Connecting Rubens and the Baroque
Suffering saints and sultry nudes — Peter Paul Rubens has them all. The Flemish painter (1577-1640) took on a variety of subject matter, and also had a hand in pushing predominant tastes from the Renaissance's revival of classical ideas to the more elaborate experiments ...
Tokyo's classical music cafes are time capsules for audiophiles
In this age of musical abundance, it's hard to fathom that an LP once cost the equivalent of a few days' wages in Japan. In the 1950s, audiophiles who couldn't afford to buy their own music did their listening at coffee shops known as ...
Tokyo's retro coffee palaces are in a class entirely their own
The archetypical kissaten (traditional coffee shop) would probably be a cozy neighborhood joint with faded '60s decor, one of those vintage pink pay phones that only take ¥10 coins and a couple of elderly customers smoking furiously as they squint over their newspapers. If you ...
The textural flair of Tiziano Vecellio
Bold in color and expressive in texture, the works of Venetian painters have their own distinctive place within Renaissance art. Taking the lead was Titian (1488/90 -1576), who became official painter to the Venetian Republic, and whose fame spread across the Europe of his ...
Copies can help us see Leonardo da Vinci's original
Many historical exhibitions tend to be collections of whatever the museum in question can get their hands on, loosely united around a period, a theme, or the name of a famous artist. The exhibition that has just finished at the Bunkamura "Money and Beauty: ...
'Leonardo da Vinci and the Battle of Anghiari'
May 26-Aug. 9 The whereabouts of Leonardo da Vinci's painting "The Battle of Anghiari" remains a mystery. Often called the "Lost Leonardo," it was believed to have been commissioned in 1504, at the same time as Michelangelo Buonarroti was asked to create an accompanying battle ...
'Money and Beauty: Botticelli and the Renaissance in Florence'
March 21-June 28 Florence in the 15th century was governed by a merchant oligarchy, of which the House of Medici, then one of the largest banking families in Europe, became particularly powerful and politically influential rulers. The arts flourished under the patronage of such families, ...
'Collection of Museo Poldi Pezzoli: The Aristocratic Palace and its Beauty
Founded in Milan in 1881, the Poldi Pezzoli Museum houses the extensive collection of an aristocratic art collector. Nobleman Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli (1822-1879) devoted his life to decorating his home with artworks of the Renaissance, amassing around 3,000 pieces, including paintings by Botticelli, ...
