Category: visual

Pity the poor British royals. In an era when humans featured on canvas are prone to being portrayed as twisted, ugly shadows of themselves, royalty is still expected to go out and find an artist of considerable reputation to paint their portraits. It was Prince Philip’s turn this year, and he chose portrait specialist Stuart Pearson Wright to commit his royal image to canvas. Royal spokespersons insist that Prince Philip had seen Pearson Wright’s work before selecting him, but the prince was apparently horrified at the artist’s first effort. No one is yet showing off that rough draft, but Pearson Wright’s signature is to stretch his subjects vertically to distort their features.

“It is one of Moscow’s most enduring landmarks. St. Basil’s Cathedral on Red Square survived Napoleon, the Nazis, and the rise and fall of the Soviet empire. But decades of military parades, and in more recent years, rock concerts, have all taken their toll on the 450-year-old cathedral.” Adding to the problem is the government’s plans to develop the area around St. Basil’s, erecting a hotel and casino nearby. A new study warns that if something isn’t done soon to reinforce the cathedral’s foundation, the entire structure could collapse within the next century.

“The largest and most valuable collection of Australian indigenous art assembled for auction is expected to bring a record result when it goes under the hammer in Sydney next week.” Among the most anticipated works is a huge collaborative painting entitled Ngurrara Canvas 1, which is expected to sell for as much as AUS$500,000 (US$300,000). “Also up for auction are artefacts including rainforest shields and bi-cornial baskets, a rare Port Essington spear thrower, a Tiwi ceremonial dance wand and shields, boomerangs and pearl shells. Sotheby’s expects an auction result of between $6.5 million and $9.7 million.”

“The noble Rodin sculpture The Burghers of Calais made an ignominious exit yesterday from its home of almost a century, hauled out of the gardens beside the Palace of Westminster by a crane, and shipped off to a conservation workshop. The sculpture is being restored to celebrate the centenary of the National Art Collections Fund, which bought it from Rodin as a gift to the nation in 1911.”

Despite international protests from art experts and preservationists, Italian authorities have announced that the cleaning of Michelangelo’s David will go ahead using distilled water. Critics are concerned that water could remove some of the statue’s distinctive coloration, and one restorer has already resigned from the project over the controversy.

So now, the UK’s National Gallery is free to pursue the purchase of the Duke of Northumberland’s Raphael canvas. But was one painting really worth all the fuss, not to mention the £11.5 million the government doled out? The Guardian’s arts editor says yes, calling the painting “a spellbinding masterpiece with all the concentrated beauty of a miniature, coupled with the grandeur of a major Renaissance painting.” But the head of the National Art Collections Fund thinks it absurd to be spending such a wad of cash on “a piece of flagship culture,” especially one which has no specific relevance to Great Britain, and particularly when the National Gallery already owns eight other canvases by the same artist.

There’s little doubt as to the identity of the storybook villain in the battle to keep Raphael’s 9-inch square painting in the UK. The Duke of Northumberland, one of the richest landowners in Britain, has positively cleaned up on the deal, and, by playing the Getty Museum against the UK’s Heritage Lottery, he assured himself of a fat payday regardless of who won the ownership battle. For his part, the Duke has “denied that the cash will be used to pay for a £9 million Italianate garden his wife is designing at Alnwick as a part of what he calls a ‘public regeneration project’. Nor he insists, did he renege on a family agreement to give the gallery the first option to buy the Raphael.”

It is now all but certain that Raphael’s Madonna of the Pinks will be saved from the horrific fate of being exported out of Great Britain. But before the bidding war began, what options did UK officials have when the Duke of Northumberland first started talking about selling the Raphael to the Getty Museum? The answer is more complicated than you might think.

The UK’s Heritage Lottery Fund has agreed to contribute £11.5 million towards the possible purchase of a Raphael masterpiece owned by the Duke of Northumberland. The Duke has been planning to sell the painting to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, but agreed to give the UK’s National Gallery a chance to buy it first, so as to keep the important work in country. The National Gallery had originally asked the Lottery for £20 million, then revised its request to £11.5 million after concluding that their higher request would never be met. The gallery will now need to raise another £9.5 million privately in order to offer a “matching bid.” Even then, there is no guarantee that the Raphael would remain in the UK.

Britain’s National Portrait Gallery has been getting an architectural overhaul lately, and the results do not appear to have pleased Richard Dorment. “Architects hate art. If you let them loose near a museum or gallery, you have to watch their every move, because they will do their best to leave their own galumphing paw prints all over the place, and in the process stamp on the works of art. For several months now I’ve been hearing angry denunciations of the National Portrait Gallery’s renovation of its once glorious Regency Galleries, but only last week, when I saw them for myself, did I register the full horror of what has happened there.”