Something Beautiful

St. Francis, Bellini, Frick

Today's New York Times has a good article about a mini-exhibition featuring just one work: St. Francis in the Desert, c. 1480, by Giovanni Bellini. The exhibition is at the Frick museum in New York City.

The Frick website has additional information, including a video, about the exhibition. For those who might not make it to NYC, the most important feature is surely the Google Art image. (See also the Frick zoom image.)

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The above work is, to me, very reminiscent of the Preparation of Christ's Tomb, c. 1505, by Vittorio Carpaccio.

Another wonderful room

Should I call this a wonderful room -- or a room of wonders? It's another room at the Arts decoratifs website, this time filled with works of the Renaissance.

Les Arts decoratifs

A newly-discovered site to celebrate: Les Arts decoratifs. I'm still learning my way around this site, so I can't give quite the kind of guidance that I would like. To give you a taste, though, here's one superb example of the kinds of riches available here:

Middle Ages (panorama, full-screen).

And here are two more general pages that lead deeper into the site:

Interactive plan

Collections

Exhumation of St. Hubert (by van der Weyden)

There's something about this painting, the Exhumation of St. Hubert, by Rogier van der Weyden and workshop, at the National Gallery, London. You'll need to enlarge it to its maximum size in order to see the textures and objects up close, but it will be worth the minute it will take.

Serving the Guest

Serving the Guest is another of my long-time favorites. It's an appealing combination of recipes, lore and art.

Twilight

I've long loved this painting: Twilight: Interior (Reading by lamplight), ca. 1909, by George Clausen. This painting was featured, among many others, in a marvelous exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia called The Edwardians. The exhibition presented figurative paintings by British, Irish, American and Australian artists from 1900 to 1914

Coronation of Napoleon

This Coronation of Napoleon, by Jean-Louis David might not look like much at first. If you pursue the high resolution possibilities, however, you will be amply rewarded. Put it on full-screen mode and it will be even better. Just look at the faces, the feathers, all that brocade! A truly sumptuous painting!

Canaletto

It's been too long since I linked to a work by the Italian artist Giovanni Antonio Canal (Canaletto). Here's one at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.: The Square of Saint Mark's, Venice (1742/1744).

Renaissance artists

This afternoon I happened across the all-Art site. Not sure what to make of it just yet. One thing for sure: it has a pretty fantastic collection of Renaissance, laid out according to artist. You might want to take a look - it's pretty terrific.

NGA Search - How do I love thee?

Let me count the ways.   You can find such wonderful things, in such delicious combinations.   Use Expanded search, of course.  Be sure to put a check in the "Images only" box.  Get ready to fall in love.

Doesn't sound like fun, you say?  Believe me, you could spend hours there and still want more.  :-)