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Odilon Redon, Papillons, 1910, Oil on canvas, 73,9 x 54,9 cm, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Gift of Mrs. Werner E. Josten in memory of her husband, 1964

Is Symbolism the new starting point? Painter-theorist Maurice Denis introduces the great retrospective show dedicated by the Fondation Beyeler to enigmatic genius Odilon Redon

  “I wished to copy nature – said Cézanne – “I could not. But I was satisfied when I had...

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Lucas Cranach the elder, Martin Luther, probably 1532, oil on panel. Courtesy of Met, New York.

Martin Luther, portrait of a future King

  King’s original name was Michael King Jr. It was only when he was five years old that his father,...

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Katja Novitskova, "Approximation III" found image, digital print on aluminium dibond, cutout display, 2013.

In dialogue with Katja Novitskova, who dialogues with animals and Hieronymus Bosch

  Her standing two dimensional images of animals ad trees are becoming a positive way out of the narrow corridor...

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Niccolò di Tommaso (second half of XIV century), "Crucifixion and saints", tabernacle, Via delle Belle Donne, Florence

Street art in Florence (with Niccolò di Tommaso)

  Walking in Via delle Belle Donne, in Florence, at the intersection with Via della Spada, via the Sun and...

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Art in Novels: Siri Hustvedt, “What I loved” (2003)

by Stefano Pirovano

Leo Hertzberg, the main character of this sophisticated novel, is an art historian. His best friend, Bill Weschler, is an...

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Candida Höfer, Museo Civico di Palazzo Te Mantova, 2010, 180x187 cm © Candida Höfer

A Trip in Mantova with Candida Höfer

  Candida Höfer (Eberswalde, Germany, 1944), one of the most famous photographers in the world, will exhibit some of her...

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From Lucio Fontana to Nina Canell: a brief photographic history of neon light in art

  Writing the history of the use of neon light in art has always been a great challenge for scholars,...

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El Greco, “Christ embraced the cross”, detail, 1587-96, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza

El Greco: in Madrid a tribute to the European genius, 400 years after his death

  Among the most original artists who worked in the second half of the sixteenth century is to be considered...

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From Michel Houellebeq an appropriate prelude to Avery Singer

  “The question of beauty is secondary in painting: the great painters of the past were considered such when they...

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Antoniazzo Romano, “Saint Sebastiano”, detail, Roma, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica di Palazzo Barberini

Out of the tourist flock: last days to visit Antoniazzo Romano’s solo show in Rome

    Antonio di Benedetto Aquilo degli Aquili better known as Antoniazzo Romano (Rome 1435/40 – 1508) was a central figure of the italian Renaissance. He was...

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Sebastian Black, Unique Newark left : Edible Manhattan, 2013, oil on canvas, 48 x 36 inches Courtesy the artist and C L E A R I N G, Brooklyn, Brussels. photo credits : mark-woods.com

Sebastian Black, remembering of Giorgio Morandi and The Great Gatsby

  One of the first impression of Sebastian Black’s paintings is their Morandian coyness. Although some of them turn out...

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Carlo Saraceni (1579 – 1620), “San Bennone retrieves the keys to the city of Meissen”, detail - Rome, Church of Santa Maria dell’Anima

Carlo Saraceni, an emerging old master

  Carlo Saraceni was born in Venice around 1579, worked in Rome from circa 1598 to 1619 and died in...

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Tacita Dean, Day for Night, location shot

Speaking with Tacita Dean, about Tacita (in preparation to her new film première in Paris)

  Tomorrow the new Tacita Dean’ film will be presented with a solo show at Marian Goodman gallery in Paris....

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Cesare Ripa, Iconology’s father and ancestor of the “form and info” (to be discovered online)

Amongst the roots of the relationship between form and information in art, there is to be pinpointed the book “Iconologia”...

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When The Exorcist spoke about Vermeer and Leonardo da Vinci

  William Friedkin, director of seminal horror movie “The Exorcist” (1973), chooses imperfect works by Vermeer and Leonardo Da Vinci...

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Respect to Gillo Dorfles, the oldest living art critic, 103

“One of the things that has always interested me and that interests me most is studying the person, ‘man’ as...

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Leo Gabin

Leo Gabin: shocking videos (with teens) at the service of traditional paintings

Ho Ho Click – Bleacherz and Teacherz from Leo Gabin on Vimeo.   Leo Gabin trio’s two-dimensional balanced accumulation of...

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Thanks to NSA and GCHQ Europeans don’t need confessionals anymore

  While Edward Snowden is still in Russia, an enquiry by the European parliament’s civil liberties committee condemned in the...

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Tiziano Vecellio (1485 - 1576), Danae, 1553, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado

Tiziano and the conceptual program of his “Poems”

On September 10th, 1554, the artist Tiziano Vecellio sent to the king of Spain, Philip II, the painting “Venus and...

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Adel Abdessemed, Bourek, 2005, aircraft fuselage

With Amnesty International at the finissage of “L’Age d’Or”, the controversial Adel Abdessemed’s solo show in Doha

Today closes Adel Abdessemed’s solo show “L’Age d’Or” at Mathaf, the Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, Qatar, but...

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Torey Thornton, tricks and strokes (from a phenomenological perspective)

What makes Torey Thornton’s mixed media two dimensional artworks so appealing isn’t the fact that they are colorful or apparently...

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“We painters use the same license as poets and madmen”, Paolo Veronese claimed in front of the Inquisition

  Waiting for “Veronese: Magnificence in Renaissance“, the major show dedicated to Paolo Veronese, from March 19th to June 15th at...

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Discover CFA’s contribution to Radio Aporee

  The organ on the right side (in cornu Epistolae) in Santa Maria della Passione church is by Gian Giacomo...

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Art in novels: when José Saramago wrote about Valeriano Trubbiani

by Stefano Pirovano

A struggling young artist, commissioned to paint a portrait of an influential industrialist, learns in the process about himself and...

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Marco Basaiti (1470/75 - 1530), “The calling of the sons of Zebedee”, oil on canvas, Venice, Gallerie dell’Accademia

A seminal Marco Basaiti to be discovered while waiting for the set-up of Galleria dell’Accademia in Venice

  On December 18, 2013, the new thirty rooms of the Galleria dell’Accademia in Venice have been inaugurated. Located in the...

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Yoan Mudry

  The Swiss artist Yoan Mudry is 24 years old and, according to his cv, he has been educated in Geneva,...

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Artist, are you following the Crystal or the Flame?

  “Crystal and flame: two forms of perfect beauty that we cannot tear our eyes away from, two modes of...

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Art in novels: with “The real thing” Henry James grabs the essence of being an artist

by Stefano Pirovano

The narrator of “The real thing” is a painter and this short novel, published in 1892, is dedicated to his...

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Peruzzi Baldassarre (Ancaiano 1481 – Roma 1536) Portrait of card. Pietro Accolti, Verso, oil on canvas. Galleria degli Uffizi

At the Uffizi to experience the b-side visibility

  It is a fact that the b-side often helps to understand the a side. It happens to contemporary artworks as well as to the...

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Our first post of 2014 is writer Alain Elkann interviewing Fabrizio Moretti, gallery owner, collector, philantrophist and beloved publisher of Conceptual Fine Arts

Our first post of 2014 is writer Alain Elkann interviewing Fabrizio Moretti, gallery owner, collector, philantrophist and beloved publisher of...

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Using old critic tools to read a new artwork would be a way to miss its novelty

  On the contrary, you could interpret it as a score to play, with all the kind of info it...

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