Tag Archives: painting

“Corrupted Formalism”

Posted on May 1, 2019 by JMN

I ponder what exactly the relationship between professional critic and working artist is. I, of course, am neither — a nosy bystander at best. I’m aware glancingly of debates in the professional art community about who says and does what. … Continue reading →

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Parting Looks

Posted on April 30, 2019 by JMN

Harold’s welded tonnage of heroic longhorn steer stands about eight feet tall at the poll (the space between his ears). It’s from an early period — the 80’s. Harold donated the steer to his alma mater, Sul Ross State University … Continue reading →

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Parting Looks

Posted on April 29, 2019 by JMN

This painting has some slight appeal for me. Maybe it’s better called a sketch, and its appeal is in its very sketchiness. It’s flat; there’s no hint of color perspective. The figures are suggested crudely. The paint is slathered on … Continue reading →

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Parting Looks

Posted on April 28, 2019 by JMN

When I re-launched this blog a year ago, my father had died. I imagined one use for the blog as being an archive for images of some of his art works. That particular thrust of the blog faltered. Lately, with … Continue reading →

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Warholiana Keeps On Keeping On

Posted on April 12, 2019 by JMN

Sprayed with silver and decorated with tinfoil, Andy Warhol’s Factory was not only his studio, but a hangout for collaborators and muses like the Velvet Underground and Edie Sedgwick. Photojournalist Nat Finkelstein spent three years documenting it all (“All tomorrow’s … Continue reading →

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“I don’t paint what I see but what I saw”

Posted on April 11, 2019 by JMN

There’s much that’s discoverable for me about Munch. These excerpts stood out. Artists I admire are similarly self-critical and leery of pretty pictures. Munch’s house and studio were on a remote hillside above Oslo, where he fled after his 1908 … Continue reading →

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Paint-by-Numbers

Posted on April 6, 2019 by JMN

For art critics, painting-by-numbers was, and is, a byword for robotic repetition and unoriginality… (Jonathan Jones, “From Warhol to minimalism: how painting by numbers revolutionised art,” The Guardian, 4-5-19) At some point in my pre-teen years I was given a … Continue reading →

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Cartoon Transfer Technique

Posted on March 28, 2019 by JMN

The article is about Raphael’s preparatory cartoon for his fresco “The School of Athens” in the Vatican. What caught my eye in particular was mention of the method used to transfer the image to the walls. Its value must have been … Continue reading →

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Van Gogh in London

Posted on March 27, 2019 by JMN

A new exhibition at Tate Britain, “Van Gogh and Britain,” opens March 27, 2019. This article causes me to think somewhat differently about van Gogh. Of several good illustrations it contains, I chose the painting reproduced here because I’ve never … Continue reading →

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“You Invent Your Own Game”

Posted on March 24, 2019 by JMN

Older artists profiled in this article are achieving belated critical and financial success after laboring in obscurity for much of their careers. In her title the author makes the artists’ ethnicity explicit, providing good context for the categorization, and it’s … Continue reading →

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