More on: art

A number of recent events suggest a revival of interest in the work of Georges Rouault is underway. Three in particular are worth noting: In 2008 a major exhibition, Mystic Masque, curated by Stephen Schloesser, was held at the McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College; a year later a joint exhibition of work by…

In November and December of 2009, the Dillon Gallery in New York City mounted a show called Soliloquies which featured the work of two artists of faith: the twentieth-century French painter Georges Rouault and contemporary Nihonga painter Makoto Fujimura. The show not only provided a fascinating glimpse into artistic influence, but helped to introduce a…

ART MAY BE CONCERNED with the creative manipulation of images, but words are always part of the picture. When we encounter a work of art, a load of labels and captions, categories and explanations always works to help or hinder our better understanding. Some are printed on the wall beside the work; others we carry inside…

JONQUIL EVANS TURNED off of the blacktop and drove toward the pines in the distance. Gravel sounded against her LeSabre. She drove gingerly, but on this afternoon in late November the makings of a holiday wreath meant more to her than her LeSabre’s fine finish. Her husband the judge was good to her. Sometimes it almost…

SOME YEARS AGO Charlottesville, Virginia, was abuzz with the news that a wealthy Roman Catholic couple on an estate near town had built a private chapel for worship and had commissioned a painting of themselves in the presence of a resurrected Jesus Christ. My wife was amazed; what effrontery! I defended the couple, pointing out…

Figure and Landscape in the Work of Enrique Martínez Celaya   “Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth….” Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. —Genesis…

To me it seems that the pictures reproduced here are about the photographer’s home, about his place, in both important meanings of that word. —John Szarkowski, Introduction to William Eggleston’s Guide I’m sure I’m wrong about him, but it’s always seemed like slumming to me, those _____lovely color photographs—quickly seen shots of broken grave monuments…

IN  1994, THREE SPELUNKERS were looking for undiscovered caves in the Ardèche region of southeastern France. The region is named after the Ardèche River, which has cut through limestone for millennia and created hundreds of caves. On a summer weekend expedition they came across a place in a cliff wall where they sensed a draft…

John Kohan’s calling to sacred art began early: “Sacred art has been a lifelong preoccupation, judging from the earliest sketch of mine my mother saved. It is a pencil illustration of Jesus’ parable of “The Sower and the Seed”…drawn when I was a child of six or so.” Since age six, John has worked as…

TIRED OF THE THEORIES ABOUT ART, which I had either absorbed or spun myself, I did the decent thing at last. I took the inductive path—wandering the galleries themselves. Mockery had proven too facile, even if the offerings of New York galleries and museums had facilitated that posture. It left me hollow, especially after realizing…