Paintings
WHAT IS: A Mirror, more than Glass?
The mirror, more than just glass, has occupied a unique place in his imagination as a site of the divine or demonic, of lucidity or madness. It is the ‘matrix of the symbolic’ and accompanies the human quest to know and understand our identity.
WHAT IS: Modernism
Modernism is a term the art and design community of the contemporary western world has adopted to describe a diverse range of architectural and interior decorative styles, as well as applied and graphic arts, which were created between 1880 and 1940 on an international scale.
Modernism demands that there is a distinction between interior architecture and [...]
WHAT IS: Art Deco
Art Deco was the perfect expression of the salons at Paris during the 20’s to the 30’s. It embraced every area of design and the decorative arts including architecture, interiors, furniture, jewellery, painting and graphics, bookbinding, costume, glass and ceramics. Art Deco was about integrating contemporary living with art, and turning life into art, against those consciously working for the undoing of art and its purpose was enjoyment.
The Harmony of Courtly Love
From the 11th to the 13th century in England and Europe expressing personal feelings in relation to the beauty and bountiful joys of women became the province of troubadours, who were both composers and performers of lyrical poetry set to romantic music. They roved about the countryside visiting castles and their communities to deliver the latest ditties going about in song. The themes they favoured the most were those of chivalry and courtly love.
Romantics, Reformers & Revolutionaries 01
Monarchs, Middling People & Mozart
The era of romantics and revolutionaries is also all about the continuing themes from ancient Greece and Rome for that of liberty, religion and justice. It certainly must have been wonderful to be there when, on June 19th 1764 the remarkable child prodigy from Austria 8 year old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart gave a concert in London playing his own compositions on the harpsichord and organ.
FREE – Six Online Videos – Evolution Art, Design & Style
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Impressionable Masterpieces at Melbourne
Exclusive to Melbourne, European Masters: Städel Museum, 19th-20th Century provides an unprecedented opportunity to see a spectacular group of painting and sculpture masterpieces spanning the dynamic and transforming years of the 19th and 20th century.
Call to Action – Slay the Dragon but, Not for Profit
American Philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics in the Philosophy Department, Law School, and Divinity School at the University of Chicago. In her short and powerful new book called Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities she makes a passionate case for the importance of the liberal arts at all levels of education. She challenges us all to strive be truly human – ‘to remain childlike, to keep an open mind, to refine an ability to remain humble, to eschew pride and arrogance and to be reverent towards other people and towards the natural world’.
Threads of Destiny – Tapestry Tales
A commission of six tapestries for William Knox D’arcy’s Dining Room at Stanmore Hall in Middlesex illustrates the story of the Holy Grail quest, as told in Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte d’Arthur. They took five years to weave and are considered among the most significant works made during the nineteenth century when romanticism was at its height and they paint a beguiling picture of lovely maidens and dashing knights in a style that was very appealing.
Masterpiece London – A Stroke of Genius?
In facing the crisis of the global economic downturn a brave group in London have come up with Masterpiece London, a whole new way of marketing fine quality wares by showcasing the most covetable objects in the world: traditional and modern, old and new, from the finest of fine and decorative art to the best of wines, classic cars, jewellery and contemporary design.
