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Showing posts with label royal academy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label royal academy. Show all posts

Tuesday, 3 December 2024

Artlyst: Michelangelo Leonardo Raphael At The Royal Academy Review

My latest exhibition review for Artlyst is on Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael: Florence, c.1504, at the Royal Academy of Arts:

'Ultimately, from the ‘Taddei Tondo’ through the Sala del Gran Consiglio commissions, this is an exhibition of unfinished yet hugely influential works. The exhibition includes an edition of Cicero’s letters annotated by Agostino Vespucci, a Florentine man of letters and scribe. Vespucci is struck by Cicero’s description of how the painter Apelles fully finished the head of Venus but left the rest of her body roughed out. In his margin note, he states that Leonardo did the same in all his paintings.

While works in this period can be left unfinished for a whole host of pragmatic reasons, from political upheavals to lack of time through competing commissions and to flaws in materials or the untimely death of the artist, there does also seem to be an appreciation of the aesthetic beauty of the un- or partly finished work. Given the amount of time required for the detailed realism of these artists, as shown by the sketches, preparatory drawings, and cartoons here, it is no surprise that, combined with the other factors noted, they left much unfinished. It is a true sign of their genius that their unfinished works could also be among their most influential.'

For more of my writing on the art of the Renaissance see here, here, here, here, here, and here.

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Posted by Jonathan Evens at 11:50 0 comments
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Friday, 24 March 2023

Artlyst: Black Artists From The American South Royal Academy

My latest review for Artlyst is on Souls Grown Deep Like the Rivers: Black Artists from the American South at the Royal Academy of Arts:

"Whether reaching back to African healing traditions or Southern Christianity, spirituality is the soil within which the artwork displayed here was seeded. Sometimes explicit, as with Joe Minter’s ‘And He Hung His Head and Died’, where figures made from industrial brackets for shelving are set against black metal crosses that represent the three crosses on Calvary, or Mary T Smith’s ‘He’ in which a wooden board with rusted nails, a tyre rim and a sign painted with the word ‘HE’ forms a crucifix. At other times, implicit in works where inspired choices have been made to creatively combine found objects in ways which speak emotively to the hell that has often been the collective experience of the black community as with Lonnie Holley’s ‘Copying the Rock’ or Joe Light’s ‘Blue River Mountain’, where the river represents hope in response to mental distress."

See also my review of We Will Walk: Art and Resistance in the American South for Church Times and Cosmic Patches And Quilts Five Exhibitions for Artlyst.

My other pieces for Artlyst are:

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Posted by Jonathan Evens at 07:39 0 comments
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Wednesday, 21 July 2021

Artlyst: Michael Armitage And The Power Of Art – Royal Academy

My latest review for Artlyst is of 'Michael Armitage: Paradise Edict' at the Royal Academy:

'At the heart of Michael Armitage: Paradise Edict is an exhibition of East African artists whose work has influenced Armitage and around whom, through the van Rampelberg’s, he grew up. He has selected 31 works by six artists – Meek Gichugu, Jak Katarikawe, Theresa Musoke, Asaph Ng’ethe Macua, Elimo Njau and Sane Wadu – each of which played an important role in shaping figurative painting in Kenya and had a profound impact on his own artistic development. He has also selected works by three other Kenyan artists – Wangechi Mutu, Magdalene Odundo and Chelenge van Rampelberg – that are displayed in The Dame Jillian Sackler Sculpture Gallery, just outside the exhibition galleries.

The works chosen explore themes concerned with society, politics, sexuality, and religion, which are also reflected in Armitage’s paintings. His paintings’ colourful, dreamlike settings, play of visual narratives, provocative perspectives, and challenges to cultural assumptions enable exploration of history, politics, civil unrest, and sexuality. In discussing his debt to these artists, Armitage has emphasised the fact that he shares many of their socio-political concerns, in addition to the way they use Christian imagery and different aspects of local cultures.’

My other pieces for Artlyst are:

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Posted by Jonathan Evens at 00:51 0 comments
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