Kyōsai: The Israel Goldman Collection at London’s Royal Academy
By James Brewer
His nickname was the Demon of Painting. Kawanabe Kyōsai (1831–1889), Japan’s most daring, exciting, and feted painter of the late 19th century, turned out hanging scrolls, decorative screens and album leaves of exquisite detail on an industrial scale, just as the modern industrial revolution was beginning to shake the structures of his country’s society. After centuries of...
The Three Graces. By Raphael.
Royal Academy unveils outstanding show The Renaissance Nude
Consider this cool, clear image of feminine beauty – lightly sketched and off-centre. Drawn in 1517 or 1518 in red chalk on paper, The Three Graces is a life study delineated by Raphael and is lent by the Queen’s Royal Collection Trust to the new show-all show The Renaissance Nudeat the Royal Academy of Arts in London.
Replete with the poise and elegance of the subjects, Raphael’s draft is one of the...
Klimt, Study for The Three Gorgons.
Klimt/Schiele: Royal Academy shows drawings from the Albertina Museum, Vienna
By James Brewer
Even in sketched outline they are seductive: three turn-of-the-century drawings of the Gorgons, who in versions of the Greek myth are the beautiful but dangerous daughters of the sea god Phorcys. They were drawn in black chalk on packing paper in 1901 by Gustav Klimt as he worked on the Beethoven Frieze which was central to the 14th Vienna Secessionist exhibition in...
Papua New Guinea launch-day greeting.
Oceania: Royal Academy voyages through 500 years of Pacific culture
By James Brewer
In 1768, Lieutenant (later Captain) James Cook left Plymouth on HMS Endeavour on the first of three voyages to search for the fabled Terra Australis Incognita and to map the southern oceans. To Europeans, this made him a hero and discoverer – but he was far from being a pioneer. People living in the Pacific had for centuries been highly sophisticated, capable mariners. Thanks...