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.