Orazio Gentileschi, Danaë, 1621

Recent links of note:

Cokie Roberts, NPR and the impossibility of objectivity
Barton Swaim, The Washington Post
With the current disturbances afoot in the American political system, it would be reasonable enough to think that the entire country has gone mad. Sanity does remain, however, if only in small and sadly obscure places. See, for instance, a recent column written by the Washington Post columnist and occasional TNC  contributor, Barton Swaim. In the piece, Swaim glosses on a distinction originated by another TNC regular, James Bowman: that between objectivity and fairness. According to Bowman, when most in the media use the word objectivity, they actually mean fairness—objectivity being a much higher and more specific standard. And according to Swaim, objectivity is too high a standard to expect from journalists; fairness is all we can and should ask.

The New Old Masters
James Panero, City Journal
“The stories surrounding Jacob Collins all tend to go like this: a young artist, lonesome in a love for pre-modernist painting, stumbles upon Collins, who has built a life out of the premise that the twentieth century nearly ruined art. Collins opens his doors to those who feel the same.” So says our own James Panero in the winter 2016 issue of City Journal. Those who lament the state of contemporary art should immediately seek out Collins’s work: a refreshing antidote to the poisonous frivolity and cynicism of much contemporary work.

 

There’s life in the Old Masters yet, as recent sales show
Bendor Grosvenor, The Art Newspaper
It is a truth universally acknowledged that Old Master paintings (like brown furniture) no longer sell. Having been repeated so often in the last few decades that it has assumed the status of fact, this idea remains an unquestioned truism in the art market. Of course, it’s not true, according to Bendor Grosvenor. How else, then, to explain the recent $30M sale, at auction, of a 1621 Orazio Gentileschi? After all, most people who buy art still buy it because it‘s beautiful. As Grosvenor posits, “We are . . . dealing with some of the most beautiful objects ever created by mankind. It really shouldn’t be that hard to sell them.”

 

From our pages:

Gallery chronicle
James Panero
A roundup of the latest in the New York gallery scene.  
 

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