Tag Archives: art

A Poem Is a Sketch

Posted on October 9, 2025 by JMN

Disconcert. Defamiliarize. Distort. Disrupt. Draw, Stardust! A friend I’ll nickname Stardust, avid prose reader, has remarked that relatively few people have a taste for poetry nowadays. I surmise it’s always been so, even in this or that era when <name-your-Great-Poet> … Continue reading →

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Absurdity Muddled With Beauty: Insouciant!

Posted on September 9, 2025 by JMN

Muddling is when you gently and lovingly release aromatic oils from fruits and herbs. “I have finally freed myself from the sticky medium of paint, and am working directly with light itself.” (Man Ray, 1922) In French, the title [“Violon … Continue reading →

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Untie These Hidebound Eyes, Unbind These Hogtied Hands

Posted on July 12, 2025 by JMN

Jason Farago-rhymes-with-Chicago writes a deep, reflective appreciation of Cézanne’s work, calling Cézanne the first painter he ever loved.  BC*: For six centuries, ever since some scientifically minded Florentines had developed rules of perspective that made art look more like life, … Continue reading →

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‘His Technique Can Be Potently Slapdash’

Posted on May 31, 2025 by JMN

If the images in the survey feel more like news than comment, that’s partly because we can sense the press photos Shahn used as his sources. Though his paintings themselves aren’t close to photorealistic — his technique can be potently … Continue reading →

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‘That Falls Well’: Cartoon Paean Times Three

Posted on May 26, 2025 by JMN

As a kid studying high school French, I read with delight Mark Twain’s depiction of an American’s attempt to converse with a Frenchman. Twain wickedly renders the Frenchman’s remarks in literal English, alongside his own fractured French, to comic effect. … Continue reading →

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Toyin Ojih Odutola Draws Loud

Posted on May 25, 2025 by JMN

I like how Toyin Ojih Odutola assembles faces from facets, a treatment I strive increasingly, if feebly, to approximate. I describe it to myself in personal shorthand as “envisaging”: implementing visage as a sort of ‘scape rather than anatomical likeness … Continue reading →

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Purloining With Pizzazz: Wayne Thiebaud

Posted on May 18, 2025 by JMN

This copying work helped Thiebaud figure out his own solutions to artistic problems. I blush to own it, but I was never keen on pointillism. For all that it purported to be scintillating, it has a diffuseness that feels static. … Continue reading →

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A Good Illustrator With a Modest Streak

Posted on May 14, 2025 by JMN

… Mr. Moore remained steadfast in avoiding lofty posturing as a fine artist. “If someone wants a picture of a horse to illustrate their new range of lasagna,” he said in the Agency Partners interview, “then I follow the brief … Continue reading →

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You Shall Not Crucify Mankind on a Cross of… Crypto

Posted on May 11, 2025 by JMN

With apologies to William Jennings Bryan, it’s called a “rug pull”: A celebrity touts a new digital coin, prices soar and then insiders who own most of the coins pull the rug: They sell their stakes for a big profit … Continue reading →

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‘Modest, Solitary Buildings Were Often Her Subject Matter’: Gretchen Dow Simpson (1939-2025)

Posted on May 10, 2025 by JMN

While modest, solitary buildings were often her subject matter, Ms. Simpson’s work was not purely representational. A former commercial photographer, she applied a telephoto approach to many of her paintings, zooming in on windows, doorways or rooftops to emphasize the … Continue reading →

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