Recent links of note:
“Robert Adam’s Pulteney Bridge Spans a River in Classical Style”
Benjamin Riley, The Wall Street Journal
For this week’s Masterpiece column in The Wall Street Journal, The New Criterion’s managing editor Benjamin Riley observes the wonderful neoclassical architecture of Pulteney Bridge in Bath, England. Designed by the Scottish architect Robert Adam and completed in 1774, the bridge was constructed with the intention of providing a grand neoclassical entrance to the new suburb of Bathwick across the River Avon from Bath. Built from Bath limestone that glows in the sunlight, the bridge rests on three large arches and features space for shops and vendors on its span, like Palladio’s unexecuted design for Venice’s Rialto Bridge. Adam’s masterly design sought to match the “quiet classicism” of the surrounding town, but, Riley reports, the local city government found the bridge too narrow and its shops an inconvenience for crossing. That criticism, however, hasn’t stood the test of time: the Pulteney Bridge is a jewel in the city’s landscape, and the shops continue to operate today. To read more on the architect’s bridges, turn to Riley’s new book, The Bridges of Robert Adam: A Fanciful and Picturesque Tour, published by Triglyph Books.
“Putin now orders return of Russia’s most precious icon to the church”
Sophia Kishkovsky, The Art Newspaper
Russia’s most famous Orthodox icon, Andrei Rublev’s The Trinity, is set to be handed over by the State Tretyakov Gallery to the Russian Orthodox Church on the orders of Vladimir Putin. Painted by Rublev in the early fifteenth century for the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius monastery, the spiritual capital of the Russian Church, The Trinity depicts the three angels who visited Abraham. Venerated for its symbolism of the Holy Trinity, the icon will be given to the longtime Putin ally Patriarch Kirill, a seeming reward for his vigorous endorsement of the invasion of Ukraine. The Russian Church presumably seeks to use the highly revered icon as a way to drum up support for a specifically Russian brand of Orthodoxy, both at home and abroad in Ukraine. A large number of art conservators, however, believe that the icon is so fragile that any attempt to transport it will likely result in its disintegration. Indeed, worries over the icon’s fragility date back to the years of Ivan the Terrible, who ordered it to be protected by a golden metal cover known as a riza (leaving only the angels’ faces and hands visible), in which state it remained until 1904.
“How they spent it: An exhibition of Persian, Greek and Hellenistic luxuries”
Peter Stothard, Times Literary Supplement
In his Histories, Herodotus relayed an account of Greek soldiers’ amazement after their victory at Plataea in 479 B.C. at the golden tableware and other luxury items brought on campaign by their Persian enemies. Peter Stothard, in his review of the British Museum’s exhibition “Luxury and Power: Persia to Greece” for the Times Literary Supplement, notes that the Greeks in part attributed their victory to the humility of their culture in comparison to Persian extravagance and vanity. The exhibition, featuring items such as a miniature golden chariot, an ornate golden oil flask in the shape of a fish, and a collection of large golden rhyta (drinking horns), offers a unique glimpse of ancient Greek cultural values and their understandings of luxury. Privately, Greek aristocrats enjoyed great luxury in a manner comparable to their Persian counterparts, and Stothard writes that we see this through the items that were owned by wealthy, aristocratic Athenian families. The luxury items, however, served a functional purpose in addition to an aesthetic one: the items were often melted down and minted during times of need or conflict, writes Stothard. The exhibition, on view until August 14, will make for a pleasant stop for those in London this summer.