This interesting (if scientific) exhibit offers a workmanlike description of how colors are achieved in many art forms – with little exploration of the creative process that informs the use of color in those fields.
Nicholas MarloweArt & ArchitectureLondon,
Ultramarine is a blue pigment derived from a semi-precious stone, lapis lazuli. During the Renaissance period, lapis lazuli was more highly prized than gold, and with good reason: its only source was in the remote province of Badhakhshan in northeast ...
English National Opera presents a magical, watery world in this rendition of Bizet's work.
Frances WilsonMusicLondon,
Penny Woolcock’s visually arresting “The Pearl Fishers” returns to the Coliseum in London in a revival of the 2010 English National Opera co-production with the Metropolitan Opera of New York.
The original production was praised for its stunning effects ...
Nicholas MarloweArt & ArchitectureLondon,
There's something deeply reassuring about a show that has been held every year, without interruption, since 1769. Wars and revolutions may come and go — indeed, entire civilizations may rise and fall — but the annual Royal Academy of Arts ...
This compact examination of how Italian artists tackled architecture demonstrates that buildings played a more important role in 14th- to 16th-century art than previously thought.
Nicholas MarloweArt & ArchitectureLondon,
"Building the Picture" is about the bit of an Italian Renaissance painting that often seems to be jostling with the figures for pictorial space: the architectural background. In fact, as curators Amanda Lillie and Caroline Campbell convincingly demonstrate, buildings played ...
Tate Modern and MoMA offer a comprehensive exhibit of the artist's breakout technique.
Nicholas MarloweArt & ArchitectureLondon,
Old age is no respecter of genius. True, there have been some artists — Goya, for example, or Monet — who managed one final great surge of creativity, but the sad fact is that far more end up plagiarizing themselves, ...
The best works in this absorbing exhibit of the early Hanoverians show the royal family in informal settings.
Nicholas MarloweArt & ArchitectureLondon,
The future King George VII carried out his first official engagement at a playgroup in Wellington, New Zealand, early in April 2014. By all accounts, the 8-month-old son of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge handled the occasion with aplomb: ...
This thorough exploration of 70 years of a country's style proves that the Italians have always had it.
EratoArt & ArchitectureLondon,
Those who remember the V&A’s 2007 exhibition “The Golden Age of Couture” will find this latest kicks off in the same place, chronologically (and, sadly, in the same inadequate exhibition space as well) — just geographically, a little farther south. ...
Opulence defines this show: Everywhere you look, extravagantly dressed, aristocratic figures swagger around in grand architectural settings, as if they were taking part in a series of lavishly staged theatrics.
Nicholas MarloweArt & ArchitectureLondon,
For several weeks now, the National Gallery has been a hive of activity as preparations were made for this new show — the first ever in the UK — on the great Venetian painter Paolo Veronese. Rooms have been closed, ...
This big, handsomely mounted exhibition reconsiders the fearsome Norsemen with up-to-date research and the latest archaeological finds.
Nicholas MarloweArt & ArchitectureLondon,
History, they say, is written by the winners, but most of what we know about the Vikings was recorded by their victims, who were usually Christian monks, and the monks were very sore losers. To them we owe the traditional ...
EratoArt & ArchitectureLondon,
What is it that we so enjoy in the gloomy comfort of a good ruin? The number of picturesque follies scattered about the English landscape might make one think this is a peculiarly British taste, but according to the Tate’s ...
