RIP art critic Robert Hughes, 1938-2012
Watch “The Mechanical Paradise,” the first episode of The Shock of the New:
I visited the New Orleans Museum of Art last week.
I’d been before, about ten years ago, I guess, and at that time I was far more interested in their collection of modern stuff—surrealism, pop, conceptual, etc.
Over the years my taste has veered strongly toward Renaissance stuff, and I think I got a lot more out of NOMA this time.
Anyway, I took some shots with my antique iPhone, and present them here with no commentary.
Detail from Summer Flowers in a Wanli Kraak Porcelain Bowl by Jan Brueghel the Younger
Details from Serpents and Insects by Otto Marseus van Schreick
Details from Still Life of Fruit with Lobster and Dead Game by Michiel Simons
Detail from Fish Heaped on the Beach by Willem Ormea and Adam Willaerts
Details from The Lawyer’s Office by Marinus van Reymerswache
Detail from The Latest News by Andries Andriesz Schaeck
Details from Venus Mourning the Death of Adonis by Thomas Willeboirts Bosschaert
Details from St. Francis by El Greco
Detail from Saint Sebastian by Giuliano Bugiardini
Detail from Venus and Cupid with Vulcan by Domenico Beccafumi
Detail from Meditation of Saint Jerome by Garofalo
Detail from Saint Paul by Vincenzo Foppa
Detail from A Saint Reading by Lorenzo Lippi
Detail from Saint Theresa of Avila by Joseph-Marie Vien
Details from First Sketch for “The Pest house at Jaffa” by Antoine Jean Barron Gros
Details from Othello and Desdemona by Alexander-Marie Colin
Detail from Landscape with Travelers by Alessandro Magnasco
Clothes
Often when I see clothes with manifold pleats, frills, and appendages which fit so smoothly onto lovely bodies I think they won’t keep that smoothness long, but will get creases that can’t be ironed out, dust lying so thick in the embroidery that it can’t be brushed away, and that no one would want to be so unhappy and so foolish as to wear the same valuable gown every day from early morning till night.
And yet I see girls who are lovely enough and display attractive muscles and small bones and smooth skin and masses of delicate hair, and nonetheless appear day in, day out, in this same natural fancy dress, always propping the same face on the same palms and letting it be reflected from the looking glass.
Only sometimes at night, on coming home late from a party, it seems in the looking glass to be worn out, puffy, dusty, already seen by too many people, and hardly wearable any longer.
“Clothes” by Franz Kafka.
Biblioklept 