Showing results by author "Lucie" in All Categories

Stories by kids, for kids to unwind and go to sleep relaxed and happy.

Going to the Frida Kahlo exhibition current at Tate Modern in London is like entering the shrine of a secular saint. The rooms are thronged. People peer closely at the paintings, many of them very small. They seem afraid to talk much above a whisper. There are a number of reasons for this reaction. One is Hayden Herrera’s highly readable biography of the artist, first published in 1983, and now established as a classic feminist text. Another is the feminist movement’s general need for heroines, which has had a similar effect on the posthumous reputation of Georgia O’Keeffe. A third, probably the most powerful, reason is Kahlo’s own personality, which combined self-assertion, defiance and masochism in almost equal proportions. In this respect Kahlo can be compared with a slightly later generation of English-language poets, male and female. Prominent among them are Robert Lowell, John Berryman, Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton.

Explores the structure and development of the Pre-Raphaelite movement in the mid-19th century and works that figure among the most enduring and generally popular in British art. Renowned writer and art critic Edward Lucie-Smith contributes a study of the brotherhood of seven artists and their interconnection and intricate links with the social establishment of the time. James Cahill has a special interest in the movement, having studied Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Holman Hunt. He reviews a major exhibition of 150 works at Tate Britain launched in September 2012.

As a preteen or young teen girl, you're changing more than ever before—and it's natural to feel a mix of excitement and worry. You're seeing the world in new ways. Your social life has gotten a lot more complicated. And whether you're experiencing the onset of puberty, or have already begun menstruation, the physical changes you're going through can also feel overwhelming. Written by a teen mental health expert, The Middle School Survival Guide for Girls is packed with tips and tools to help you adjust to the pressures of middle school—as well as to your changing mind and body.

Yayoi Kusama is now one of Japan’s best-known contemporary artists. She was the recipient of her country’s Praemium Imperiale for painting in 2006 - the most prestigious award Japan can offer to any painter, native or foreign. Her rise to fame has been unconventional, even by the standards of the art world of the 21st century, where eccentricities of all kinds pass without question.

Andrea Palladio is the most influential architect who ever lived - much more so than those heroes of the Modern Movement - Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe. It is significant that buildings we call "Palladian" are still being built today - for example, by the British architect Quinlan Terry. Palladio’s ideas were disseminated not only by his buildings, but also, even more effectively, by his writings, most notably by his didactic masterpiece, I Quattro Libri dell’Architettura (The Four Books of Architecture), published in 1570.

This audiobook considers the magnetic poles of post-war modernism and the towering figures of Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock. The essay considers the history of French avant-garde art led by Picasso to the post-war years and the increasing dominance of American artists foregrounded by the advent of Abstract Expressionism in the 1950s.

Rothko is now one of those mythical artists, an icon of 20th century creativity, the central figure in a tragic legend. Which means to say that one is pretty much compelled to agree that everything he did was wonderful, a manifestation of genius. I have to say that I find myself increasingly resistant to this approach. Some works by Rothko I do in fact respond to, with their glowing blocks of color.

The word avant-garde, so much used in connection with the various manifestations of contemporary art, is starting to have a strange, ironic ring to it. One might even claim that it is starting to signify what is behind the times, rather than in front of them. Like all such terms, it is in fact a metaphor, rather than a direct description. Borrowed from old-fashioned military terminology, it seeks to describe a situation where social norms are being perpetually challenged by artists. In the military sphere, where it originated, it is long out of use.

A study of Giacometti portraits at the National Portrait Gallery London and Frank Auerbach at Tate Britain.

We think of space as merely the empty distance between objects, but in reality, it’s a topography of magnetic fields, dark matter, wrinkles, contours, and wells of gravitational gradients that cannot be seen even with the most powerful telescopes. But not being able to see has never stopped us from imagining. Our undeniable curiosity about explaining the universe has led us to conceive of theories of gravity, magnetism, and relativity.

His sculptures have never been afraid of being seen. What I mean by this apparently paradoxical statement is that Pomodoro has never needed the shelter of the museum - defined by me here as "a space set apart for art" - in order to make his point as an artist. His sculptures have never been afraid of being seen. What I mean by this apparently paradoxical statement is that Pomodoro has never needed the shelter of the museum - defined by me here as "a space set apart for art" - in order to make his point as an artist.

An introductory essay by Edward Lucie-Smith, "The Enigma of Jasper Johns", explores the art, analysing its development from the 1950s to the exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, London.

Welcome to Funcliffe park. It’s a crusty old caravan park that's falling into the sea, the neighbours are all weird, but forget about that! Have a cuppa and a crumpet instead. It’s 1999 and Nanna wants to keep her football-mad grandson Nobby out of trouble, but everything’s going wrong. Nobby’s having a terrible birthday, she’s just whacked the local MP with a marigold glove and worst of all, she’s just stewed the tea. Will Nanna and Nobby triumph? Or is it full time for Funcliffe?

An essay by Edward Lucie-Smith on David Hockney's portraits exhibited at the Royal Academy's "82 Portraits and One Still-Life", and also "David Hockney and the Yorkshire Landscape" at RA in 2012.

It’s the most shocking scandal ever to reach the inner sanctum of power in the Holy See. The Vatican’s treasurer, Cardinal George Pell, was ordered to face trial in his native Australia after being charged with multiple counts of child sexual abuse. Investigative journalist Lucie Morris-Marr, who was the first reporter in the world to reveal the allegations against the cleric, attended each day of the subsequent legal case. She lifts the lid on the proceedings, which for so long were in lock down due to a controversial media black-out.

The big exhibition of Matisse's Cut-Outs at Tate Modern in London was, certainly on the face of it, everything that a major museum of modern and contemporary art should be doing. It was beautifully presented, very professionally curated, had an extremely thorough, excellently illustrated catalogue, and was greeted with ecstatic reviews.

A good art collection is always much more than the sum of its parts. This applies with especial force to collections of contemporary work. A collection of this kind, whether the collector intends it to be so or not, is always a portrait - a reflection in the mirror of a particular epoch, and, willy-nilly, a self-portrait of the person who takes the trouble to bring it together.

How do we expect public art to function in a contemporary society? By public art, we mean art that to some extent at least ambushes us. We encounter it as we go about our everyday lives, not in some special art-dedicated space. In other words, certainly not in a museum. However, Aida Mahmudova notes, in her introduction to this public art project for Baku organized by Yarat! Contemporary Art Space, conditions for public art are now very different from the way in which art of this kind operated previously.

Hammershoi is, in a certain sense, the Danish Vermeer, an artist whom he occasionally paraphrased. That is to say, a quietist painter obsessed by subtle effects of light, forgotten very soon after his death, but rediscovered and turned into a demi-god by a later generation.