Tag Archives: Henry James

evil:designed to last

Posted on January 20, 2013 by Dave

The existence of villainy in a world under divine supervision is an issue which has long troubled humanity. In terms of literature and the arts, the presence of the serpent in the Garden of Eden was an unqualified and unmixed … Continue reading →

can’t find the switch of the light of good

Posted on January 16, 2013 by Dave

What is evil? A question that has been a source of much reflection over time. Certainly, the connection between the law and morality is always tenuous and much villainy is perfectly legal. In fact, the existence of evil in a … Continue reading →

Posted in Cinema/Visual/Audio, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion | Tagged Henry James, Henry James Portrait of a Lady, jane campion, Madame Pickwick, madame pickwick art blog, Michael Gorra, Nicole Kidman | Leave a comment

platonic painter and patron

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Dave

Isabella Stewart Gardner. A dashing individualist, with the showmanship of Ziegfeld and the temper of Toscanini, she took Boston by storm. A passion for old master art, young men and music all seemed to come together in one of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion | Tagged Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Bernard Berenson, Charles Eliot Norton, Countess Eleanor Palffy, Fenway Court Gardner Museum, Gardner Museum Boston, Gardner Museum Gothic Room, Henry Adams, Henry E. Huntington, Henry James, isabella stewart gardner, James J. Rorimer, John Singer Sargent, Longfellow Paul Revere's Ride, Madame Gautreau madame X, Madame Pickwick, madame pickwick art blog, raphael paintings | Leave a comment

Money is the sixth sense

Posted on April 11, 2012 by Dave

Isabella Stewart Gardner was certainly no prude. She liked to tell risque jokes in public, and she did her best to shake up, startle, and rattle staid old Boston society. Her pleasure dome in the Back Bay filled with masterpieces … Continue reading →

Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion | Tagged Anders Zorn, Bernard Berenson, Charles Eliot Norton, Countess Eleanor Palffy, Edith Wharton, Fenway Court Gardner Museum, Gentile Bellini, Henry James, isabella stewart gardner, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, John L. Sullivan, John Singer Sargent, Madame Pickwick, madame pickwick art blog, Morris Carter | Leave a comment

mrs. jack: Old Masters and young men

Posted on April 7, 2012 by Dave

She was a dashing individualist, “Mrs. Jack” as she was called, startled Boston high society by erecting a Venetian pleasure dome in the Back Bay and filling it with masterpieces for the public to enjoy. Venetian lions guard the entrance, … Continue reading →

Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion | Tagged Anders Zorn, Edgar Degas, Fenway Court, Gardner Museum Heist 1990, Harvard Fogg Museum of Art, Hendy rankings museums, Henry James, isabelle stewart gardner museum, John L. Gardner, Madame Pickwick, madame pickwick art blog, Rembrandt the galley, Stephen Kurkjian, The Gardner Heist, Toscanini, Ulrich Boser, Vermeer The Concert | Leave a comment

mid life crisis: faulty time machine

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Dave

Shapes of things. Fabian socialism. Martians sucking blood from humans for nourishment. H.G. Wells emergence as a novelist proper belongs to the period between the turn of the century and the end of its first decade, when he was able … Continue reading →

Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Literature/poetry/spoken word | Tagged arnold white, eugencis, Fabian Society, George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, Henry James, Julian Huxley, Madame Pickwick, madame pickwick art blog, madame pickwick art supplies, Orson Welles | Leave a comment

apollo rising

Posted on January 28, 2012 by Dave

The belief that paradise was up ahead, always just out of reach, had never wavered during the relentless rise of European secularism since the sixteenth century. From then until now, the tenacious grip of the symbolism of the paradise myth … Continue reading →

Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion | Tagged Andre Le Notre, Capability Brown, Chateau versailles gardens, Domenico Fontana, francois de cuvillies, Henry James, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, renaissance gardens | Leave a comment

madame x : plantation to paris

Posted on January 8, 2012 by Dave

The French were considered to have less scruples relating to eroticism than the English. Manet’s Olympia broke the mold, but, in an exhibition where paintings of nudes were common, that of Madame Gautreau in black evening dress was considered more … Continue reading →

Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Madame Pickwick Weekend, Modern Arts/Craft | Tagged a.hyatt mayer, Arthur Rimbaud, charles merrill mount, david mccullough, Diego Velazquez, Edouard Manet, Henry James, horace gregory, isabella stewart gardner, jack gardner, John Singer Sargent, louis de fourcaud, Paul Klee, sir osbert sitwell, stanley olson, Walter Benjamin | Leave a comment

halls of mirrors

Posted on January 7, 2012 by Dave

The paradox of representation is that it is never real. It remains a fragment of cultural dialog that even if conceived in the absence of narrative finishes by providing one. Both Singer’s Daughters of Edward Darley Boit and Velazquez’s las … Continue reading →

Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Madame Pickwick Weekend, Modern Arts/Craft | Tagged Diego Velazquez, erica e. hirshler, Franz Kafka, gareth hawker, Henry James, James McNeill Whistler, joel snyder, John Singer Sargent, mark brown guardian, Megan Marshall, Michel Foucault, radek | Leave a comment

homer: arcadia americana

Posted on November 25, 2011 by Dave

It’s art that arrives at its destination from the outside and then pays attention to observation. Homer is part of the strong figurative tradition in American art, and although appropriated as a popular stereotype it reaches back to older, quite … Continue reading →