Who needs culture anyway?
One of the biggest shocks of my life and one of my biggest disappointments occurred when I went to France for the first time in 1993. France! home of great artists--David, Delacroix, the angelic Ingres,…
Category: Culture
British judge rejects Assange extradition
Surprisingly, this morning a British judge rejected the US request for extradition of Julian Assange. Assange, as most of you know, is the beleaguered founder/leader of WikiLeaks. Previously, Judge Vanessa Baraitser was considered a harsh…
Don’t go to art school
Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal, likes to say that degrees from the nonprestigious schools are just expensive dunce caps. He means that today higher education is close to worthless, except that degrees from the…
In the kitchen
For the most part, I've stopped showing the early stages of my paintings. One thing that I've learned after running this site for 8 years is that readers assume that I only post finished work--the…
Painting in the time of pandemic
We painters are lucky. We already self-isolate when we paint, so when the pandemic s**t hits the fan, we can continue painting and just carry-on as usual. Last week I ordered some oils from RGH,…
Podcast – Academic art and kitsch p.2
I talk about the history of the French Academy of Fine Art and defend it from charges of kitsch. Artists mentioned: David, Manet, Courbet, Watteau, and Fragonard among others.
Podcast-academic art
I pick up last episode's discussion about Clement Greenberg and the avant-garde and kitsch, and talk about academic art. Artists mentioned: Gerome, David, Bouguereau, Ingres, and Thomas Couture.