributed to altering the definition of art in the twentieth century. This spring and summer, viewers are offered an opportunity to observe [...]

Place, memory, and emotion are closely intertwined in the paintings of Charles Burchfield (1893–1967), at a exhibition currently on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Thoroughly grounded in the landscapes and neighborhoods of Western New York, Burchfield meticulously observed and freely interpreted places that others might overlook—sites not conventionally scenic or remarkable—transforming them [...]

The Inamori Foundation, of Kyoto, Japan, recently announced that Mr. William Kentridge will receive its 26th annual Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy, which focuses on the field of Arts. Mr. Kentridge, 55, will receive the award for his originality as a visual artist whose wide-ranging activities encompass animation, stage direction and writing. (left) A [...]

In the early 1800s, the natural splendor and proximity of the upper Hudson River Valley served as an ideal tourist’s retreat for the new middle-class population of a burgeoning New York City, just a few miles to the south. By newly-invented steamboat (also a Hudson River first) and train, they came in search of the [...]

 This essay is the second of a two-part series, and deals with the materials, techniques and physical history of easel picture-painting in Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It is inspired by looking closely at the collections of the National Gallery in London, England.      While there were certainly differences in the practice of painting [...]