Crossfield 1 by Jack Tworkov (Collection of Ms. Beatrice Perry) This has been a summer of enjoying the art reviews of Sebastian Smee in the Boston Globe. (Before coming to the Globe, Smee has wrote for The Australian, the Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Times, The Financial Times, The Independent on Sunday, The Art Newspaper […]
The Intuition Deliminator
Homage to Ucello #4, Anna Hepler (Photo: Courtesy of Karin Thomas) I have written about Sebastian Smee’s review of Anna Hepler’s show at the Portland Museum in an earlier post but there’s another passage in that article that has continued to hold my attention. Hepler’s approach to her work and to teaching runs close to […]
Burchfield on My Mind
Charles Burchfield, Gateway to September Tanglewood in Winter Autumnal Fantasy (This painting was not included in the original Hammer exhibit but was available for inclusion in the Whitney show) How easy it is to think you know an artist’s work. I’ve seen Charles Burchfield paintings all of my life, but now I know that really […]
Human Rootedness
The dominance of the eye and the suppression of the other senses tends to push us into detachment, isolation and exteriority. The art of the eye has certainly produced imposing and thought-provoking structures, but it has not facilitated human rootedness in the world. The fact that the modernist idiom has not generally been able to […]
The Eye in the Hand
White Tara, Dharmapala Thangka Centre *** The hands want to see, the eyes want to caress. –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe *** The dancer has his ear in his toes. –Friedrich Nietzsche *** How would the painter or poet express anything other than his encounter with the world? –Maurice Merleau-Ponty These quotes are included in The […]
The Fundamental Geometries
Anna Hepler’s “The Great Haul,” at the Portland Museum of Art in Maine. The sculpture is made from plastic and makes reference to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. (Photo: Scott Peterman) Thank you Sebastian Smee, for addressing an issue that feels extremely personal and one that I have written about here many times: the demand […]
Mind and Eye
If the body had been easier to understand, nobody would have thought that we had a mind. Richard Rorty, from Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature What a provocative quote from the philosophical giant himself, and one that I have been pondering all day after spending some time on Mind Lab, a beautifully constructed site […]
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Coyne’s Law
Lowell Lieberman, composer My sister Rebecca is a musician and composer, and I’ve been piggybacking off of her exquisite ear for most of my life. She first introduced me to the music of Lowell Lieberman 20 years ago and we have followed his music making with a quiet reverence ever since. His approach to tonality […]
Inside and Outside, at the Same Time
Photo: From the Brooklyn Museum of Art Another evocative passage by way of Juhani Pallasmaa’s The Eyes of the Skin. (More quotes from the book here, and more will be posted in the future since I have been in a state of awe regarding this book for some time.) The role of the hand and […]
Othello on the Common
Seth Gilliam plays Othello Theater alert for Bostonians and anyone who might be visiting town through August 15: Do whatever you need to do to your summer schedule to see the spectacular (and free!) production of Othello on the Boston Common. We are regulars and have seen most of the Commonwealth Shakespeare productions over the […]