ARTES MAGAZINE

  “Art plucks its material, otherwise unexpressed, in the garden of life.” ~Henry James, The Ambassaors   It seems fitting, during Presidents’ Birthday month, here in the U.S., to feature the last photograph taken of Abraham Lincoln before his assassination in April 1865 (left). The burdens and losses brought on by civil strife and personal [...]

Divided Voices at the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore is a notable effort to provide a narrative of the American Civil War as it was experienced in Maryland. This exhibition is well worth a visit by anyone interested in American history and culture—or, for that matter, interested in contemporary American life. The exhibition is instructive [...]

She was born in Belgium, he in the Netherlands; they both live in the United States. Between them they’ve assembled the finest private collection of Dutch and Flemish Old Master paintings in the world.  Unlikely though it might seem, Golden: Dutch and Flemish Masterworks from the Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection, currently on display at the Museum [...]

From December 24th to March 8th, 2012, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts will host Elvis at 21: Photographs by Alfred Wertheimer, a collaborative exhibition developed by the National Portrait Gallery, the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, and Govinda Gallery, and made possible through the support of the History channel. The idea of images of a pop culture icon [...]

Republican presidential candidate, Newt Gingrich, recently referred to the Palentinians as an “invented people.”  Don’t tell that to a certain cab drive in New York City, in a nation with an equally legitimate claim to ‘being invented.’ I step from the cool marble lobby of a mid-town office building into the blazing sunlight of a [...]

 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 [...]

 Editor’s Note: Occasionally, an article published in ARTES evokes a profoundly personal and instructive reply by a reader. On very rare occasions, that response is crafted by a fellow writer and regular contributor to the magazine.  Recently (November, 2011), we ran a feature-length article by curator and consultant, Ken Yellis, as an expanded article originally [...]

“Sane judgment abhors nothing so much as a picture perpetrated with no technical knowledge, although with plenty of care and diligence.” ~Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) The sixteenth century marked the dawn of a new age of inquiry, understood by many as the earliest beginnings of the modern age. Religious fervor, superstition and broadly-held, ancient views of [...]

The Dramatic Influence of Japanese Ukiyo-e  Prints on Impressionist Painting From the word orient, we take our meaning, ‘to establish a direction or a path based on the points of the compass’. Navigators over centuries faced east to trace the path of the rising sun to its apex for the noon sextant sighting—toward the Orient—the [...]

Cultures evolve around patterns of shared personal belief in powers that reside outside themselves, in the natural universe. Every society through the ages has venerated the mysteries embedded in symbolic references to these powerful—but unknowable— life-shaping elements. Behind the impulse to embrace these hidden forces is a set of primal fears and suspicions, buried deep [...]