In Europe, Simon Hantaï has long been recognized as a major painter. In the United States, he is nearly unknown. This is odd because he is one of the very few artists, European or American, who responded to Jackson Pollock’s poured paintings in a genuinely original manner...

J.M.W.Turner a Brit Királyi Akadémia 1843. évi éves kiállításán párban bemutatott Özönvíz képei nem csak művészettörténészek, de filozófusok, kultúr- és szellemtörténészek számára is kimeríthetetlen kincsesbánya. A tanulmány nem hozakodik elő forradalmian új megfejtéssel, célja csupán az eddigi értelmezések rendbeszedése, talán elsőként magyar nyelven. Az írás szabadon másolható, terjeszthető, felhasználható, idézhető. A lopás és a plágium a felhasználó lelkiismeretére van bízva.

In this essay, I will look at the paintings of the contemporary American painter John Currin. I will examine his oeuvre and attempt to illustrate his portrayal of beauty, gender roles, and behaviour as something not innate, but socially constructed. To do this, I will make a case for Currin’s paintings of middle-aged women as an expression and reflection of the dominant cultural views of women of this age...

Among the vast number of men who have thought fit to write down the history of their own lives, three or four have achieved masterpieces which stand out preeminently: Saint Augustine in his “Confessions,” Samuel Pepys in his “Diary,” Rousseau in his “Confessions.” It is among these extraordinary documents, and unsurpassed by any of them, that the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini takes its place.

The opening words of Sir William Dugdale's account of Coventry assert that it is a city "remarkable for antiquity, charters, rights and privileges, and favours shown by monarchs." Though this handbook is primarily concerned with a feature of the city he does not here mention—its magnificent buildings—the history of these is bound up with that of the city.

The art of any artistically gifted people may be studied with various purposes and in various ways. One man, being himself an artist, may seek inspiration or guidance for his own practice; another, being a student of the history of civilization, may strive to comprehend the products of art as one manifestation of a people's spiritual life; another may be interested chiefly in tracing the development of artistic processes, forms, and subjects; and so on.

The Buonarroti Simoni, to whom Michelangelo belonged, were a Florentine family of ancient burgher nobility. Their arms appear to have been originally "azure two bends or." To this coat was added "a label of four points gules inclosing three fleur-de-lys or." That augmentation, adopted from the shield of Charles of Anjou, occurs upon the scutcheons of many Guelf houses and cities.

The title of this book,—or, more accurately, of its subject;—for no author was ever less likely than I have lately become, to hope for perennial pleasure to his readers from what has cost himself the most pains,—will be, perhaps, recognised by some as the last clause of the line chosen from Keats by the good folks of Manchester, to be written in letters of gold on the cornice, or Holy rood, of the great Exhibition which inaugurated the career of so many...

The duty which is to-day laid on me, of introducing, among the elements of education appointed in this great University, one not only new, but such as to involve in its possible results some modification of the rest, is, as you well feel, so grave, that no man could undertake it without laying himself open to the imputation of a kind of insolence; and no man could undertake it rightly, without being in danger of having his hands shortened by dread of his task, and mistrust of himself.

Hereafter I hope in another lecture to have the pleasure of laying before you an historical survey of the lesser, or as they are called the Decorative Arts, and I must confess it would have been pleasanter to me to have begun my talk with you by entering at once upon the subject of the history of this great industry.

It is a happy memory that associates the foundation of our Royal Academy with the delivery of these inaugural discourses by Sir Joshua Reynolds, on the opening of the schools, and at the first annual meetings for the distribution of its prizes. They laid down principles of art from the point of view of a man of genius who had made his power felt, and with the clear good sense which is the foundation of all work that looks upward and may hope to live.

Der erste, welcher die Malerei und Poesie miteinander verglich, war ein Mann von feinem GefUehle, der von beiden Kuensten eine Aehnliche Wirkung auf sich verspuerte. Beide, empfand er, stellen uns abwesende Dinge als gegenwaertig, den Schein als Wirklichkeit vor; beide taeuschen, und beider Taeuschung gefaellt.

Every work of art is the child of its age and, in many cases, the mother of our emotions. It follows that each period of culture produces an art of its own which can never be repeated. Efforts to revive the art-principles of the past will at best produce an art that is still-born. It is impossible for us to live and feel, as did the ancient Greeks. In the same way those who strive to follow the Greek methods in sculpture achieve only a similarity of form, the work remaining soulless for all time

It is now about fifteen centuries since the Madonna with her Babe was first introduced into art, and it is safe to say that, throughout all this time, the subject has been unrivalled in popularity. It requires no very profound philosophy to discover the reason for this. The Madonna is the universal type of motherhood, a subject which, in its very nature, appeals to all classes and conditions of people.

After prolonged study of the art shown at the Paris Autumn Salon you ask yourself: This whirlpool of jostling ambitions, crazy colours, still crazier drawing and composition--whither does it tend? Is there any strain of tendency, any central current to be detected? Is it young genius in the raw, awaiting the sunshine of success to ripen its somewhat terrifying gifts? Or is the exhibition a huge, mystifying blague?

The human being who thrills to the experience of beauty in nature and in art does not forever rest with that experience unquestioned. The day comes when he yearns to pierce the secret of his emotion, to discover what it is, and why, that has so stung him--to defend and to justify his transport to himself and to others. He seeks a reason for the faith that is in him.

Die erste Auflage dieses Werkes erschien in fünf Bänden in den Jahren 1905-1912. Ich beginne die zweite mit dem Ausdruck des Dankes an alle, die mich bei der Ausführung der ersten unterstützt haben. Ihre Zahl ist so groß, daß ich sie nicht einzeln nennen kann. An der Spitze steht die Dankespflicht gegen Seine Majestät den Deutschen Kaiser, der auf Antrag des Tages für Denkmalpflege durch Allerhöchsten Erlaß vom 27. März 1904 die finanzielle Grundlage des Unternehmens sichergestellt hatte.

Many attempts have been made by writers on art and poetry to define beauty in the abstract, to express it in the most general terms, to find some universal formula for it. The value of these attempts has most often been in the suggestive and penetrating things said by the way. Such discussions help us very little to enjoy what has been well done in art or poetry, to discriminate between what is more and what is less excellent in them...

More than that of any other modern people French art is a national expression. It epitomizes very definitely the national æsthetic judgment and feeling, and if its manifestations are even more varied than are elsewhere to be met with, they share a certain character that is very salient. Of almost any French picture or statue of any modern epoch one's first thought is that it is French. The national quite overshadows the personal quality.

I am aware that it is commonly held as a fact by most writers that sculpture, as well as painting, was naturally discovered originally by the people of Egypt, and also that there are others who attribute to the Chaldeans the first rough carvings of statues and the first reliefs. In like manner there are those who credit the Greeks with the invention of the brush and of colouring...