A built-in conflict in art history concerns the tension between local traditions and the large-scale context of “schools.” The study of Dutch art, which was so prominent in European art of the seventeenth century, is one of the battlegrounds.
Sculpture
289 Mama, (don’t) take my polychrome away
The idea that Greek sculpture was once colored is easier to deal with than real-life reconstructions of what it looked like. For some unfathomed reason, Schwartz prefers the original polychromy of Gothic statues but not of Greek and Roman ones.
Continue reading “289 Mama, (don’t) take my polychrome away”
278 Seize the twentieth day
The last of 274 columns that first appeared in Dutch, in Loekie Schwartz’s translation, in Het Financieele Dagblad. Schwartz and his Loekie discover together the ancient feast of Epicurus and decide to celebrate it from now on. Epicurus was a champion of moderate pleasure as a way to find peace.