Bunny in Sydney – Art or Artifice…

The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) The Critic as Artist, 1891
This exhibition many would say is long overdue. In the landscape of Australian painting history Rupert Bunny is a significant figure who inserted himself effortlessly into French Parisian life during the so-called ‘Belle Epoque’ or beautiful era, demonstrating through [...]

Women of Influence – Marquise de Pompadour, pleasure is a serious business

The pleasure of love is in loving.  Francois de la Rochefoucauld (1613-80)
Author Carolyn McDowall
French painter François Boucher (1703-1770) produced many of the images that we have of the enigmatic Jeanne Antoinette, Marquise de Pompadour, Maîtresse-en-titre, or the official Mistress of Louis XV of France.
The daughter of a local beauty, Louise-Madeleine de la Motte and [...]

the spirituality of music…L’Ormindo

Must admit to having a passion for ‘early music’ a term used for European music that encompases the so-called Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque styles of western music. It is also the era one of my all time favourite English musicians Sting has been leading a revival of interest in with his Music from a Labryinth [...]

Love Jewellery – Rome to Renaissance

If you bring both gold and precious or semi precious stones together skilfully a add a dash of passion, smidgen of sentiment, make them expressive of romance as well as symbolic of true love then you have a ‘tour de force’, a triumph of Cupid’s D’art!

An important aspect of every human society yet recorded is a belief that gold and gemstones had an enormous effect on the affairs of many. This has not been limited to any age or culture some of the first tokens of human affection were worn as treasured souvenirs.