The 17th-century Italian painter’s work has been getting lots of attention, and fetching ever-higher prices, over the past year or two. #MeToo is probably a factor (she was one of the rare victims of her time who insisted on a public trial of her rapist), as is the desire to compensate for the centuries of neglect female artists have received generally — but there’s also, quite simply, deserved recognition for her gifts as a painter.
Category: visual
Russia Goes Ahead With Major Kandinsky Show In Saudi Arabia
“Works by Wassily Kandinsky from the State Russian Museum in St Petersburg that went on show in Riyadh on Tuesday at Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s controversial ‘Davos in the Desert’ are a teaser for a major exhibition on the Russian avant-garde artist to be held in the desert kingdom as part of expanding ties between Russia and Saudi Arabia.” (Khashoggi? Who’s that?)
Omaha’s Joslyn Museum Plans Ambitious Major Expansion
Museum officials unveiled the architecture firm handpicked to design that new building — the same firm that designed the Sept. 11 Memorial Museum Pavilion, reimagined an ancient Egyptian library and expanded the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It’s a big-time move, a big-money move, a big-city move.
The Art Market’s Money-Laundering Problem (And Congress’s Inadequate Response To It)
“As the proposed extension of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) to the arts and antiquities market awaits consideration on the United States House of Representatives floor, proponents of the art market are building consensus against the bill among both moderates and conservatives.”
Want To See How Colorful Ancient Greece Really Was? Play This Video Game
Word is finally getting around that the marble statues of ancient Greece weren’t snowy-white; they were painted in vibrant colors. Same for the Parthenon — indeed, of most buildings. It may seem hard to believe that the latest version of the game Assassin’s Creed, subtitled Odyssey and set during the Peloponnesian War, could look anything like actual 5th-century-BC Athens, but scholars have reacted very positively.
Intact 2,400-Year-Old Shipwreck, World’s Oldest, Found In Black Sea
“The 75-foot-long ship … appears similar to merchant vessels depicted on ancient Greek vases. A small piece of the wreck was raised and radiocarbon dated to around the fifth century B.C., a time when Greek city-states were frequently trading between the Mediterranean and their colonies along the Black Sea coast.”
Police Resume Search For ‘World’s Most Wanted’ Painting, A Caravaggio Stolen 49 Years Ago
The Nativity with San Lorenzo and San Francesco was cut from its frame in a Palermo church in 1969, and its theft is number two on the FBI’s list of unsolved art crimes. Now the Italian carabinieri have announced that they believe the painting is still intact and somewhere in Eastern Europe.
Ancient Greek Sculptures Were Gaudily Colored. So Why Do We Think They’re Supposed To Be White?
“It’s like the best-kept secret that’s not even a secret. Saying you’ve seen these sculptures when you’ve seen only the white marble is comparable to somebody coming from the beach and saying they’ve seen a whale because there was a skeleton on the beach.”
Chicago’s Glittering Redevelopment Plan That Became A Bellyflop
The deal was simple: The city would let developers build tall at Cityfront Center, Chicago’s largest real estate development of the 1980s. In exchange, there would be beautiful buildings, streets, parks, plazas and a riverwalk. Yet the architecture, with rare exceptions, is mediocre. The public spaces were supposed to be vibrant and interconnected. Instead, they are unfinished, underachieving, largely disjointed and even, in one case, off-limits to the public.
Drug Dealers Busted For Smuggling Meth Disguised As Faux-Aztec Statuary
“The various chunks of meth were part of a 90-pound package of miscellaneous Mexican souvenirs. Each piece had been intricately carved or molded and then painted to resemble items like masks, wall hangings, statues, and ancient calendars. However, a simple breakage in the decorative replicas revealed the deception.”