The artist dying young is one of the founding myths of 20th century Modernism. A. E. Houseman celebrated the athlete dying young. In England Wilfred Owen became the icon of the poet giving his life for his country. August Macke and Franz Marc, lost at the front in the Great War, had been radiant hop
Leo J. O’Donovan, S.J.
Leo J. O’Donovan, S.J., is president emeritus of Georgetown University and director of mission at Jesuit Refugee Service/USA.
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Becoming Human: The Incarnation calls us to a new life.
How to choose from the bountiful treasury of images awaiting our contemplation (and sheer delight) in this darkening season before Christmas? Do you prefer Netherlandish precision and detail? Italian tenderness and warmth? The classical proportions and palette of Poussin? The transcendent simplicity
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An Endless Experiment: The Sigmar Polke retrospective at MoMA
“Alibis: Sigmar Polke 1963–2010″ is at the Museum of Modern Art in New York through Aug. 3.
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The Streets of Paris: Charles Marville’s photographs of a city transformed
Charles Marville’s photographs of a city transformed
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An Awesome Entirety : Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
His parents were horrible people. He was sickly all his life, dying eventually of an excruciating bladder cancer at only 48. His emotional life was often ungovernable. His at first rapturous marriage to a beautiful young aristocrat far above his station was plagued by suspicion, jealousy and outrigh
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Weaving the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art explores the textile trade.
Well before globalization and technology unified the world, trade in textiles wove it both practically and sumptuously together.
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The Real War: The Civil War in photography and paintings
For students of the American Civil War, it’s hard to imagine a better classroom this summer than the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Two sterling exhibitions there, one entirely devoted to photography, the other chiefly to painting, illumine the years from the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, So
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Regarding Africa: A new exhibit explores race and the Renaissance
You’ve probably noticed that in many paintings of the Adoration of the Magi, the youngest of the three kings is a black man. You may know that this convention began in the last quarter of the 15th century, and also that “Balthazar,” as he came to be named, represented Africa, while
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Pure Painting: The birth of abstraction
Delighting in the revelations of “Inventing Abstraction,” now at MOMA