Heavenly Bodies

Frances Weaver — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 09:09:47 +0100

Author:Jacob Willer

His sweetness was sympathy: “The Charity of St Thomas of Villanueva” (c.1670) by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

The recent Murillo exhibitions at the Dulwich Picture Gallery and the Wallace Collection prompted critics to coo, “Not as kitsch as we thought.” Perhaps they never had thought. Many of the exhibited paintings usually hang in London museums, but it has taken dedicated exhibitions to make people look at them.

Lords of the Prairie

Frances Weaver — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:34:18 +0100

Author:Michael Prodger

Catlin’s “noble savage”: “Buffalo Bull’s Back Fat, Head Chief, Blood Tribe Blackfoot/Kainai” (1832)

George Catlin (1796-1872) was as much an anthropologist as an artist. The portraits he painted in the 1830s and 1840s of North American Indians were made to record a "vanishing race". "The history and customs of such a people, preserved by pictorial illustrations, are themes worthy of the lifetime of one man," he wrote, "and nothing short of the loss of my life, shall prevent me from visiting their country, and becoming their historian." So, in a race against time, he set about recording them.

Art

Heavenly Bodies

Lords of the Prairie