Jonathan Jones's Blog, page 65

Raw, brave, wild and honest: why Germany is Europe's greatest artistic nation

Germany became a unified state 150 years ago this week – and no other country has produced such original, provocative and powerful art since, from Richter to Klee, from Dix to Höch

Situated on the edge of the Alps, Neuschwanstein Castle may not look like the birthplace of modern art. Best seen from a perilously crowded footbridge across a vertiginous gorge, it floats in misty rains, a cloudy dream of white spires and battlements. Yet this 19th-century colossus is an architectural homage to one man: a composer who inspired the avant garde to make the leap to modernism.

Richard Wagner’s music so enflamed King Ludwig II of Bavaria, he built this magnificent medieval vision in honour of the composer. But, in artists across Europe, Wagner’s musical might released much more futuristic impulses. The abstract leitmotifs and unearthly symbolism of his operas fascinated artists from Aubrey Beardsley to Paul Cézanne. The impressionists, too, were entranced: Renoir travelled to Palermo, Sicily, to portray Wagner when he was composing Parsifal.

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Graphic Goya, perverse Lucas and the man who christened pop art – the week in art

The Spanish artist’s macabre images appear at a perfect time in the US, while Sarah Lucas creates a hurricane and Richard Hamilton gets a well-deserved survey – all in your weekly dispatch

This Is Where We Meet
Discover some talented young painters including Michael Chance, Joana Galego, Melissa Kime and more in this virtual pop-up show in a West End shop.
• Carousel Next Door, London, until 31 January.

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Want to understand the Capitol rioters? Look at the inflamed hate-drunk mobs painted by Goya

The horrific visions of the Spanish painter are about to go on display at New York’s Met. Americans should flock to this timely show – because no artist better captured collective delusion and mass fanaticism

The macabre art of Francisco Goya, the first truly modern artist, is due to be exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum in New York next month and there could hardly be a more urgent moment for Americans to look at his images. For, over 200 years ago, this Spanish artist perfectly captured the kind of collective delusion and mass fanaticism that swarmed the US Capitol last week. The mob of Trump supporters who assaulted the home of American democracy were as inflamed as the crowd who march with crazed eyes behind a manic musician in The Pilgrimage to San Isidoro, as dangerous as the hate-drunk crowd in The Second of May 1808, spellbound by their goat-headed charismatic idol.

And then there’s The Burial of the Sardine, in which a delirious crowd cavort around a huge banner of a madly grinning face. At first glance, it seems to be a joyous carnival scene, but look closer and the intensity of their rite becomes unsettling as you notice that face on the banner, their vacant lord of the dance. It has a definitive Trumpian air.

In 1808, Napoleon invaded Spain, unleashing the hell Goya depicts in his graphic series The Disasters of War

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So bad it’s good: do all great artists need a vice?

From Caravaggio’s come-ons to Bacon’s boozing, art is steeped in sex, drugs and drink. But is it just an excuse for bad behaviour?

Modern Toss on the Romantic myth of the artist

In the Guide’s weekly Solved! column, we look into a crucial pop-culture question you’ve been burning to know the answer to – and settle it, once and for all

Many great artists have at least one major vice that gets them out of the everyday and into a more intense imaginary place. For Francis Bacon it was alcohol, which he was apparently able to drink in limitless quantities. For Titian it was sex: an eyewitness account of the Renaissance painter at work says he routinely slept with the women who posed for him. And Tracey Emin’s bed is scattered with evidence of her bad habits in the 1990s: used condoms, drained bottles and joints, although she says those belonged to a boyfriend. But do all great artists need a vice?

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A giant vulva, Hockney for kids and the ultimate museum tour – the week in art

We look at how art can help you through lockdown, from virtual tours to Hockney, Oscar Wilde and Top Trumps – all in your weekly dispatch

As much of the nation home educates, there are some stimulating ways art can help. You can even still visit the British Museum – virtually. An easy-to-negotiate walk through of this vast gallery of world art and history with Google Street View is just one of the ways learners can explore it from home, as well as searching the collection, plus plenty of blogs and podcasts. There’s something for all ages, and infinite wonders to inspire.
• British Museum, London

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Brutal Bacon, wild Gehry and unmissable Abramovic: 2021's best art, architecture and photography

Rodin, Bacon and Eileen Agar will be big, but Abramovic’s art attack could eclipse them all. Plus Frank Gehry unleashes a tornado and Helen Levitt shows how street photography should be done

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The best art of 2020: Picasso's doodles, queer South Africa and gory Gentileschi

Pablo showed his devilish side, Zanele Muholi captured queer lives in South Africa and Artemisia Gentileschi offered a savage ride through suffering and rage. Our critics rank their top shows

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Snowy scenes and a scintillating Monet – the week in art

Hendrick Avercamp captures the joy of winter, Turner shows us the beauty and bitterness of the countryside in the cold and icy violence is painted out – all in your weekly dispatch

Winter Landscape, about 1630, by Hendrick Avercamp
Winter was fun in the 1630s to judge from this painting by a Dutch artist who specialised in snowy scenes. They had no central heating or modern thermal clothes, bubonic plague remained rife and famine was a threat – but the people in this picture couldn’t care less. They’re too busy enjoying the ice, whose vast expanse is crowded with fun-seekers. There’s even a game of ice-golf. Avercamp sets it all in a mysterious pale world of frozen whites and misty yellows. His art of winter reflects the period known as the Little Ice Age when temperatures plummeted in Europe and scenes like this also occurred on the River Thames.
• Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh.

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Myrrh mystery: how did Balthasar, one of the three kings, become black?

They are a Christmas card staple – the three kings who followed a star to the baby Jesus. But one of them caused a revolution in art. We unravel the mystery of the Magi

They came bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. This description of the Magi, the three kings or wise men who followed a star to the newborn Jesus, has always given artists plenty of scope to depict ornate boxes, cups and vessels. Paintings show them followed by pages, servants, soldiers and pack animals – an entire royal retinue. Dressed in their finest, making their way across deserts and over mountains guided by a light, these pilgrims to the lowly stable always look magnificent.

Although the Gospel of Matthew does not give individual names to this regal trio, we know them as Balthasar, Caspar and Melchior, thanks to a Greek manuscript from AD500. It was in the middle ages, too, that they were promoted from astronomers to kings. And a text attributed to the Venerable Bede, the historian monk from Northumbria, makes Balthasar black. Despite Bede’s assertion, there are very few images of a black Balthasar before 1400, possibly because medieval Europeans had so little concept of Africans. It was only with the dawning of the Renaissance that Balthasar’s colour began to be emphatically depicted. In fact, the trumpeting, joyous festive subject of “the adoration” inspired some of the richest portrayals of black people in European art.

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Beyond the greeting card: alternative nativities from art-world mavericks – the week in art

A looming Virgin Mary takes centre stage and Tracey Emin distills the Madonna’s raw emotion – all in your weekly dispatch

The Nativity With Two Angels, possibly c 1490s, by Filippino Lippi
Mary is the main character in this nativity, revering her baby son at the centre of a stable that is, in effect, a theatre to stage her soulful absorption. Joseph watches from the sidelines. In fact, he’s separated from her by one of the angels who attend her and Jesus – and whose small size emphasises the importance of the much bigger Virgin. In the simplest and quietest moments in the Christmas story in art it is motherhood that shines out. Before the shepherds and the kings and the flight to Egypt the nativity is the bond portrayed here between Madonna and child.
• Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

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