Visual Arts

Visual Arts: The Transparent Connoisseur 2

April 17, 2010
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The issues might seem highly technical and of interest only to specialists, but I think they do matter. In the first place they matter as a corrective to our understanding of Rembrandt, but they also matter for the critical insights they offer into the techniques and practices of scholarship. By Gary Schwartz Earlier columns were…

Classical Music Review: Yo-Yo Ma

March 28, 2010
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Reviewed By Caldwell Titcomb Yo-Yo Ma is the greatest living cellist. Now 54, he has been playing the cello for 50 years amassing a huge number of awards and other honors along the way. The Celebrity Series coaxed him home from his world-wide touring for a sold-out Symphony Hall recital on March 26 with British…

Theater Review: A Poetic ‘Apple’

March 24, 2010
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Imagine this day. See it in your mind. The sun on your face. The spring in your mouth. Your heart deep inside. No future. No past. No time. Just this day. This moment. — Apple by Vern Thiessen Apple by Vern Thiessen. Directed by Greg Maraio. Presented by Phoenix Theatre Artists and Company One, at…

Film Review: The Industrial Cultural Complex and ‘The Art of the Steal’

March 21, 2010
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It’s difficult at first to think of museums and charities as villains, but this documentary does a good job of showing just how much of America’s non-profit art world has been swallowed up by commerce and power brokers. The Art of the Steal. Directed by Don Argott. At the Coolidge Corner Cinema and Kendall Square…

Visual Arts: The Beauty of Bars of Color within Squares

February 24, 2010
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Sometimes what is initially thought to be awkward will eventually be visually pleasing. —Sol LeWitt, “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art,” 1967 Bars of Color within Squares, a permanent installation in MIT’s Green Center, Cambridge, MA. Finding Bars of Color within Squares. Photo: George Bouret Reviewed by Yumi Araki Hidden between three buildings surrounding Massachusetts Institute of…

Coming Attractions at Museums: February 2010

February 5, 2010
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By Peter Walsh Luis Meléndez: Master of the Spanish Still Life, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA through May 9. Locked into a low-status, unprofitable niche, talented Spanish still-life painter Luis Meléndez (1716–1780) made little money and achieved even less fame during his lifetime. He is said to have complained to the king, who never…

Visual Arts: Rembrandt’s Imagination

January 23, 2010
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I envision Rembrandt with chalk or pen always at hand, sketching from life and imagination constantly. This is also how he taught his pupils, who like him also produced numerous drawings related and unrelated to paintings or prints. Why do so many experts disagree? By Gary Schwartz In an earlier column I illustrated a large…

Visual Arts: At Rembrandt’s Core, The Drawings

January 16, 2010
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How many drawings by Rembrandt are around? More than many experts admit. The issue is not just a quibble over numbers. It has far-reaching consequences for our reconstruction of Rembrandt’s working method and our understanding of his art. The showdown is coming at a conference on the artist at the J. Paul Getty Museum in…

Food Muse: WHAT’S FOR DINNER IN THE AFTERLIFE? ORYX ANYONE?

January 6, 2010
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Food was front and center in the here and hereafter. A sumptuous feast was in the offing. But what was for dinner in the afterlife? Chasing the whim of what food went with funerary art, after several blind alleys I landed at Oleana, the Inman Square restaurant invented by Ana Sortun, a Norwegian Seattle native.…

Visual Arts Review: Color Me Evolutionary

December 11, 2009
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Visual artist Carmen Sasso’s stimulating interpretation of life’s colorful evolutionary ebb and flow exudes plenty of color, detail and movement. Carmen Sasso’s “You’re Welcome,” at the Atlantic Works Gallery until December 28 By Yumi Araki The Atlantic Works Gallery, located in East Boston, MA, offers a magnificent view of Boston harbor. Yet even in competition…

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