In 1989, I was a conservation student at the Courtauld Institute in London. During a class on varnish removal, my professor, Gerry Hedley, demonstrated how shining blue light on a picture with yellowed…
Frederic Bazille’s Studio 9 Rue de la Condamine (left) and Norman Rockwell’s Shuffleton’s Barber Shop (right). The computer was able to detect similarities in the composition of both paintings. Yellow circles indicate similar objects, red lines indicate composition, and the blue square represents similar structural elements.
I was the lead of a team of computer scientists at Rutgers that published a paper this past August titled, “Toward Automated Discovery of Artistic Influence.” In that paper we reported on our research…
Rising costs, the growing difficulty of securing loans, and a lack of curating talent have made the blockbuster exhibition a hazardous enterprise.
Barney Livingston/Flickr
A blockbuster art exhibition can double the annual attendance of an art museum and pull in significant amounts of money. Bring Vermeer’s The Girl with a Pearl Earring to the Frick Collection in New York…
In September, Tony Abbott returned two antique statues to India in the presence of his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi.
EPA/ Government of India
Last week, The Australian reported that 49 artworks had been identified by the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) with gaps in their ownership history that could signal they were stolen. Asian antiquities…
A view of the atrium from the Calderwood Courtyard.
Zak Jensen
After ten years of planning and six years of construction the Harvard Art Museums opens its doors to the public on November 16. The $350 million renovation combines the collections of three distinct museums…
Ivy MacKusick, Portrait of a Man in his Shirtsleeves.
UCL Art Museum
In 1919, Ivy MacKusick, an art student at UCL’s Slade School of Fine Art, completed a Portrait of a Man in His Shirtsleeves. We know nothing about the man of African descent depicted in this portrait…
The Sheaf (La Gerbe), 1953. Maquette for ceramic (realized 1953).
MoMA
On October 12, New York City’s Museum of Modern Art unveiled its exhibition of Henri Matisse’s cut-outs. This came on the heels an exhibition of the cut-outs at the Tate Modern in London, which displayed…
The Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported one of the great recent discoveries in the art world last week. It claimed that 90-year-old Mina Gregori, one of the doyennes of Italian art history, had found…
You’re in a gallery looking at Dani Marti’s It’s All About Peter. What do you do next? Photo: Jamie North.
Image courtesy of the artist and BREENSPACE, Sydney.
What’s the key to understanding art? Could there be some easy steps to unpacking the meaning of an artwork? The short answer is: yes. I recently wrote an article for The Conversation called Three questions…
Why are Western Australian artists such as Flynn Talbot, whose work X Y is pictured here, left out of the bigger picture?
Flynn Talbot Studio/Undiscovered Symposium
Despite our interconnectedness through radio, television and the internet, the coverage of arts and cultural activities in Australia is viewed from a very close focus. This corrupts our understanding of…
At Royal Holloway College at the University of London, Edwin Landseer’s picture “Man Proposes, God Disposes” (1864) is covered by a Union Flag every year during exams. Not because of any fears of cheating…
Thinking does not need machines.
Robert Couse-Baker
Some computer scientists at Rutgers University in New Jersey have written a computer programme that finds connections between paintings and can even discover influences between artists, they claim. This…
Extreme duration can transform otherwise simple activity into something strange and powerful.
Marina Abramović, The Artist Is Present, 2010, MOMA, New York. Andrew Russeth
Last September, I sat down in the Capital Theatre in Bendigo to listen to American composer Morton Feldman’s String Quartet No.2 played by the Flux Quartet from New York. Sounds a nice way to spend an…
Jian’s case suggests the Chinese government is far from “opening up”.
R. Ian Lloyd/Flickr
Earlier this week, just three days before the 25th anniversary of Tiananmen Square democratic movement, Chinese-Australian artist Guo Jian was taken from his Beijing home by local police. He’s currently…
John Constable, Sketch for ‘Hadleigh Castle’, c.1828–9.
Tate
There is currently something of a Kenneth Clark renaissance, with an exhibition devoted to him just opened at Tate Britain, and a new Civilisation planned by the BBC. If there is anything to be gained…
Corrado Giaquinto, Italian 1703–1766, worked in Spain 1753–62, Allegory of Justice and Peace (Allegoria della Giustizia e della Pace) c.1753–54 oil on canvas, 216.0 x 325.0 cm.
Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (P00104), Spanish Royal Collection
Nationalism is not always a good thing where understanding art is concerned, but in the case of Italian Masterpieces from Spain’s Royal Court, Museo del Prado on show at the National Gallery of Victoria…
Rembrandt Duits, School of Advanced Study, University of London
A painting is often like theatre. There are actors, who give expression to a narrative. They are distributed across a stage floor and positioned against a scenic backdrop. The artist is both the stage…
Start them young.
Popova Valeriya. Moscow gallery image via Shutterstock.com
The public response to a recent article in the Guardian on a campaign for more children to study art history at school left me thinking about what more we can do to shrug off stereotypical views of the…
Early prototype of Skippy.
Kangaroo Private Collection Courtesy of Nevill Keating Pictures Ltd
Not for the first time Britain and Australia are at loggerheads over cultural heritage. At issue this time are two images of genuine historical significance to both countries: Kongouro from New Holland…
Max Dupain, Bankstown aerodrome camouflage experiment, c.1943.
National Archives of Australia
Max Dupain and Frank Hinder are among the many significant artists who contributed decisively to Australia’s modernist tradition. Less well known, however, is that they both worked for Australia’s military…
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne