Baroque

Zurbarán's Veil of Veronica calls attention to two miracles, those of the Veronica legend and of the painter’s art of creation.

Robin Greenwood reflects on work from two London exhibitions: Ribera: Art of Violence at the Dulwich Picture Gallery and Mantegna and Bellini at the National Gallery, London (both on view through January 27, 2019). Greenwood concludes: "I feel both with Mantegna and Ribera a potent link with art now, if we could but unlock that

Louise Nicholson reviews Murillo: The Self-Portraits at the Frick Collection, New York, on view through February 4, 2018. Nicholson writes: "The Frick self-portrait ... dominates one room. Viewers must use their imaginations to enliven the now dismal background colour: Murillo’s intended airy blue sky is gone due to the degradation of the smalt pigment he

David Reed considers rarely seen details in several paintings by Caravaggio and how these details alter and intensify the potential meanings of the works. Reed writes; "Did Caravaggio realize that the self-portrait reflection in the “Bacchus” and the praying figure in “The Works” would not be visible under the standard circumstances in which the paintings

James McGarrell reflects on Jan Vermeer's The Artist in His Studio (1665-1670). McGarrell writes: "I find in all of his works, and in this piece specifically, a sequentially paced structure that directs a journey for the probing eye. Its entry is inevitably from the bottom edge because it is from there that, as crawling infants,

Christopher Benfey reviews The Mysterious Landscapes of Hercules Segers at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, on view through May 21, 2017. Benfey writes: "An air of unreality hangs over the astonishing exhibition of seventeenth-century Dutch artist Hercules Segers ... More than once, I found myself wondering whether this extraordinary etcher and painter—the creator

Richard Neer writes: "Valentin [de Boulogne] ... was ... a leading exponent of a style of painting that Caravaggio had pioneered a generation earlier: shadowy, dramatically lit scenes drawn directly from life that pushed the boundaries of good taste through a commitment to verisimilitude and déclassé subject matter. With his death, that Caravaggesque tradition lost

Franklin Einspruch reviews Cagnacci’s “Repentant Magdalene”: An Italian Baroque Masterpiece from the Norton Simon Museum at the Frick Collection, New York, on view through January 22, 2017. Einspruch observes: "Parts of this scene are exquisite... Parts of this scene are not exquisite... Nevertheless, the whole of the thing is a marvel. Light catches on an