Tag Archives: meryle secrest

a country doctor: chasing the maid through the gallery

It is another odd Kafka story: A Country Doctor. And the story of another peculiar fellow: Bernard Berenson. The aesthete and art dealer/pundit of late nineteenth-early twentieth century who promoted and profited from selling Italian Renaissance art to the deep … Continue reading

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berenson: such a deal

The whole thing was a scandal. Authenticating Old Master art, inflating the price, actig for the buyer and making commission as a seller. But there behavior probably reflected the same values and mannerisms of the wealthy industrial class they were … Continue reading

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canvas and the pound of flesh

The rape of Europa by Titian is probably the most celebrated painting in the collection of Old Masters assembled by Isabella Stewart Gardner at the turn of the last century. It hangs, all 70×80 inches of it, in a heavy … Continue reading

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lost highway: back to the city of the patriarchs

The self-hater. it has nothing to do with Gunter Grass’s stupid poem. His meta argument that its not the state its the government, is hoary socialist cant from the left; a socialist attacking Zionism is a family squabble at best. … Continue reading

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modigliani: mad, bad but a light burning bright

Very interesting take on a comparison between Modigliani and Picasso by Donald Kuspit. The point of  departure could be Nietzsche’s oft-cited quote that “god is dead” and with him the head of morality also fell from the guillotine into the … Continue reading

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self hatred: caging the instinct into decoration

Get Back. Get back to where you once belonged. Can art exist if it falls off the precipice into a void where there is no transformational effect on the individual and little or nothing to do with what constitutes the … Continue reading

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modigliani: humanizing the dream within the dream

Its an old question. Its manifestations are like sparks and fleeting, ambiguous forms capable of de-materialization. How do you reconcile the opposites between the sensual and the spiritual? Is defiance and disorder, as Modigliani seemed to imply, the only route … Continue reading

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la boheme : mannered art without manners

Amedeo Modigliani. A minor modernist? ” All that was divine in Modigliani sparkled through a sort of gloom ” It is one of those only the good die young stories, terminating at the premature age of thirty-five. There was no … Continue reading

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