Views of different countries combining practical observations and ideal visions are the focus of two major exhibitions occurring in Rome: Turner: work from Tate and Hiroshige: visions from Japan.
painting
One of the joys of the MASP in the Paulista Avenue, Sao Paulo’s equivalent of the Champs Elysees, is that when you pay for entry (every day except Tuesday) nearly everyone else is too busy making or spending money to block your view of old and new masters.
John Lucas reviews a genuinely interesting collection of essays by Jim Burns – and adds some equally interesting observations of his own
The Danes have given us “hygge” as a not directly translate-able concept particular to their culture. The Cornish offer “hireth” to refer to an intangible feeling, a longing for the familiarity and comfort of a place.
I expected this to be an exhibition focusing on the links between art and T.S Eliot. Journeys with ‘The Waste Land’s is however something more unique. It is an exhibition that focuses purely on this extraordinary poem with all its contexts, voices and virtuosity.
Arp, The poetry of Forms is a major retrospective of an artist whose work seeks to captures abstract thought. This exhibition is contrasted by Tracey Emin’s My bed and her selection of Turner sea-scapes, that deal with a more visceral response to life.
Art is Comic, billed as a light-hearted response to terror, is the latest exhibition to embrace rough, industrial brickwork as the perfect backdrop for popular artists with hundreds of thousands of followers and an outwardly casual attitude towards failing politics and social injustice.
“Matisse in the Studio” does not deliver the sensational overdoses of colour and the full-on confrontation with genius of the Tate blockbusters, but there is a place for this more digestible insight into the transformative way Matisse saw based on examining his use of “objets d’art” as inspiration.
On the whole, the curators have given the works the space they need and brought a coherent approach to displaying them in relation to each other, which provides the viewer with a largely satisfying experience.
Thomas Ovans browses an ambitious anthology of poems inspired by the artist Stanley Spencer and finds that every picture may tell several stories
Jenny Vuglar visits the Winifred Nicholson exhibition Liberation of Colour currently at the Djanogly Art Gallery, Lakeside Arts, Nottingham (4 March – 4 June 2017)
Born in the Normandy port of Honfleur in 1824, son of a mariner and whose dying wish was to return to the coast, Eugene Boudin had an instinctive understanding of the play of light on water and in the sky.
By Barbara Lewis • art, exhibitions, painting, year 2018 • Tags: art, Barbara Lewis, exhibitions, painting