Art and Artifice

Archive 41 - Summer 2022

Winslow Homer - Autumn, 1877

Famous artworks that have been attacked, vandalized and damaged – MSN News

Some of the artworks discussed: Mona Lisa, The Virgin and Child with St Anne and St John the Baptist, The Night Watch, Rokeby Venus, White Cross, Guernica and others

The Bucolic heroic and Rosa Bonheur – review of the book Art is a Tyrant

At the New York Review, written by Regina Marler

"[Her] ... painstaking realism has long since fallen out of fashion, but interest in her life as well as her art is on the rise. This fall the Musée d’Orsay will host its first exhibition devoted to her work; a French postage stamp honoring her bicentennial was issued in March; and recently, the first full-scale biography in forty years appeared: Art Is a Tyrant by Catherine Hewitt. Bonheur described her life as one of “struggle, triumph, and glory.” At the height of her career she had a studio in Paris, a mansion in Nice, and a château at the edge of the Fontainebleau forest..."

Man attacks painting of Mona Lisa with a cake

Story at Chicago Tribune

"...Videos posted on social media showed a young man in a wig and lipstick who had arrived in a wheelchair. The man, whose identity was unknown, was also seen throwing roses in the museum gallery to slack-jawed guests. The cake attack left a conspicuous white creamy smear on the glass but the famous work by Leonardo da Vinci wasn’t damaged."

Thomas Hovedan, Self-Portrait of the artist in his studio, 1873

Original Page July 8, 2022