Category Archives: Arts & Literature

The New York Times Book Review – October 22, 2023

Image

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW (October 22, 2023): This week’s issue features “Hunting the Falcon,” on this week’s cover, Tina Brown, who reviewed it, calls it “a fierce, scholarly tour de force,” adding: “The authors, a husband-and-wife historian team, are a dream pairing.”

When Courtly Love Goes Wrong, It’s Deadly

In “Hunting the Falcon,” the historians John Guy and Julia Fox take a fresh look at an infamous Tudor marriage — and find there is indeed more to know.

By Tina Brown

HUNTING THE FALCON: Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and the Marriage That Shook Europe, by John Guy and Julia Fox


Anne Boleyn glanced over her shoulder repeatedly as she waited at the Tower of London for her executioner, a specialist swordsman who had been summoned from France. Would Henry VIII, who could spare lives as casually as he snuffed them out, spare her life on the scaffold as he’d been known to do before?

1960s London Comes Alive in a Fierce, Funny Coming-of-Age Novel

The book cover of “The Halt During the Chase,” by Rosemary Tonks, is set in a grid of purple, yellow and orange blocks.

In “The Halt During the Chase,” by Rosemary Tonks — first published in 1972, and newly reissued — a young woman goes in search of herself.

By Mary Marge Locker

THE HALT DURING THE CHASE, by Rosemary Tonks


From the first page of this clever, fishy little novel, our narrator, Sophie, is the kind of woman whose laughter is a weapon. She could scare off an assailant with one well-timed whack of her tongue. Originally published in 1972, “The Halt During the Chase” is the second Rosemary Tonks novel to be reissued by New Directions in as many years, bringing a new audience to her charming and imperfect heroines, who are all voice, half poetry and half snarl.

Reviews: ‘The Week In Art’

The Week In Art Podcast (October 20, 2023): This week: it’s the second year of Paris +, the event that has taken over from Fiac as the leading French art fair. How is Art Basel’s French flagship faring amid geopolitical turmoil and economic uncertainty, and is Paris still on the rise as a cultural hub?

We speak to Georgina Adam, an editor-at-large at The Art Newspaper, and Kabir Jhala, our deputy art market editor, who are in Paris, to find out. The largest ever exhibition of the work of the Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto opened last week at the Hayward Gallery in London, before travelling to Beijing and Sydney next year. We talk to its co-curator Thomas Sutton.

And this episode’s Work of the Week is La femme-cheval or the Horse-Woman, a painting made in 1918 by the French artist Marie Laurencin. She is the subject of a major survey, called Sapphic Paris, opening this week at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia in the US. Cindy Kang, who co-curated the exhibition, tells us more about this landmark work in Laurencin’s life.

Paris +, 20-22 October.

Hiroshi Sugimoto: Time Machine, Hayward Gallery, London, until 7 January 2023; UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, 23 March-23 June 2024; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia, 2 August-27 October 2024.

Marie Laurencin: Sapphic Paris, Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, US, 22 October-21 January.

Classical: Maria Callas Sings ‘O Mio Babbino Caro’

Warner Classics (October 20, 2023) – The voice and artistry of Maria Callas breath new life into the aria “O mio babbino caro”, from Puccini’s opera Gianni Schicchi, in this entrancing illustrated video designed by Matteo Cozzo.

The video opens with Maria stepping onto the stage and kneeling, as the aria is intended to be sung. It then tells the story of this poignant aria through the designer’s unique style, using the collage technique to create unique textures, expressions, and effects.

#ClassicalMusic #Opera #Puccini

Exposition: A Tour Of The ‘Paris+ Par Art Basel 2023’

ART VISION TV / C&B JOURNAL (October 19, 2023) – The inaugural edition of Paris+ par Art Basel brought together 156 premier galleries from 30 countries and territories – including 61 exhibitors with spaces in France – in a new flagship event that further amplifies Paris’s international standing as a cultural capital.

Paris+ par Art Basel Paris 2023

Paris+ par Art Basel Paris 2023

A strong line-up of galleries from France was joined by exhibitors from across Europe, Africa, Asia, North and South America, and the Middle East for a global showcase of the highest quality. Reaching beyond the Grand Palais Éphémère, the fair presented an active cultural program from morning to night, all week, and throughout the city, through a robust program of collaborations with Paris’s cultural institutions and its city-wide sector Sites.

Exhibitions: Vertigo Of Color – Matisse, Derain, & The Origins Of Fauvism

Study for "Luxe, calme et volupté" (Etude pour “Luxe, calme et volupté”), Henri Matisse  French, Oil on canvas
Study for “Luxe, calme et volupté” – Henri Matisse – 1904

Vertigo of Color: Matisse, Derain, and the Origins of Fauvism

October 13, 2023–January 21, 2024

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (October 18, 2023) – Over an intense nine weeks in the summer of 1905 in the modest fishing village of Collioure on the French Mediterranean, Henri Matisse and Andre Derain embarked on a partnership that led to a wholly new, radical artistic language later known as Fauvism.

The Port of Collioure (Le port de Collioure), André Derain  French, Oil on canvas
The Port of Collioure – André Derain – 1905

Their daring, energetic experiments with color, form, structure, and perspective changed the course of French painting; it marked an introduction to early modernism and introduced Matisse’s first important body of work in his long career.

View of Collioure (Vue de Collioure), Henri Matisse  French, Oil on paper mounted on board
View of Collioure – Henri Matisse – 1905

This exhibition, which is co-organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, emphasizes as never before the legacy of that summer and examines the paintings, drawings, and watercolors of Matisse and Derain through sixty-five works on loan from national and international museums, including Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou; National Galleries of Scotland; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York; as well as private collections.

Fishing Boats, Collioure (Bateaux, pêcheurs, Collioure), André Derain  French, Oil on canvas
Fishing Boats – André Derain – 1905

Arts/Books: Times Literary Supplement – Oct 20, 2023

Image

Times Literary Supplement (October20, 2023): The new issue features ‘Rocket Man’ – North Korea’s dictator is no joke; A snapshot of Teju Cole; Daniel Dennett’s evolution; Monet’s muses; John le Carré undercover, and more…

The Arts: The ‘Etchings’ Of A Master Printer (MoMA)

The Museum of Modern Art (October 17, 2023) – What makes a 500-year-old printing process new? Master printer and publisher Jacob Samuel has brought etchings—prints created by transferring ink from a metal plate to paper—into the 21st century through collaborations with more than 60 contemporary artists. In this video, we filmed Samuel making his last print.

As he inks, hand wipes, and rolls his final print through the press, he reflects on his philosophy. “My goal is to leave no fingerprints,” he says. All you see is the artist’s work. I’m just another pencil. I’m just another brush. But I want the pencil to be sharpened really well. I want the brush to be sable. And to do that and be completely spontaneous, I trust the materials.”

Previews: Country Life Magazine – Oct 18, 2023

Image

Country Life Magazine – October18, 2023:  The latest issue features Norfolks – Little pockets of fun; The real Macnab – great adventures in the field; Britain’s loneliest trees; Beethoven’s Austria and Amsterdam’s canal life, and more…

I’m still standing

In memory of the Sycamore Gap tree, so callously cut down, we salute its fellow arboreal sentinels of Britain

Following in the footsteps of John Macnab

The Editor and The Judge set off across the Tulchan estate in pursuit of a stag, a brace of grouse and a salmon, in the spirit of John Buchan’s hero

Country Life International

  • Anna Tyzack uncovers Monaco’s unexpectedly magnificent restoration
  • Deborah Nicholls-Lee settles in to an Amsterdam canal house
  • Tom Parker Bowles gorges on Alpine cheese
  • Russell Higham explores the Austrian countryside that inspired Beethoven
  • Holly Kirkwood picks the best Caribbean properties
  • Mark Frary straps on his pads for a spot of cricket in the Windward Islands

Felix Francis’s favourite painting

The author picks a scene full of the thrill of the racecourse

Totally foxed

The rural people of Scotland are reeling under a prejudiced new law on hunting. Jamie Blackett despairs for the fox

The Englishness of English architecture

What makes a building English? Steven Brindle considers the answer, from soaring cathedral vaults to austere Palladian villas and rambling country piles

Native breeds

Kate Green luxuriates in the luscious locks of the Leicestershire Longwool

Come hell or high water

Few creatures face as difficult a journey as the salmon does to and from its spawning grounds. Simon Lester follows in its wake

Interiors

A dramatic kitchen and why it’s time to cuddle up in British wool

Plant theatre

Charles Quest-Ritson takes the well-worn path to the famed nursery of Larch Cottage in Cumbria

Having a field day

Behind hounds or on the marsh, casting for a salmon or stalking a stag, nothing stirs Adrian Dangar’s heart as fieldsports do

Kitchen garden cook

Melanie Johnson finds the perfect pairing for hazelnuts

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – Oct 23, 2023

Daniel Clowess “Quiet Luxury”

The New Yorker – October 23, 2023 issue: The new issue‘s cover features Daniel Clowes’s “Quiet Luxury” – The artist discusses patronage, in-home pillars, and what he’d do with a billion dollars.

Beyond the Myth of Rural America

Grant Woods sister Nan Wood Graham and his dentist Byron McKeeby stand by the painting for which they had posed...

Its inhabitants are as much creatures of state power and industrial capitalism as their city-dwelling counterparts.

By Daniel Immerwahr

Demanding that your friend pull the car over so you can examine an unusual architectural detail is not, I’m told, endearing. But some of us can’t help ourselves. For the painter Grant Wood, it was an incongruous Gothic window on an otherwise modest frame house in Eldon, Iowa, that required stopping. It looked as if a cottage were impersonating a cathedral. Wood tried to imagine who “would fit into such a home.” He recruited his sister and his dentist as models and costumed them in old-fashioned attire. The result, “American Gothic,” as he titled the painting from 1930, is probably the most famous art work ever produced in the United States.

When Foster Parents Don’t Want to Give Back the Baby

In many states, lawyers are pushing a new legal strategy that forces biological parents to compete for custody of their children.

American Chronicles – Beyond the Myth of Rural America

Its inhabitants are as much creatures of state power and industrial capitalism as their city-dwelling counterparts.

What Happened to San Francisco, Really?

It depends on which tech bro, city official, billionaire investor, grassroots activist, or Michelin-starred restaurateur you ask.By Nathan Heller

The Great Cash-for-Carbon Hustle

Offsetting has been hailed as a fix for runaway emissions and climate change—but the market’s largest firm sold millions of credits for carbon reductions that weren’t real.

Arts & Culture: The New Criterion — Nov 2023

Image
The New Criterion – November 2023 issue:

The burden of the humanities  by Wilfred M. McClay
A lyrical populist revolt  by Victor Davis Hanson
Blanquette de Bard  by Anthony Daniels
Polymorphous Peretz  by Myron Magnet


New poems  by David Mason & Ian Pople