Jean Lecomte du Nouÿ: Imagination and History  by Eileen Trulli Like many of the academic painters of the 19th century, Lecomte du Nouÿ followed the traditions of neo-classicism. His technical skills as a painter were developed in the academic traditions, but his travels to North Africa inspired his imagination and the imagination of his European audience. >> Read the full article...		8/1/2004
		Eugene Delacroix’s Moroccan Notebook  by Adrian Kohn Delacroix filled seven notebooks, only four of which survive, during his visit to North Africa in 1832. These notebooks represent some of the most precious memories that were to haunt him for the rest of his life. >> Read the full article...		8/1/2004
		The First School At Fontainebleau  by Lorenzo Buonanno In 1530, the Italian painter Giovanni Battista di Jacopo (1494-1540), more commonly referred to as Rosso Fiorentino, arrived at the Château de Fontainebleau at the behest of François I of France. François I was a great enthusiast of Italian art, and had already attempted to transplant some of Italy's major artists into France with slim to moderate success.  >> Read the full article...		7/1/2004
		Hotel Welcome  by Eileen Costello In 1955, the French critic Maurice LeMaître commented, "Whenever you read about the French writers and painters of the previous generation who are now basking in glory – Cocteau, Picasso, Matisse, etc. — you find that sooner or later they took up residence on the Côte d'Azur." Took up residence, indeed, as year after year they settled into small hotels and villas, sometimes for just a few weeks, at other times several months, or, as in the case of Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso later in his life, for many years. >> Read the full article...		7/1/2004
		Art Review: Looking at Prints  by Michael R. Wilson The Unfinished Print is interesting because it shows viewers the relationships artists have with the process of making objects. It is a great introduction to the question of what constitutes “finish” and intense dialogue regarding working and reworking a piece of art. >> Read the full article...		7/1/2004
		Umbria: The Green Heart Of Italy  by Adele Kenny Apart from breathtaking panoramas, places of historical and religious interest, museums, and theaters, Umbria is known for its music and art festivals. Just before the beginning of Lent, Carnival celebrations in the region include parades complete with chariots and masks—an impressive sight along the streets of the medieval towns. >> Read the full article...		6/1/2004
		The Italian Avant-Garde in the Mid-20th Century   by Adrian Kohn Italians have done more of their fair share for the history of art. This has been true not only during the Renaissance, but in the 20th century as well. It was new ideas of what else might constitute art- besides painting and sculpture that led to Spatialism, Atre Povera, and Conceptualism. >> Read the full article...		6/1/2004
		Giorgione  by Lorenzo Buonanno In November of 1510, Isabella D'Este, Marchioness of Mantua and owner of one of the most prized collections of art in the entire Italian peninsula, wrote a letter to her agent in Venice concerning the acquisition of a work by a young burgeoning star of Venetian painting, Giorgione of Castelfranco.  >> Read the full article...		6/1/2004
		Art Review: Open House  by William Powhida As a Brooklyn-based critic I had high expectations for Open House: Working in Brooklyn. The sprawling exhibit features over three hundred works by two hundred artists who happen to have a studio in Brooklyn. It is an overwhelming exhibit that demonstrates little curatorial responsibility. >> Read the full article...		6/1/2004
		Art Review: The Eighth Bienal  by Monroe Denton The coup of the Eighth Bienal of Contemporary Art in Havana was Wilfredo Prieto’s installation, outside the 18th century fortifications which had originally been erected to defend the city’s harbor and have been remodeled to serve as the primary exhibition venue for this survey. The Bienal included nearly 150 national representatives. Unsurprisingly, the largest national representation was Cuba, which featured twenty artists. Also unsurprisingly, there was only limited U.S. participation, none of which was official. >> Read the full article...		6/1/2004
		Moma At El Museo Del Barrio  by William Powhida MoMA at El Museo Del Barrio represents the first major exhibition of the museum’s collection of Latin American and Caribbean art. Perhaps as much of a political move as an altruistic one, MoMA has let a diverse body of work out from its vaults and into the public eye after languishing for decades. >> Read the full article...		5/1/2004
		La Vida Y La Muerte - Long Live Death  by Veronica Moriarty The idiosyncratic folk art of the Day of the Dead has long inspired Mexican artists, including the printmaker Jose Guadalupe Posada whose biting satiric etchings and lithographs depicted contemporary social and political personalities as calaveras and all sharing the same destiny—death. >> Read the full article...		5/1/2004
		On Contemporary Art Of El Salvador  by Claudia Rousseau Countries like Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica and El Salvador all have contemporary art scenes of some importance, with histories that stretch back to the early 19th century. Of these, El Salvador’s is certainly among the strongest, with a list of important names that are legendary in the country’s cultural heritage, and many more recent artists whose work should claim more international attention.  >> Read the full article...		5/1/2004
		Frida Kahlo: Viva La Vida  by Veronica Moriarty I painted my own reality,” Frida Kahlo declared in 1940. Passion, intimacy, mystery, and fantasy informed the life, politics and art of Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo Calderon. Known to the world as “Frida Kahlo,” the diminutive and enigmatic painter has become a feminist icon through her painting and her lifestyle. >> Read the full article...		5/1/2004
		Storm King  by Eileen Costello Many names such as Henry Moore, Alexander Calder, Roy Lichtenstein, and Richard Serra are familiar to all, but the collection also represents perhaps less familiar, albeit just as important artists, including Kenneth Snelson, Menashe Kadshman, and Siah Armajani. The more intrepid visitors walk upon the paths (there are over five miles of roads and paths), but if one opts for the tram tour the adventure can be just as rousing.  >> Read the full article...		4/1/2004
		The Art of Japan: Three Periods 14-17th Centuries  by B. Kauffman The Kamakura period was marked by a gradual shift in power from the nobility to landowning military men in the provinces. This era was a time of dramatic transformation in the politics, society, and culture of Japan. The bakufu, or government by warrior chieftains (shogun) or their regents, controlled the country from their base in Kamakura, near modern Tokyo. >> Read the full article...		3/1/2004
		Romanticism: The Great Escape  by Adele Kenny Romanticism is most closely associated with an artistic, philosophical, religious, and political movement of the late eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth. As much as it was a movement, it was also, perhaps more specifically, an attitude or intellectual orientation that may be viewed as a rejection of the formal orthodoxy – the order, harmony, balance, and idealization – typical of Classicism, particularly 18th century Neoclassicism. >> Read the full article...		2/1/2004
		Venetian Colorito and Seascapes of Turner  by Lorenzo G. Buonanno Joseph Turner is a giant of Romantic landscape and seascape painting. Because of his use of color and light in the modeling of form he is considered by some to be a forerunner of the general movement towards abstraction that took place at the end of the nineteenth century and proceeded into the twentieth.  >> Read the full article...		2/1/2004
		Gravestones of Early New England  by Lorenzo Buonanno The first colonists came from the middle class and among them were craftsmen and laborers, but no professional artists. To commission a gravestone one naturally asked the craftsman whose trade was the most applicable to the labor. Stonecutters and carpenters were therefore the first gravestone sculptors, much as the first portraitists were often painters of shop signs. >> Read the full article...		1/1/2004
		Benjamin West  by Michael Hickey In the late 18th century there was a major change in American figurative and narrative painting. An emphasis on portraits of the upper class, as well as an interest in large-scale history painting, began to predominate. Benjamin West (1738 - 1820), whose art was most instrumental in effecting this change, went to Europe in 1760. >> Read the full article...		1/1/2004