Jonathan Jones's Blog, page 80
December 3, 2019
Forgotten Masters review – the natural history geniuses robbed by the British empire
Wallace Collection, London
East India Company officials hired local artists to document the wondrous flora and fauna of the subcontinent, but never credited them – a wrong finally righted by this exhibition
The bat looks at you with bright black eyes, shining with intelligence. The artist has turned this natural study into a portrait, giving what was surely a dead specimen a personality and inner life that would be captivating in a human subject, let alone a fruit bat. It is an artistic masterpiece that raises scientific illustration to strange heights of poetry.
The picture was painted by either the Hindu painter Bhawani Das, or one of his close circle, somewhere between 1777 and 1782. Yet for centuries images like this have been simply styled “company art” and credited not to their Indian creators, but the East India Company officials who commissioned them. The Wallace Collection’s exhibition of these images of wonder, co-curated by historian William Dalrymple, rights an injustice and restores the true authorship of some of the greatest natural history artworks of all time.
Related: The East India Company: The original corporate raiders | William Dalrymple
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November 29, 2019
Austria's feminist agitator and Renaissance bling – the week in art
The British Museum wrestles with empire, the Turner prize nears its finale and Spider-Man defends Bolton – all in your weekly dispatch
Valie Export
The incendiary feminist art of an Austrian revolutionary who named herself in defiance of patriarchy and nationalism.
• Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, London, from 28 November.
What to see this week in the UK
From Knives Out to Paula Rego, here’s our pick of the best films, concerts, exhibitions, theatre and dance over the next seven days
Continue reading...November 27, 2019
Original tomb raider: was Tutankhamun buried in someone else's grave?
Why would a statue in the golden pharaoh’s tomb portray him with breasts? And why does his face look so feminine? As crowds flock to the British show, we investigate a story to rival the infamous curse
He may not have the whip, the hat, the gun and the dusty old leather jacket, but Nicholas Reeves has a theory that is straight out of the Indiana Jones movies. Reeves, a British Egyptologist, has written a string of highly respected books, most notably The Complete Tutankhamun, and his idea certainly harks back to the golden age of treasure hunting. It is far-fetched, undoubtedly, but then that’s how Indy’s greatest adventures always started.
As the crowds flock to Tutankhamun: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh – a recent arrival in Britain after breaking attendance records in France – Reeves believes they are being sold a dummy: that these stupendous objects were not made for the Egyptian boy king and his journey into the afterlife at all. So who were they for? “I reckon,” says Reeves, “almost all the burial equipment for Tutankhamun was originally made for Nefertiti.”
My theory has probably not improved my employment prospects. It has ruffled a lot of feathers
Continue reading...November 22, 2019
A planet in peril, and artists on the couch – the week in art
Eco-visionaries declare a state of emergency, while surrealists are everywhere in a moment worthy of Freudian analysis – all in your weekly dispatch
Eco-Visionaries
Olafur Eliasson, our century’s most sublime and engaged artist of the natural world, leads this cultural take on the climate crisis. Read our review
• Royal Academy, London, 23 November to 23 February.
What to see this week in the UK
From Frozen II to Anselm Kiefer, here’s our pick of the best films, concerts, exhibitions, theatre and dance over the next seven days
(Jennifer Lee, Chris Buck, 2019, US) 103 mins
Continue reading...November 15, 2019
Anselm Kiefer review – terrifying odyssey through a cursed world
White Cube Bermondsey, London
In monumental, vertiginous landscapes encrusted with mud and twigs and bloody axes, Kiefer confronts the mystery of existence and the enduring horror of the Holocaust
What’s bugging Anselm Kiefer? At 74, he is not only acclaimed and successful, but bubbling over with a creative energy. It flows with the unceasing power of the Rhine through his latest outpouring of 46 monumental new artworks – it’s easy to picture a few Rhinemaidens swimming about. But, at the end, you feel bereft and devastated. Kiefer comes on like a Wagnerian showman only to collapse in unshakeable, incurable melancholy. His horror vacui is real and he knows it: all this art is just a way of putting off that final confrontation with the void.
Kiefer has found a new way to represent nature for our age of climate crisis. His new paintings are startling apocalyptic visions of a death-infected earth. They make landscape so immediate, you almost feel twigs crunch underfoot and catch your breath turning to steam in a snowy wood. Then you see an axe in the undergrowth, its rusty blade the colour of blood. The boundless tangle of nature has no chance against the iron edge of human violence.
Continue reading...The most reviled king ever and the greatest artist alive – the week in art
Anselm Kiefer teeters on the edge of reality, Nan Goldin tests drugs and memory, and the visions of the weeping icon revealed – all in your weekly dispatch
Troy: Myth and Reality
This exhibition promises a fascinating look at how the legends of the Trojan war compare with what archaeology can tell us – does Homer’s Iliad have any factual basis?
• British Museum, London, 21 November to 8 March.
What to see this week in the UK
From Marriage Story to Björk, here’s our pick of the best films, concerts, exhibitions, theatre and dance over the next seven days
Continue reading...November 8, 2019
Steve McQueen's school sensation, R2-D2 and a hi-tech Leonardo – the week in art
McQueen puts Britain’s next generation on billboards, droids take over Dundee, and the National Gallery goes inside the mind of Da Vinci – all in your weekly dispatch
Steve McQueen Year 3
Portraits of an entire generation of young Londoners – displayed on hundreds of billboards across the city – that foreground the future of Britain, just as it prepares to vote in a general election. Read more in this interview.
• Tate Britain, London, 12 November to 3 May.
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