With their green goats, giant roosters and bridal couples flying through the air, Marc Chagall’s works appear fantastic, but he insisted he only painted direct reminiscences of his own life.
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Faces Then focuses on the 16th-century, regarded as the golden age of the portrait, when it was the rich, the powerful and the burgeoning bourgeoisie who could afford to have their portraits taken. Faces Now confines itself to the period since 1990, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and, with it, the collapse of ideologies and artistic parameters.
Norbert Hirschhorn finds mythic significance behind a word & image collaboration between an artist and a poet
Jill Harris enthuses about a remarkable tapestry on show at London’s Fleming Collection
Jacqueline Saphra’s new pamphlet collection may not take long to read – but it leaves a lasting impression on Rosie Johnston
What exactly is the essence of Belgium? Far harder to pin down than French chic or English sang-froid, the nation’s uneasy mix of Walloon and Flemish, surreal and down-to-earth, all miraculously held together, is perfectly encapsulated by the Atomium – a giant, futuristic structure on the northern edge of Brussels.
Norbert Hirschhorn takes a long cool look at a new poetry & art volume from Australia
Matisse’s Startling Late Works: The Cut-Outs. Tate Modern, 17 April – 7 September 2014 No wonder Henri Matisse is well loved. His works are sensuous, jubilant, gorgeous: they envelop and immerse the viewer in voluptuousness, in light that finds itself materialised as coloured form, coloured space.
Merryn Williams is thankful that many poets remain unconvinced about the necessity of war and find compelling ways to say so in this new anthology
In Brussels, art nouveau found its most complete expression in the architecture of Victor Horta. Now the Brussels’ Musees Royaux des Beaux Arts has devoted a huge new “Fin-de-Siecle” section, a museum in itself, to the artistic context in which he thrived.
Now fully restored, with its chequered Flemish floors, semi-circular gallery and portico inspired by a Roman triumphal arch, the Rubenshuis, Ruben’s home in Antwerp, is one of the most popular attractions in a vibrant city, just under an hour’s train journey from Brussels.
An exhibition of the extraordinary output of France’s Henri Cartier-Bresson, hailed as the founder of photojournalism and “the eye of the century”. That is true in the fullest sense of the words, given his exceptional ability to see the telling detail, or, in his own words, to seize the fact related to “the deep reality”.
By Barbara Lewis • art, exhibitions, photography, year 2015 • Tags: art, Barbara Lewis, exhibitions, photography