The new Sutton-Hoo?

Cool early medieval news: An amateur treasure-hunter with a metal detector found a cache of Anglo-Saxon objects in England about two months ago. Consisting of about 1,500 objects from the 7th century, the hoard is being billed as the largest such treasure to ever be discovered. I'm most interested in the Christian objects, and it will be interesting to see what scholarship comes out of this (also, I can't believe anyone still uses the phrase "the Dark Ages" seriously).


Depressing art news: A Renee Magritte painting, Olympia, was recently stolen from a museum in Brussels.

A hilariously cliche-laden write-up about a discovery in a 17th century canvas by Poussin.

A telling interview with Thomas Campbell about his leadership style and what it means for the Met's exhibition schedule.

Met tidbits

This made the front page of the NYT online edition this morning: The Metropolitan Museum's "Portrait of a Man" that had been displayed as by the workshop of Velazquez has been reattributed to the master himself, after a recent conservation.

Keith Christiansen, chairman of European paintings and the country's leading Velazquez scholar, Jonathan Brown, are in agreement about the attribution, which basically comes down to a few individual brushstrokes on the man's collar (art history at it's finest!). Debate continues over whether or not this work may be a self-portrait.

In other Met news, the museum announced that it will show fewer exhibitions of major loans, and will instead focus on changing the presentation of the permanent collection, which I think is what we're seeing now with these small, single-painting shows. I've got my money on a "Portrait of a Man" show in the upcoming months!

Art Links

Hello dear readers, I apologize for my long blogging hiatus. I was in Paris researching some manuscripts for my thesis, started a new job, and time got away from me!

Here are a few art links and updates to hold you over for the upcoming holiday weekend:

-In today's Times, an update/analysis on how galleries are faring in the continuing bad economic situation. 57th St. galleries seem to be relocating to Chelsea, where some two dozen have vacated their spaces.

-The much buzzed-about show at the Met which is centered around Vermeer's Milkmaid opens next week, on September 10th. It will also feature the Met's complete collection of (5) Vermeers, along with a selection of Dutch works (which reminds me a lot of the show they put up a few years ago which featured the entire collection of Dutch paintings). I'm interested in the Met's strategy here. Considering the Michelangelo's first painting exhibition, the Vermeer show, and the upcoming show which features a single sculpture (attributed to Michelangelo), the Met seems to be trafficking in small-scale (but big publicity) Frick Collection-style shows. Low cost and high traffic, an interesting move for the Met. MoMA is doing something similar with their exhibition on Monet's waterlilies (which I'm sure will be so packed, it will hardly be the oasis MoMA claims it will be).

-For all of you medieval art dorks who've been anxiously awaiting the arrival of the newly unbound Belles Heures of Jean de France at the Met, the show which was originally scheduled to open later this month has been pushed back to March. (Also opening in March is an interesting show on medieval tomb sculpture from Burgundy.)

-The Walters Art Museum has a neat-looking show on miniature books, which pulls from their permanent collection.

how do we "look" at art today?

I just had to blog this article when I saw it this morning in the Times. Mainly because I spend a lot of time in museums, and one of my favorite things to do is watch other people look at art. Since the completion of the new Greek and Roman galleries at the Met, one of my favorite spots is the marble courtyard arranged around a fountain with a spectacular arrangement of Greek sculpture. Reactions range from shock regarding the statues' state of general undress to some people who took a picture of each other in front of literally every piece in the room.

I've often been struck by the urge to "collect" pictures of pictures. As if taking a picture of the Mona Lisa or Starry Night means that you earn some amount of invisible art points for having been to the museum it resides in, pushed your way to the front of the crowd, and snapped a badly-lit, off-center digital photograph of it.

What do you think? How do you look at art?

Art Links

-First, the Louvre is launching an English version of their online database, Atlas, today. I think I'm probably going to spend the rest of the day just browsing the high-res images.

-The Courtauld Institute in London is considering some major cost-cutting strategies that will affect 3 of their image archives, almost cutting off access to them completely and ceasing to collect new items.

-The Hague's Gemeentemuseum is commencing their restoration plans for their collection of Mondrian paintings.

I just found my next degree program

There's an article in the Times today about an association called the Association for Research into Crimes against Art that offers an MA in Art Crime. Is this the coolest thing ever? Yes.

The 9-month long program covers all aspects of art crime, from forgery to art theft, and is geared toward post-graduate students from all fields--lawyers, security professionals, students of art history, criminology, and conservation. All this, and the schooling takes place in Amelia, Italy, in Umbria, as if it could get any better.

Check out the ARCA's website for more information. Who's in?

Contemporary art meets reality TV

I'm not sure if this is going to be great, or if Bravo's finally taken reality competition shows to the limit: Bravo is producing a new TV show that's basically the Project Runway of the contemporary art world. 13 finalists from all over the country will compete for a gallery show, a cash prize, and a national museum tour.

However, it is unclear exactly what format the show will take as far as challenges go. Will Bravo use a similar "quick-fire" challenge like on Top Chef? As Kennedy brilliantly asks: "Best postironic conceptual gambit in under a minute?" How will the show be received by "art world people"? So far, Simon de Pury of Phillips de Pury auction house has been revealed as a judge, and I'm really curious as to who else they're going to get. Will top galleries be represented? So many questions!

What do you guys think about the new art reality show?

Christie's Embraces the iPhone

Christie's, ever at the forefront of online-auction technology, has developed an iPhone app that allows users to browse catalogs, zoom in for close-image analysis, and check sales results. You can also get directions to Christie's salerooms and decorate your iPhone with downloadable wallpapers.

For the truly serious Christie's enthusiast who's in it for much more than just a couple of Impressionist wallpapers, iPhone users can also use their camera function to submit items for appraisal, and eventually the app may have a live bidding function as well.

Users can already live-bid through the internet on Christie's Live, which offers real time video of the saleroom (which is fun just to watch sometimes, especially at big evening sales, more exciting than a courtroom drama!).

Check out Christie's On the Go page for an assortment of widgets, podcasts, an iGoogle auction calendar, and of course, the new iPhone app.

In a total art-world turnaround, the Old Master paintings summer sales at both Christie's and Sotheby's did far better than expected, even beating out the dismal totals from the recent impressionist, modern, and contemporary sales.

Big-ticket items included a Willem Heda still life that went for 1.38 million pounds, a newly attributed Frans Hals, and Fra Bartolommeo's Madonna and Child. Could these auction results be evidence of a shift in popularity in favor of Old Master works and away from the modern and contemporary that's dominated the art scene of late? Given the current economic climate, collectors are increasingly careful with their purchases, and Old Masters tend to be a better, more solid investment than whatever is currently hot in the contemporary market.

Interestingly though, as Souren Melikian recently observed regarding the modern art sales, there seems to be a lack of quality art to go around at auctions lately, leading major houses to pad their catalogs. This last round of Old Masters included 19th century works and drawings. Apparently the rush to buy up the last of the "good art" is on.

(And for a little fun, check out these incredible modern "Old Masters")

St. Paul's Cathedral to Get Video Altarpieces

St. Paul's Cathedral, built in the late 17th and early 18th centuries in London, is getting some very unique new altarpieces.

Multi-screen video installations by contemporary artist Bill Viola will be installed in the cathedral in 2011, and are expected to be a huge tourist draw, especially given that the Tate Modern is just across the river. The treasurer of the cathedral, Canon Warner, hopes that in the future St. Paul's will be able to host other contemporary art installations as well.

I'm interested in the progressive attitude and willingness to include new art in old places, but this feels more like a publicity stunt primarily to raise funds for the cathedral instead of an artistic statement. What do you think?

Oldest Christian Bible to be made available online

In what is probably the coolest Bible-related news in recent memory, the remaining 800 pages of the 1600-year old Codex Sinaiticus will be put online:

LONDON, July 6 (Reuters) - The surviving parts of the world's oldest Christian bible will be reunited online on Monday, generating excitement among biblical scholars still striving to unlock its mysteries.

The Codex Sinaiticus was hand written by four scribes in Greek on animal hide, known as vellum, in the mid-fourth century around the time of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great who embraced Christianity.

Not all of it has withstood the ravages of time, but the pages that have include the whole of the New Testament and the earliest surviving copy of the Gospels written at different times after Christ's death by four of the Apostles: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

The bible's remaining 800 pages and fragments -- it was originally some 1400 pages long -- also contain half of a copy of the Old Testament. The other half has been lost.

"The Codex Sinaiticus is one of the world's greatest written treasures," said Scot McKendrick, head of Western manuscripts at the British Library.

"This 1600-year-old manuscript offers a window into the development of early Christianity and first-hand evidence of how the text of the bible was transmitted from generation to generation," he said.

The texts include numerous revisions, additions and corrections made during its evolution down through the ages.

"The Codex ...is arguably the oldest large bound book to have survived," said McKendrick, pointing out that each page is 16 inches tall by 14 inches wide.

"Critically, it marks the definite triumph of bound codices over (papyrus) scrolls - a key watershed in how the Christian bible was regarded as a sacred text," he said.

FOUR-YEAR PROJECT

The ancient parchments, which appear almost translucent, are a collection of sections held by the British Library in London, the Monastery of St. Catherine in Sinai, Egypt, the National Library of Russia and Leipzig University Library in Germany.

Each institution owns different amounts of the manuscript, but the British Library, which digitised the delicate pages of the entire book in London, holds by far the most.

The four-year joint project, which began in 2005 with the aim of "virtually reunifying" and preserving the bible, as well as undertaking new research into its history, has shed new light on who made it and how it was produced.

Importantly, experts at the British Library say, the project has uncovered evidence that a fourth scribe - along with the three already recognised -- worked on the texts.

The assembly and transcription of the book includes previously unpublished pages of the Codex found in a blocked-off room at St. Catherine's Monastery, at the foot of Mount Moses, Sinai, in 1975, some of which are in a poor condition and have been difficult to study.

But there are still many unanswered questions about how the book came to be, said the British Library's Juan Garces, project manager of Greek manuscripts, who worked on the digitisation. For instance, where was it made? which religious order commissioned it? And how long did it take to produce?

"The limits on access to this manuscript previously have meant that people (academics) have tended to dip, so that they have seized on particular things" to advance theories, McKendrick told Reuters in an interview.

He said the website will enable research to be carried out in a holistic way for the first time, forcing top scholars to view their theories in context.

A good example, he said, was evidence advanced by some academics pointing to the theory that it could have been made in the ancient city of Cesarea in Israel.

"It is our hope this will provide the catalyst for new research and it is already creating great interest," Garces told Reuters.

The bible, which can be viewed online free from Monday, includes modern Greek translations and some sections translated into English.

The British Library is expecting massive interest from believers around the world as well as the academic community.

"When 25 percent of the images were made available online last July we had 3.5 million hits in the first day (a record), and it crashed the site," a spokesman said.

Breaking 4th Century Art News

Archaeologists from the Vatican believe they have found the earliest-known portrait of St. Paul in the catacombs of St. Thecla, near St. Paul fuori-le-mura in Rome.

The portrait was discovered about two weeks ago, but has already been cleaned and restored (by lasers, no less) for its release to the public.

In related news, the Pope says that remains discovered in an eight-foot sarcophagus underneath St. Paul fuori-le-mura "seem to be" (or in Pope-speak, "definitely are") St. Paul's mortal relics., as popular Christian tradition holds. Carbon dating confirms that the bones date from the 2nd or 3rd century.

Art Links

-A new show of paintings by modernist Belgian artist James Ensor in the creatively titled James Ensor at MoMA.

-A show of objects from the National Museum in Kabul, Afghanistan at the Met, which was previously at the National Gallery in Washington. Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures From the National Museum, Kabul is on through September.

-Sotheby's has done pretty well in the last few days, with solid modern and contemporary sales, with Picasso and Giacometti selling well at the modern sale and contemporary standbys Warhol and Calder selling well yesterday, though American art is not doing well at either house.

-LACMA, in a somewhat surprising but still totally predictable move, sold off their old master paintings at Sotheby's. I guess they didn't get the memo about older art being a consistently good investment.

-The new Acropolis Museum in Athens is awesome, which has sparked debate over who really owns the Elgin marbles, currently housed at the British Museum in London.

And now for some bad news

The art world is still suffering, bad news this week includes:

-A disappointing Impressionist and modern art sale at Christie's London, which just barely cleared the $60 million low estimate. As Souren Melikian says: The hard lesson for auction houses is that scraping the barrel to fill a catalog no longer does the trick. To do well, you need real art and there is not much left of it.

-Contemporary art galleries in Chelsea (and pretty much all galleries in New York) are in trouble this summer, and there have already been several notable closings. The notoriously slow summer season combined with a huge recession in art buying make it survival of the fittest (and best-marketed).

-More and more exhibitions are being cut from museum schedules due to financial concerns, and in most cases, a lack of funding.

-The Guggenheim and the Metropolitan Museum announced last week that both major institutions will cut more staff. The Guggenheim will cut 25 positions, or about 8% of their full time staff, while the Met laid off 74 employees and offered 95 other employees retirement packages.


But let's end on a good note!

-Most of the documents, many dating back to the Middle Ages, have been recovered from the rubble of the Cologne Archives, which collapsed back in March. The catch is that everything has to be sorted and re-cataloged, and 15% of the materials are still missing.

-Art Basel did surprisingly well, partially due to lowered prices and partially owing to the fact that most rich art collectors are still rich.

Art Theft: Picasso Notebook

Recent Art Theft: Picasso Notebook stolen from the Picasso Museum in Paris 2 weeks ago

From the Art Loss Register:
A notebook of sketches by Pablo Picasso was stolen from the Picasso Museum in Paris between June 8-9, 2009. The notebook was taken from a locked case within the museum, and consists of 33 drawings in pencil that were made between 1917 and 1924. The notebook is valued at several million Euros.

Experts fear that the notebook may be broken up by the thieves in an attempt to maximize the value. However, the real value of the notebook is the historical documentation it preserves for scholars of the artist's work. Since the individual sketches are unsigned, there would be little market value if the notebook were divided.

The notebook is approximately 6 by 10 inches and has a distinctive shiny red cover, with the word "album" printed in gold on the cover.

The Art Loss Register also notes that Picasso is its number one most stolen artist. For more information, visit their website.

New Exhibition: It’s About Time: 244 Years at the Morris-Jumel Mansion

Sometimes, when you think about New York, you forget the long and tumultuous history the city has. The history of a city is usually evident in its buildings, though buildings get torn down and built back up again in New York so often that a lot of that history gets erased. Not so at the Morris-Jumel Mansion in Washington Heights.

The 244-year old house was George Washington's headquarters during the doomed defense of New York in 1776 at the beginning of the Revolutionary War (I just learned all this from the excellent tome Gotham: A History of New York to 1898). The mansion now functions as a museum with fully restored interior and antique furnishings, and is part of The Historic House Trust of New York City.

The new show at the mansion, It's About Time: 244 Years at the Morris-Jumel Mansion, curated by education director Carol Ward, juxtaposes historical photographs from the house's history with work by modern photographers. The show provides a unique peek into New York's living, but often forgotten, past. Check out the write-up and excellent slide show in Times' CityRoom blog today.

For more information on The Historic House Trust, other historic houses in and around New York City, and the ongoing efforts to preserve and protect them, go here.

Art Meets Technology: Peter Greenaway

I'm always interested to see how technology interacts with traditional art, so when the Times reported on Peter Greenaway's exhibit at the Venice Biennale, which is a digitized film-esque version of Veronese's masterpiece, The Wedding at Cana, I was interested.

The traditionalist in me usually is opposed to contemporary artists reusing the work of the masters and billing it as their own, but Greenaway takes a more thoughtful approach (did anyone see the Cezanne wrapped in bubblewrap at the Philadephia show? Now that really boils my blood). First, the piece is being exhibited in the Benedictine refectory on San Giorgio Maggiore, where Veronese's original hung previously. I appreciate the sensitivity to a measure of historical accuracy.

The Wedding at Cana digital project is also one of a series, the 3rd of 9 entitled simply Nine Classical Paintings Revisited. I appreciate the lack of pretention that so often accompanies reused classical art. (Previous work includes digitizations of Rembrandt's The Night Watch and Da Vinci's The Last Supper.)

Greenaway plans to work his digital magic on another Renaissance piece, Michelangelo's The Last Judgment as well as on Picasso's Guernica, a Pollock, some Monet and a Seurat. It makes me wonder if art historians will react differently when Renaissance art is repurposed versus when Impressionist or abstract art is reused. What about the "old masters" makes them untouchable in the minds of art historians?

Greenaway's digitization project is unique to me in that it doesn't disrupt the spirit or impact of the original, but rather enhances it in many ways. It's a way of using technology that doesn't interrupt the original, but manipulates it slightly in a way that is still true to the color and visual dynamism of the original but dazzles all the same.


If you need a hit of more traditional Veronese, check out the exhibiton website for the Rivals in Renaissance Venice show at the MFA in Boston (I'm dying to see it!)

New Feature: Museum Shop Madness

As long as I can remember going to museums, I've loved the gift shops. Lately I've noticed museum gift shops stepping things up a bit and instead of being the random assortment of art-related key-chains, posters, and coasters at the end of a blockbuster exhibition (though of course, all those things are still available...who needs a coaster set of Monets?), they've become well, shops in their own right.

In this new feature, I'm just going to post things at online museum shops that happen to catch my eye, the wonderful, the weird, the colorful, and occasionally the useful. Enjoy!

First up, this fantastic Dual-Spout Chinese Porcelain-inspired teapot from the Met:











According to the item description: "Our teapot is based on an original made in China in the late 17th century containing two chambers, one for brewing tea and one for hot water; an ingenious and elegant form allowing a harmonious couple to enjoy different strengths of tea simultaneously." Cool. Buy it here.

Next, in the "slightly weird and creative" category, a book entitled When Pigasso Met Mootisse from the Morgan Library's store:








I think this is self-explanatory. Pick it up for the child in your life (or yourself, because you know you want it) here.

This next item, a carved wood necklace from the Art Institute of Chicago's store, is a piece of jewelry I'd actually wear, and very on-trend with this season's statement necklaces. As a bonus, it doesn't look too "museum-y" the way a lot of museum shop jewelry tends to:



Just think how amazing it would look with a plain t-shirt and a snappy blazer. It's even on sale for web orders only.

For the creative interior designer, MoMA's design shop always has a selection of weirdly beautiful things you never knew you even wanted, like this vaguely mushroom-cloud shaped Nesso Table Lamp:











Based on the lamp in MoMA's collection by Giancarlo Mattioli, if you ever wanted a lamp made from injection molded ABS thermoplastic, this is the lamp you've been looking for, if you've got an extra $375 ($337.50 for MoMA members) on hand.

Finally, if you really want to break the bank on a unique look for your living room, try the Gehry Easy Chair from the Philadelphia Museum of Art's store:














For a mere $730, you could own this. Or complete your living room set with matching molded sofa, bench, left, right and 3-sided twist cubes, an easy chair and a coffee table. Gehry-riffic!


So what do you think? Would you buy any of this stuff? What are your favorite museum gift shops?

Medieval Friday

Medieval Fridays are the best kind of Fridays, right?

-The NYT review of Pen and Parchment: Drawing in the Middle Ages makes me want to go back and see it again.

-The must-see exhibit at the Morgan Library, Pages of Gold, consists entirely of "orphan" leaves--pages removed from their original manuscripts. The show looks at the market for and the individuals who collected such single leaves and (delightfully) ends with a few forgeries. The show covers not only medieval issues of illumination, but a glimpse of the unique medieval art market as well.

-St. Anthony Tormented by Demons, the so-called "first painting" of Michelangelo is now on display at the Met. The small exhibit is made up of the actual painting accompanied by the evidence for its authenticity. An interesting exercise in art historical analysis--now in exhibition form!

-Meanwhile, the Walters Art Museum has a show called Prayers in Code, which presents a selection of unusual Books of Hours and explores artistic patronage at the court of King Francis I (1494-1547). The exhibit centers around the unexpected relationship between images and text in Books of Hours at this time.

New Exhibition: Pen and Parchment: Drawing in the Middle Ages

Over the weekend I went to the Met to check out the new medieval show, Pen and Parchment: Drawing in the Middle Ages, and also caught a lecture on the topic of drawing the Middle Ages by Dr. Jonathan Alexander of the Institute of Fine Arts.

This show is one of the first of its kind to treat drawing as a separate and distinct art form in the Middle Ages. Installed in the special exhibition space in the drawings and prints department, the show features over 50 examples of medieval drawings, from line drawings done for early 9th and 10th century manuscripts similar to the Utrecht Psalter, to late 14th century pattern books, maps, and cosmological charts. Dr. Alexander spoke about the common conception of drawing as something of a lesser medium than painting, more preparatory than final, and what this show does to dispel that popular opinion.

One thing I found intriguing while looking at the various examples was the play between line and color, and the interaction of the two in extremely interesting ways. In several examples, line drawings are executed in various colored lines, creating masterful scenes evocative of fully colored manuscript miniatures, but with a special and different aesthetic. In some cases color is used to highlight only a few objects in a miniature, like the warriors shields in the example from the early 10th century Book of Maccabees from St. Gall (pictured above). In many cases, color and line work together to create extremely sophisticated compositions.

Other interesting objects include early maps, medical treatises, teaching scrolls, constellation charts and cosmological texts, genealogical charts, and of course the familiar psalters and Books of Hours (the lovely Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux are also included). Many of the books' pages will be turned periodically at the beginning of each month until the show closes in August, offering an ever-changing variety of images.

Overall the show offers a glimpse into a little-studied field, and presents objects from some of the most famous libraries (including the Vatican Library) around the world. Many of these texts will probably not be seen again soon in any exhibition, so I suggest you get to the Met and see them before they get locked away again, only to be seen by the most intrepid (and persistent) scholars of the book arts.

Quick note: The Met is doing a new thing where each exhibition has its own blog, where visitors can participate in the discussion. Check out the blog for the Pen and Parchment show here, where you can find information on the show, medieval drawing techniques, and read commentary from the show's curators.

Tim Burton at MoMA

In what is possibly the coolest retrospective ever planned, Tim Burton will be featured at MoMA beginning November 22nd, later this year.

The show will feature, among other things, drawings, costumes, and puppets, mostly from his various film projects. It will also include "artifacts" from Burton's college film projects, early career, and unrealized projects. Best of all, the exhibition will be accompanied by a film series.

For other happenings at MoMA, check out this weirdly difficult to understand exhibition calendar.

The Ara Pacis Museum in Rome Vandalized

Vandals defaced the outside of the Ara Pacis Museum in Rome with paint-filled balloons of red and green, creating an Italian flag of sorts on the white wall. The vandals also left a porcelain toilet and a few rolls of toilet paper next to the building, in a brilliantly simple comment on the building's design.

Designed by Richard Meier, and opened in Rome in 2006, the Ara Pacis Museum was built to house the Ara Pacis, or "Altar of Peace" commissioned by Emperor Augustus in 13 BC. The massive stone structure was rapidly deteriorating from exposure to the elements, and the new complex was built to protect it, though it's contemporary design has been the subject of much criticism.

I was just at the Ara Pacis Museum last week, and while it is a nice museum, sun-filled, with seating, serves its designated purpose of protecting the Ara Pacis (and is a fantastic air-conditioned respite from the sweltering Roman sun), it's totally out of sync with Rome as a city, and classical Roman architecture. It feels completely out of place, and doesn't really complement the Ara Pacis so much as it simply seems to rise out of the ground around it.

Any thoughts about the recent vandalism, or about the Ara Pacis Museum in general?

Met News

-The Met has secured a loan from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam of Vermeer's Milkmaid for their fall show of Dutch art that will feature all 5 of the Vermeers from the Met's permanent collection, as well as other 17th century Dutch works.

-A very unique show on medieval drawings entitled Pen and Parchment: Drawing in the Middle Ages opens next week, June 2nd. I've been looking forward to this for months, so stay tuned for a review.

-Things to see now include the opening of the new American wing period rooms, and Model as Muse: Embodying Fashion at the Costume Institute if you just can't get enough of Kate Moss.

Angels and Demons and the End of Good Taste

Everyone has to go over to my friend Jenn's blog Per Omnia Saecula to read her brilliant review/synopsis of Angels and Demons, which we saw together over the weekend. It is even funnier than the movie, which would be difficult, considering it's probably the best comedy of 2009.

Angels and Demons comes as the follow-up to The DaVinci Code, which taught us that most, if not all, Renaissance art contains some sort of symbolic code, and is more likely than not, connected to a shadowy secret society. If you just can't get enough, Dan Brown's next book The Lost Symbol (which already has a tentative movie release date of 2012) is available for pre-order on Amazon. According to his editor, Dan Brown's new book is "full of surprises." A different secret society? A new sultry, foreign, but ridiculously intelligent love interest? Which well-known Renaissance artist has Brown invented a shadowy past for this time?

Feel free to weigh in on Angels and Demons here!

Another Art History Mystery

The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, has just acquired a painting believed to be by a young Michelangelo.

The Torment of St. Anthony, an easel painting, was recently studied in-depth by Keith Christiansen of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He believes that the work is definitively by Michelangelo, and dates to 1487-88, making Michelangelo only 12 or 13 when he completed it.

The NYTimes article presents an interesting mix of opinions from experts who've seen the work from museums and auction houses around the world.

In other news:

-There was another less-than-spectacular Sotheby's sale last night, bringing in only $47 million in total.

-The Eiffel Tower turns 120 years old tomorrow.

Art Links

Some art on this beautiful Friday, shall we?

-A review of the new shows up at the Whitney using parts of the permanent collection: Claes Oldenburg: Early Sculpture, Drawings, and Happenings Films and Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen: The Music Room, both of which are up all summer.

-A really fantastic project to digitize ancient manuscripts. I'm such a huge fan of manuscript digitization, and this is the wave of the future, though maybe nothing can compare to seeing a several-hundred year old manuscript in person.

-Christie's has won this battle, but who will win the war? (Did anyone else love that Giacometti cat sculpture at Sotheby's as much as I do? I'm sad it didn't sell.)

-Also, Dolly Parton just got her Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee. Honorary degrees are the way to do it, I'm thinking.

I'm headed to Philadelphia to see the Cezanne and Beyond show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I'll be back on Monday with some pictures and my official review!

The Lure of Van Gogh's Severed Ear

Today in breaking art history news, two German historians who've spent a lot of time reviewing the police reports, say that the infamous story of Van Gogh severing his own ear after a fight with fellow artist Paul Gauguin is in fact, false.

The actual culprit? Gauguin himself. (GASP.)

The two historians, Hans Kaufmann and Rita Wildegans, have published their theory in a book Van Gogh's Ear: Paul Gauguin and the Pact of Silence, basing their conclusion on "inconsistencies" in the evidence--Gauguin's personal accounts, Van Gogh's letters, and police reports.

Curators at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam are sticking to the original self-mutilation story, but I'm interested in why this debate has such a following in the first place. Does it really matter who cut off Van Gogh's ear and why? The myth of the artist as a slightly-mad creative genius still has currency in today's concepts of what makes great art so great. Why does "brilliant" so often go hand-in-hand with "troubled"?

What do you think? Would Van Gogh still be the post-Impressionist hero he is today if he hadn't had a reputation for being such a loose canon?

New Exhibition: Pen to Press, Paint to Print

Yesterday I went to see a lovely little show at C.G. Boerner Gallery here in New York (23 E. 73rd St, between Madison and 5th Avenues) by visiting gallerist Sandra Hindman, of Les Enluminures.

Les Enluminures, which is based in Paris, are known for their medieval manuscript, in particular their richly illuminated Books of Hours. This exhibit, entitled Pen to Press, Paint to Print explores the transitional period of the late 15th through the 16th century when books went from being copied and decorated by hand to printed on the newly invented presses of Gutenberg. This topic unfortunately has not been given much attention, but this exhibit presents a fantastic selection of prayer books, Books of Hours, individual printed leaves produced by nuns, coffers (boxes) decorated with medieval prints on the inside, and 16th century woodblocks used to created printed Books of Hours.

One of the most interesting changes is the switch from books strictly in Latin to those written in a combination of Latin and the vernacular of the area for which the book was printed. For example, in Latin with Middle Dutch or High German additions.

Pen to Press, Paint to Print is open only until May 9th, but is open on Saturdays, 10am-6pm, so be sure to check it out. The exhibit is also accompanied by an illustrated, full-color catalogue of all the items presented in the show, with lots of unique and helpful (if you study Books of Hours!) information.

Art Links

Hey everyone! I'm back with your Art Links this beautiful Friday:

-Those Hitler paintings that were up at auction recently sold for a lot more than people thought they would, coming in at around $143,000.

-I wish I was able to go to London to see this show at the Tate Britain, Van Dyck and Britain.

-This Leonardo mystery sounds like a case for Dan Brown! Oh wait, Gary Radke's work for the show Leonardo da Vinci: Hand of Genius actually sounds like art history at its finest. Dan Brown could learn something.

-An interesting interview with graffiti artist Sixeart.

-Depressing news: the dire market for academics gets even more dire.

Art Links

I'll be on blog-hiatus for the next 2 weeks or so, as I'll be on a fabulous Australian vacation. Here are some links to tide you over:

-Some sad news today: in addition to the loss of human life in the recent earthquake in Abruzzo, Italy, it also caused "significant" damage to historic buildings and works of art. Among the damages include portions of medieval towns, Santa Maria di Collemaggio (Romanesque, but heavily restored in the 20th century), and parts of the National Museum of Abruzzo.

-Pack the Bronze Duckling, previously stolen from his installation behind Mrs. Mallard at a Boston public garden, has been recovered.

-Art Dubai is getting better, but selling less.

-The Newark Museum celebrates its 100th anniversary with a new exhibition featuring work by living artists acquired in the last 15 years called Unbounded: New Art for a New Century.

-John D. Rockefeller's bedroom furniture from his west 54th St. townhouse are being relocated to some even fancier digs.

-The Michelle Obama/Carla Bruni Sarkozy/omg-what-are-they-wearing-today analysis is getting serious. Ladies and gentlement, the end of "wife wear."

-In especially cool medieval news, experts are close to archiving and translating all 10,000 of the inscriptions on the walls of Al Hambra palace in Spain.

Art Links

-Etruscan treasures in Dallas are on view at the Southern Methodist University Meadows Museum, and is supposedly the largest exhibition of Etruscan artifacts in the United States.

-The St. Louis Museum has Power and Glory: The Court Arts of China's Ming Dynasty on view through May 17th. Interestingly, the show is organized chronologically instead of thematically, which I think is a great way to view the arts of an entire dynasty.

-In case you were wondering, the stats on the most visited museums last year are out.

-A group of 13 paintings with questionable authenticity, supposedly by Adolf Hitler are scheduled to be auctioned at a British sale in April.

-And finally, is journalism (or more specifically, is photojournalism) art? Mannie Garcia's photo of President Obama, on which Shepard Fairey's iconic "Hope" poster is based, is on sale in a limited edition of 200 at a Chelsea gallery. J-art?

Art Links

-Shamed Upper East Side art dealer, Larry Salander, has been indicted on charges including grand larceny and falsifying business records. His gallery, Salander-O’Reilly, was known for both American contemporary art and Old Masters.

-A group of late Picasso works are on sale at the Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea. I suppose it's to be expected from Picasso's biographer, John Richardson, but he psychoanalyzes the works in a way I'm not entirely, art historically comfortable with.

-Yale University filed a suit this week to assert its ownership of van Gogh's The Night Cafe, after the descendent of the previous owner decided that it was rightfully his.

Bata Shoe Museum brings shoe history to the internet masses

I just stumbled across the Bata Shoe Museum's website devoted completely to online exhibitions. The special section, called All About Shoes, is broken down into several topics, all featuring a close look at a certain section of shoe history.

A number of the online shows trace the history of shoes within specific cultural contexts, like American Indian, Japanese, and Alaskan Coastal cultures. Other shows trace thematic issues, like shoes in wedding traditions from around the world, and my personal favorite Heights of Fashion: History of the Elevated Foot takes a look at the history of stilettos, from the very first platform shoes.

Each exhibit features fantastic digital examples of each shoe type that you can zoom in on, as well as a wealth of information...possibly more than you could ever want to know about shoes in history. My only criticism is that they included Blahnik, but left out Louboutin. In any case, the Bata Shoe Museum gets my applause for their efforts in adapting their material for the internet audience.

Art Links

-The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine here in New York recently put two of their twelve Barberini tapestries on display for Easter. Tapestries depicting "The Crucifixion" and "Agony in the Garden" are being used during Easter season "as this art is intended," to help teach and visualize liturgical events to the congregation.

The article in the NYT has a great slide show and some tidbits about how the tapestry collection at St. John's is preserved.

-On the other end of the art spectrum, the WSJ has a review of Synthetic, a new show open at the Whitney that explores the use of synthetic art materials during the 1960s. As the critic, James Gardner, points out, the show is composed of only 18 works, but attempts to answer large questions of criticism and art history. The works analyze the question "Did synthetic materials lead to the rise of synthetic art?"

Being the medievalist I am, I can't answer that question, though this review sort of makes me want to go see the show and find out. Synthetic is open until April 19th.

Fisherman Catches Ancient Bronze Statue

A feel-good story on a Monday afternoon:

ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- A Greek fisherman must have been expecting a monster of a catch when he brought up his nets in the Aegean Sea last week.

Instead, Greek authorities say his haul was a section of a 2,200-year-old bronze statue of a horseman.

A Culture Ministry announcement said Monday the accidental find was made in waters between the eastern islands of Kos and Kalymnos. The fisherman handed over the corroded metal figure to authorities, who have started the cleaning process.

Dating to the late 2nd century B.C., the statue represented a male rider wearing ornate breast armor over a short tunic and armed with a sheathed sword. The trunk of the horseman and his raised right arm have survived.

Corny fishing metaphors aside, this is pretty cool.

Art Links

-A new exhibition at the Met, Art of the Korean Renaissance, 1400-1600, is a synthesis of beauty, unfamiliarity, and intimacy in what Holland Cotter says "could be the new norm" for the Met's exhibitions in the coming months/years.

The Asian art wing at the Met is consistently one of the least-crowded in the entire museum, so I'm glad there's an interesting exhibition to draw some attention to it.

-Dirt on Delight: Impulses that Form Clay is on at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. The show argues for ceramics as a serious art form that combines elements of sculpture and painting, and questions the so-called "art-craft" divide.

-Old master paintings are still a better investment than buying contemporary art. "Old Masters are better than buying gold nuggets if you’re looking for something that will retain value,” where contemporary prices have fluctuated wildly in the last few months.

Fall Fashion 2009: "Tudormania"

I love when fashion looks to history for inspiration, and the Fall 2009 collections were full of references to 16th century Tudor England. Dolce & Gabbana, who always show unique, often irreverent and slightly costume-y pieces, was the leader in the Tudor-style trend in their D&G line this year.

Gianfranco Ferré and even Chanel got in on the Tudor action, with high-necked, ruffle-collar shirts, and fabrics like rich silks and brocades. Lacroix showed major jewels, with long gold necklaces piled over high-necked black dresses.

Interesting though, this revival of Henry VIII as a handsome, badass, savvy king with great style.

Art Links

-Retrace the footsteps of the thieves involved in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist.

-...and what lingering effects the theft had on the museum.

-The Maastricht art fair, going on now in the Netherlands, one of the biggest shows in the world, seems to be doing respectably, despite the scary, scary recession.

-YSL portraits pulled from Andy Warhol show at the Grand Palais in Paris.

-A slide show of highlights from the Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese show at the MFA in Boston.

Plague Vampire Unearthed in Venice

I had to post about this story because it involves two of my favorite things--plague and vampires.

Italian researchers believe they have unearthed the remains of a female "vampire" in a 16th century Venetian plague mass grave. The woman was buried with a brick in her mouth, a technique believed to stop vampires from "feasting on plague victims" after their death. This is the first forensic evidence researchers have that supports the medieval belief that it was actually vampires that were behind the spread of illnesses like the plague.

Like a lot of medieval supernatural beliefs, the superstition has a perfectly natural explanation. Medieval people believed vampires were behind the spread of pestilence due to their lack of understanding of the decomposition process: they uncovered recently deceased corpses to discover their hair still growing and (stop eating anything you might have in your hand here) blood coming from their mouths, and assumed these were sure signs of plague-related vampirism.

A more detailed article, with some interesting trivia about the "shroud-eaters" of yore appeared in the Times as well.

More photos of the excavation here. Happy Friday everyone!

Art Links

-More bad news for the art industry: 2008 was the worst year for Sotheby's since 2003, budget cuts, pay cuts, and job cuts ensue.

-The Met cuts even more jobs, spanning all departments.

-Alexander McQueen's ab-so-lutely brilliant show at Paris Fashion Week. The slide show that accompanies this NYT article is especially good.

-It seems that the British Museum is in trouble again regarding illegally excavated artifacts. This time the subject is a bronze Chinese drum stand from 770-476 BC, now owned by the Shanghai Museum.

Intrigue and Art Theft

Paintings that were stolen in 1987 from the Noortman Gallery in Maastricht were recovered after the thieves tried to sell the works (including Renoir, van de Velde, Brueghel the Younger, and Pissarro) back to the insurance company that paid the original settlement. Many of the works were badly damaged from being folded. Where is the respect, people? Can you even imagine contemplating folding a Renoir?

I'm noticing a trend in art theft: they only get caught because they do something really dumb, like hang the stolen paintings in their apartment, or try to sell them back to the insurance company.

The St. John's Bible, continued

I posted recently about the St. John's Bible, a manuscript currently on view at The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. It's in the process of being completed by a group of modern-day monks using medieval calligraphy methods, but with modern touches, like that it's completely in English instead of Latin. I sort of had no idea what to expect from it, image-wise, so I'd like to share a few pictures of it. It's a rather brilliant synthesis of medieval illumination traditions and modern aesthetics.

MoMA Website Redesign

I thought the old MoMA website was actually pretty good, all the information was there, it was [relatively] easy to find, so I was a little surprised to learn that they were totally re-doing it.

I've been clicking around it for a little while, and while the design is flashier, there are more animations, slide shows, and the overall look is smoother, I think they complicated it a little bit.

The first thing I noticed was on the navigation bar (at the bottom of the screen, even though there's another one at the top), you can pick "a perspective" and the box next to it will suggest the appropriate links, for example, if my perspective is "filmgoer" I get links to show times and what movies are playing, and if my perspective is "student" I get links to what resources are available at MoMA. Some other interesting additions are links to the MoMA Flickr group (though, surprisingly, the Met did it first), and if you register with the website, you can save a library of your favorite works from the collection.

Overall, the navigation is more complicated so the appearance of the site has an edgier look, but at the expense of actually finding the information you're looking for. There's a lot going on, and it could use a few organizational tweaks, but overall, bravo MoMA for making a real effort on the internet. Visit the new site and let me know what you think!

Art Reviews

A couple of links to reviews you might be interested in:

-First, a trip to the dark side of the moon with Cezanne and Beyond, which is also on my to-see list.

-The Armory Show in New York is on now, and is being watched as the traditional barometer of the art market.

Art Links

-The controversial issue of the two Chinese bronze sculptures in the YSL sale has been further complicated by the Chinese buyer, Cai Mingchao, who won the two lots, but is now refusing to pay for them, insisting that they should be returned to China without charge.

-The Metropolitan Opera has put its Chagall murals up as part of the collateral on an existing loan, despite the large murals being "New York treasures."

-Evolutionary science, naturalism, and art are the focus of a new exhibition at the Yale Center for British Art. Just one example of the great niche shows that university art museums are so good at. Endless Forms is on through May 3rd.

-The Museum of Modern Art will unveil a total reconstruction of their official website on Friday. It sounds pretty cool, check back here Friday for my official review.

-Jeff Koons has been commissioned by LACMA to create a 25-million dollar sculpture of a life-size train dangling from a crane. I will withhold my judgment.

-Royalty checks become the focus for some art detective work.

Exhibition Round-Up

A quick list of everything I want to see that's on right now:

-At the Met, Cast in Bronze: French Sculpture from Renaissance to Revolution, even though French bronzes aren't exactly the most show-stopping of artworks.

-This looks awesome: Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice at the MFA in Boston. Who doesn't love a good Renaissance rivalry?

-The slightly space-age sounding Cezanne and Beyond as well as Henri Matisse and Modern Art on the French Riviera at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

-The early works of Guercino at the Istituto Italiana di Cultura right here on the Upper East Side.

-At the Frick Collection, Masterpieces of European Painting from the Norton Simon Museum.

-At the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, Wall Stories: Children's Wallpaper and Books.

-And finally, at the Museum of the City of New York, Valentina: American Couture and the Cult of Celebrity.

Art Links

-The Met recently acquired Jacopo Bassano's last known work, "The Baptism of Christ," for their Renaissance collection, as well as a 16th century bronze oil lamp by sculptor Andrea Riccio.

-The only museum not firing people, but hiring them is the up and coming Hammer Museum, notable for its work on contemporary art, which gained a few new upper level curators recently.

-A harrowing tale of art theft, identity change, and "collecting" came to light after several stolen works were recovered a Las Vegas home. Tip: if you're going to steal art from galleries, it's probably not a good idea to then hang them up in your house.

New Exhibition: The Pre-Raphaelites

The Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, Sweden will open the first ever major show on the Pre-Raphaelites, a group of 19th century English artists. The show features over 200 works, opened February 26th, and is on view until May 24th, if you find yourself in Stockholm.

The Pre-Raphaelites sought to revive a style of art prior to Raphael, drawing much of their inspiration from medieval and Renaissance art, their style characterized by intense emotion, historical scenes, stylization of beauty and the body, and sense of decoration.

I've always thought that the Pre-Raphaelites were widely not taken seriously by art historians and museums, their work largely relegated to dorm room posters, so it's interesting to see a major exhibition on them. Any opinions here?

More bad recession-related museum news

Following the Philadelphia Museum and the Met's staff cut news, several other museums are following suit:

-The Walters Art Museum announced today that it will cut staff, freeze pay, cancel an exhibition partnered with the Musee d'Orsay next year, and reduce the number of major exhibitions per year from 3 to 2.

-The High Museum in Atlanta, Georgia will fire 7 percent of its staff, institute a hiring freeze, and cut salaries for existing employees, including the Director and director-level positions.

The Walters and the High are certainly the newest entries in an ever-growing list. A summary of the cuts that have been made across the board at small and large museums alike across the country was published in the Art Newspaper last month.

Vindication for Wannabe Arcaeologists Everywhere

As I've mentioned, I wanted to be an archaeologist for a long time as a child, which naturally means I spent a lot of time in my backyard digging, hoping I'd find a dinosaur or something.

Vindication for me and other child-archaeologists came today when a cache of Stone Age tools, estimated to be about 13,000 years old, were discovered in a suburban Colorado backyard. The tools are cutting implements (with enough blood residue on them to identify the animals they killed) that were buried by the hunters.

The only let-down of this story is that it wasn't the homeowner's 7 year old kid that found them, but a landscaper hired to dig a fishpond.

Art Links

-Following yesterday's news that the Met might be cutting staff, the Philadelphia Museum of Art announced today that a mixture of 30 positions (some currently filled, others vacant that will now not be filled) will be cut. No curators are being let go (though they will take a pay cut)...yet.

-An Art Deco armchair by Eileen Gray became the became the most expensive piece of 20th century furniture ever at the Yves Saint Laurent sale, the top bid at 21.9 million euro.

-A little fun, because I think fashion is art, and the fashion was fantastic at the Academy Awards on Sunday night. Here are a couple of slide shows with the highlights. I would kill for SJP's Dior gown.

Art Links

-A new show at the Guggenheim, The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860-1989, deals with American artists' dialogue with Asian aesthetics. The show is on now through April 19th.

-The YSL sale at Christie's this week performed up to expectations, and just might be the thing to save the art world from the scary, scary recession.

-An interesting new exhibition about Nazi propaganda, State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda, is opening at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. The review of the show in the New York Times is a great introduction to the show, which will be on view through 2011.

-Not even the Met is impervious to the recession, announcing today the closure of 15 of its satellite shops. The Met will also institute a hiring freeze and start looking into the possibility of a "head-count reduction."

-An interesting look into the financial side of the art world in this article about Art Capital, in today's NYT.

-Iraq's refurbished National Museum re-opens with a fresh coat of paint, though with many of its treasures still lost to the looting that occurred with 2003's American invasion.

New Leonardo portrait discovered?

A new alleged self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci has been recently discovered by medieval historian Nicola Barbatelli in the archives of a wealthy southern Italian family at Acerenza.

The oil portrait, which would be only the second known self-portrait by da Vinci (the other being a red chalk drawing at the Biblioteca Reale in Turin), was originally though to be a portrait of Galileo. Barbatelli thinks that there are some later additions and some repainting in the work and that "it's date and provenance still have to be established with certainty," but the work will still be exhibited at a show about da Vinci later this month.

I have to say, I'm very skeptical about this. Barbatelli seems to base most of his "discovery" (of an already known painting, I might add) on extremely subjective criteria, saying that "the posture, the sytle and technique were reminiscent of the portrait of Leonardo in the Uffizi." While stylistic analysis is in many cases a necessary evil in determining an attribution, significant futher tests and expertise is needed here. Renaissance artists were skilled copyists, and simply "reminiscent" won't cut it when trying to prove this was actually by da Vinci's own hand. Barbatelli's jump to attribute this painting to such an iconic artist as da Vinci, considering the rarity of self-portraits by the artist, seems like quite a jump.

It will be interesting to see what reaction this gets from art historians and da Vinci experts, and if this yields a closer stylistic analysis, more specific dating, and some concrete evidence of da Vinci's connections to southern Italy. I'll keep my eyes peeled for future developments.