Though renowned for his light-drenched figure paintings and portraits, Renoir’s lesser-known landscapes possess a similar poetry, elegance, and innovation.  Renoir’s famous boating parties and crowded outdoor café scenes dazzle and charm. Once seen, you never [...]

It’s not technique that makes you fall in love with art; learning technique opens the way so you can explore art’s ancient and miraculous forces. Art’s power is in what it means to you, how [...]

As someone who’s been asked to judge some dozen or so art show competitions, I offer here an insider’s take on the judging process. Art contests are weird, mysterious beasts. You can never be sure [...]

“An artist must possess nature,” according to Matisse.  Matisse’s word choice in the quote above suggests the word possession had special meaning for the artist.  It comes from the Latin possess(us) which means “to occupy” [...]

Warsaw’s Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art is currently exhibiting “Odd Nerdrum, Painter of the North,” a dramatic show of large figurative works by the renowned artist.  Heavily influenced by classical painters like Rembrandt and [...]

“I am awaiting / perpetually and forever / a renaissance of wonder” ― Lawrence Ferlinghetti   Painting, like poetry, and all the best things in life, is often simple and complicated at the same time.  Marc [...]

“Debauched!” went the outcry, "vice-ridden," “drunken indecency!” “The worst type of harlotry!” Bostonians were livid, and it was the scandal of the decade. It was 1896, the last gasp of the Victorian era, and the Women’s [...]

Last week we ran our picks for the “Top Five” films about artists (not documentaries, but mainstream studio dramatizations, of the genre known in Hollywood as the biopic). We asked what other artist biopics you [...]

It must have come to him in a flash:  thoroughbred horseracing was The Perfect Subject for his new style and approach to painting. It fit his friends, the Impressionists’, new mission for art: to paint [...]