Love Art History - Guided Art History Tours in London

30/07/2024

Hiroshi Sugimoto National Portrait Gallery

29/07/2024

"Dear Karin,
The question of loneliness comes up repeatedly in The Red Hand Files. Many people like yourself, leading apparently full and flourishing lives, seem to experience that insistent feeling of loneliness - ‘a melancholy that varies in darkness’.
Karin, I don’t have answers beyond my own experiences, which have taught me that loneliness is not simply down to our circumstances or whether others love us. Rather, it is an indisposition of the spirit brought about, in the main, by certain aspects of our lives that have been unintentionally left untended. Loneliness and lack of meaning seem to inhabit the same dark orbit. Loneliness is the breakdown of the overarching structure of things, a feeling of separateness or exclusion from the sum and substance of the world.
Philosopher, neuroscientist and psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist says we require three things to attain a meaningful life. The first is feeling part of a wider community - family, friends, and society in general. Second is an understanding of nature and a connection to the natural order of things, which McGilchrist feels we have largely lost. Finally, we need to form a relationship with the sacred or divine - this can be found in art, music, poetry and religion, where we acknowledge the ineffable and all-encompassing force that holds the world together.
Personally, I find that feelings of loneliness dissipate when I take time to focus on the sacred, the imagination, beauty, nature, the soul - those unmeasurable and mysterious wellsprings of meaning that reside outside the scientistic and the rational. Here, I feel connected to something universal, eternal, truthful and righteous and, therefore, less alone. Looking back, my most lonely times were when I was separated from my spiritual self, and perhaps I had even affected a certain protective distance from these concerns. These days, however, I try my best to maintain genuine relations with the world - with my loved ones, with nature, and with the sacred - in a comprehensive and participatory manner. Overall, I have found that this keeps the twin devils of loneliness and meaninglessness at bay.
I hope these words are of some help.
Love, Nick"

Nick Cave The Red Hand Files 29/07/24

09/06/2024

The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula: How Caravaggio's violent 17th Century paintings led to Goodfellas and Mean Streets: https://bbc.in/3RdJQn7

21/05/2024

Your daily reminder that Henri Rousseau was an amateur, self-taught artist but still created one of the most popular paintings of the 19th century ✨

Rousseau was born in 1844. A self-taught artist who took up painting as a hobby, claiming he had ‘no teacher other than nature.’ However, Rousseau took his painting very seriously, despite facing ridicule from some quarters. A number of artist and writers, particularly from the avant-garde, hailed him as an important figure. Among these was the young Pablo Picasso, who bought a portrait by Rousseau. He is now seen as a pioneer of ‘naïve art’: https://bit.ly/2zBccPq

03/05/2024

17/04/2024

23/03/2024

Now is no time to think of what you do not have.
Think of what you can do with that there is.

~ Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea,1952

17/03/2024

Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh go léir inniu.

Wishing you all a happy Saint Patrick's Day. ☘️

Explore the dramatic life of Ireland's patron saint.

08/03/2024

19/02/2024

The revered artist barely left London in his lifetime but, as a new exhibition shows, his work was part of a broader European art revolution

17/02/2024

‘Flaming June’ is back in the building 🧡

Almost 130 years after it was first exhibited at the RA, Frederic, Lord Leighton PRA’s iconic painting returns to the UK, in all her orange splendour.

Find out more about this Victorian masterpiece, and see it in our free Collection Gallery from today: https://roy.ac/s2gs59fj

Frederic, Lord Leighton PRA, 'Flaming June', c. 1895. Oil on canvas, 119.1 x 119.1 cm. Museo de Arte de Ponce. Luis A. Ferré Foundation, Inc.

11/02/2024

From the Sun I learned this: when he goes down, overrich; he pours gold into the sea out of inexhaustible riches, so that even the poorest fisherman still rows with golden oars...Friedrich Nietzsche

10/02/2024

Happy , and happy ! 🐉

The only fictional creature of the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac, the dragon is a mythical, powerful creature, and is a popular motif across the world. This 16th-century drawing of a seven-headed dragon is formerly attributed to Italian painter Giovanni da Udine, a former student and assistant of Raphael.

📷 Formerly attributed to Fiovanni da Udine (1487-1564), Seven-headed dragon (recto), 16th century, pen and brown ink, brown wash and watercolour. The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust) © The Courtauld

09/02/2024

Iniziano domani i festeggiamenti per il Capodanno cinese, detto anche Festa di primavera. Nel 2024 ricorrono anche i 700 anni dalla morte di Marco Polo, che con "Il Milione" - uno dei primi bestseller internazionali - continua ad affascinarci coi suoi resoconti sugli usi dei popoli d'Oriente tra cui appunto la Cina, che lui chiama Catai.

Ma i primi contatti con l'Occidente sono antichissimi. Noccioli fossili di pesca sono stati recentemente ritrovati nello Yunnan: da questa regione cinese la pianta si diffuse in Persia. Apprezzata da Alessandro Magno approdò a Roma, dove i latini la ribattezzarono "mala persica", mela persiana.

Il frutto ricorre spesso nell'arte figurativa, comparendo dagli affreschi di Pompei fino alle Madonne del Rinascimento: proprio come ghirlanda decorativa - insieme a susine, pere e cetrioli - incornicia lo schienale del trono della "Madonna della Candeletta" (sala XXII). Veneziano ma attivo a lungo nelle Marche, Carlo Crivelli si era formato nella bottega di Francesco Squarcione, rielaborandone lo stile lineare che sbalza le figure ed esaspera i panneggi, impiega colori intensi e innaturali, incornicia i soggetti con festoni vegetali che richiamano la classicità.

Per i cinesi il pesco è potente amuleto e simbolo di immortalità: anticamente, alle porte delle case se ne appendevano dei rametti, proprio alla vigilia del Capodanno.

03/02/2024

Humans often find catharsis through creating art, while looking at paintings and sculptures can light up the pleasure centre in the brain and release dopamine

30/01/2024

26/01/2024

17/01/2024

Did you know "At the Moulin Rouge" was once cut down to remove the acid-green face of singer May Milton? Perhaps the dealer believed the painting would be easier to sell without it. Whatever the reason, by 1914 the cut section had been reattached to the painting.

See "At the Moulin Rouge" among six works by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec now on view at the Art Institute.