Visual Arts Reviews

The Rules of Abstraction with Matthew Collings, BBC Four

Marina Vaizey Tuesday, 09 September 2014

Artist and critic Matthew Collings purported to set out the rules of abstraction through taking the viewer on a very bumpy ride through 20^th century painting, with a nod to Cézanne to get us started.

Constable: A Country Rebel, BBC Four

Marina Vaizey Sunday, 07 September 2014

Presenter Alastair Sooke looked alarmingly fit, careering round the British countryside and the streets of Paris on his bicycle, talking all the while (and never out of breath) as he described the artistic trajectory of John Constable.

Comment

Horst: Photographer of Style, Victoria & Albert Museum

Sarah Kent Friday, 05 September 2014

If events in the Middle East, the prospect of the school run or the onset of autumn are conspiring to lower your spirits, then escape to the V&A and immerse yourself in the dreamy elegance of Horst P. Horst’s magical fashion photographs spanning a career that lasted 60 years.

Bright Lights, Brilliant Minds: A Tale of Three Cities, BBC Four

Fisun Güner Thursday, 21 August 2014

Eight seconds in and my toes were already curling. Perhaps it was the authority with which the voiceover delivered some juicy clunkers. “If you wanted to be an artist in 1908, Vienna is where you’d come to make your name,” it intoned. Wow, who’d bother with Paris, eh? Picasso, you idiot, messing about with Cubism in a Montmartre hovel when you could have been sticking gold leaf on your decorative canvases, à la Klimt.

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Edinburgh Art Festival: Scotland to outer space

Caroline Boyle Saturday, 16 August 2014

Like a canny political campaigner, the Edinburgh Art Festival offers “something for everyone”. In this singular year for Scotland, the festival weaves together strands concerning the independence referendum, the Commonwealth and the centenery of the beginning of the First World War. It also provides an introduction to a host of other ideas and artistic worlds.

Comment

The Beauty of Anatomy, BBC Four

Florence Hallett Wednesday, 13 August 2014

If the idealised human body forms the heart of the classical tradition in Western art, the close study of nature is its lifeblood. It is inevitable then that artists have sought better to understand anatomy, and there are many examples of artists whose knowledge of the human body was more than skin deep.

Ryoji Ikeda: spectra, Victoria Tower Gardens

Peter Culshaw Saturday, 09 August 2014

The extraordinary beams of light shooting miles into the air from Victoria Tower Gardens may be the most viewed piece of conceptual art ever. Spectra, visible from high points miles away like Primrose Hill, is the extraordinary work of Paris-based artist and composer Ryoji Ikeda, and is produced by art facilitators Artangel.

Art of China, BBC Four

Florence Hallett Thursday, 31 July 2014

If, like me, you switched this on feeling sheepish about your sketchy knowledge of Chinese art, you would have welcomed as a ready-made excuse the news that some monuments synonymous with Chinese culture are relatively recent discoveries.

What Lies Beneath: The Secret Life of Paintings

Florence Hallett Wednesday, 30 July 2014

The doctoring of political images became something of a tradition in the last century, with Stalin, Hitler and Mao all airbrushing their enemies from photographs. The latest infrared technology has revealed that something similar may have happened during the English Civil War, with a portrait of Oliver Cromwell apparently having been painted over with an image of the Parliamentarian Sir Arthur Hesilrige, who fell out with Cromwell when he became Lord Protector in 1653.

First World War Galleries, Imperial War Museum

Marina Vaizey Tuesday, 22 July 2014

The Imperial War Museum is one of the most extraordinary museums in the world. Its contents and presentation triumph over the three words of its title, each usually causing dread rather than enthusiasm: imperial (discredited unless to do with Roman history); war (just horrible, and we shouldn’t do it); and museum (well, isn’t that mausoleum?)