Henri Matisse (1869 – 1954) made much wonderful art, of which many examples were included in the show just ending at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He also perpetrated some duds. The show included several. For example, “The Dream.” What constitutes a dud depends, of course, on what interests you. What interests…

As an art student in the ’20s, the late Erle Loran lived in Cezanne’s studio, and went about the countryside taking photos of the motifs Cezanne had painted years before. Later he wrote Cezanne’s Composition: Analysis of his form with diagrams and photographs of his motifs.* It’s a difficult and tedious book; I recommend it highly.…

Occasionally I sit in on an a dance class to draw the figure in motion. One day the piece in process climaxed in a willowy cluster of legs on tiptoe supporting a dense mass of torsos topped by a flurry of faces, arms, and hands. This looked like a painting. I brought a camera next…

  Inconsequential mysteries are sometimes intriguing. Diego Velazquez (1599-1660) was nothing if not adept at describing both features and spirit in his portraits–as here, the Infanta Maria Teresa. How then to explain the odd face of his Rokeby Venus? “Vague” is not the word for Venus’ face;  Cupid’s face is only suggested, but quite in…

Charm, rather than authority, is what usually strikes one in American painting from the colonial period, but the work of Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828) obviously rises above that level. He painted the iconic image of George Washington, and many other portraits in the impressive English manner of that period–so impressive, indeed, and masterly, but also conventional,…

  I was greatly impressed by the pugnacity of the armor of Henry VIII when I first saw it, years ago, at the Metropolitan Museum in New York –the broad, looming shoulders and aggressive face shape. Royal armor tends to be fancy, but this suit is not just for show–it’s for business. I didn’t think…

This shot of elephants was taken in 1959 by Eliot Elisofon, the noted Life photographer, at the Amboseli game reserve in Kenya. I became his guide and driver there for a few days. He paid me with instruction: he composed his shots using a tripod, and when he had something going he would step aside…

Action painting and Pop were hot when I was in art school in the ’60s. Narration was out, and you had only to mention the name of Norman Rockwell to invoke all that was sentimental and retrograde. But construction of effective images has been central to art since the Egyptians, and if we discount where…

It’s good to spend time with a single, really fine piece, letting it sink in. “Old Woman” by Hans Memling (1430 – 1494) repays that attention. Neither pose nor costume are unusual. Van der Weyden and others did very similar pieces–pose, headdress, hands, red belt. But while van der Weyden’s subject is a lovely woman…

Whether you approve of war or not, the essence of it would seem pretty clear: a nasty and brutish business. But this is not, nor has ever been, the consensus. What follows is a range, in five examples. Beyond the utility of war as a profit-making enterprise, or in handling dignity issues, in the 19th…