“[I]n these Italian films . . . they love not just the lead characters, they love everybody in the frame, . . . they love everybody, warts and all.” Director Alexander Payne on Dino Risi’s Il Sorpasso (1962) and Italian cinema Does a writer have to like the artist he or she writes about? I think theContinue reading “Love Everyone in the Frame. Ingrid Rowland’s Vasari and Jim Jarmusch’s Taxicabs.”
Tag Archives: art history
F for Fake and R for . . . Rembrandt? Looking Closely with Svetlana Alpers
If you want to write about art for a wide audience, you may find yourself needing not just an argument about your particular art works, but one for art itself. Orson Welles’ F for Fake (1975) tells several stories. The first is about an art forger, the next is about his equally deceitful biographer. But through itContinue reading “F for Fake and R for . . . Rembrandt? Looking Closely with Svetlana Alpers”
Style in Art History Writing: Looking closely at Zurbarán with Florence Delay
How does an art historian get the audience of her book to approach a painting? What stylistic form serves as the gesture that, in the gallery, bids visitors to take a step closer and look again? I want to look at work by two very different art history essayists, Svetlana Alpers and Florence Delay. BothContinue reading “Style in Art History Writing: Looking closely at Zurbarán with Florence Delay”