53 h. ago ‘It makes me sick!’ How the likes of the French impressionists went from ‘lunatics’ to luminaries

The National Gallery of Victoria’s new show, French Impressionism, celebrates the likes of Monet, Renoir, Degas, Morisot and Pissarro, who painted in the face of public outrageGet our weekend culture and lifestyle email“Five or six lunatics deranged by ambition – one of them a woman – have chosen to exhibit their works,” French critic Albert Wolff wrote in a review of an art exhibition in Paris in 1876. The lunatics in question were a group of up-and-coming artists: Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro and Edgar Degas.Almost 150 years later, we know now that those lunatics took over the asylum. The impressionists, who rebelled against the old masters by painting lighter, brighter, ephemeral scenes, are today’s old masters; what was so shocking then is now all over our calendars, coffee cups and phone cases. But back in 1876, those looking at their works “are content to laugh at such things,” Wolff wrote sniffily. “But it makes me sick ...

Politics

53 h. ago ‘It makes me sick!’ How the French impressionists went from ‘lunatics’ to luminaries

The National Gallery of Victoria’s new show, French Impressionism, celebrates the likes of Monet, Renoir, Degas, Morisot and Pissarro, who painted in the face of public outrageGet our weekend culture and lifestyle email“Five or six lunatics deranged by ambition – one of them a woman – have chosen to exhibit their works,” French critic Albert Wolff wrote in a review of an art exhibition in Paris in 1876. The lunatics in question were a group of up-and-coming artists: Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro and Edgar Degas.Almost 150 years later, we know now that those lunatics took over the asylum. The impressionists, who rebelled against the old masters by painting lighter, brighter, ephemeral scenes, are today’s old masters; what was so shocking then is now all over our calendars, coffee cups and phone cases. But back in 1876, those looking at their works “are content to laugh at such things,” Wolff wrote sniffily. “But it makes me sick ...

Politics

62 h. ago Art for Everybody review – the dark side of Thomas Kinkade, ‘painter of light’

The extraordinarily popular painter of kitsch American scenes struggled with addiction and depression, as this documentary with access to his previously unseen works showsYou won’t find the works of Thomas Kinkade lining the walls of the Museum of Modern Art, yet the painter, who died in 2012, is one of the best-selling artists in history and his paintings hang in tens of millions of American households. Kinkade’s typical subjects – rustic landscapes, sleepy cottages, quaint gazebos – bask in an idyllic calm, a luminous callback to a fabled simpler past. Turning to his unpublished archive, Miranda Yousef’s engrossing documentary portrait unveils the dark shadows that lurked within the self-titled “painter of light”.Through interviews with family members, close collaborators and critics, as well as Kinkade’s own words, the film traces his meteoric success in the 1980s and 90s. Shunned by the art world, he marketed his works through home-shopping television channels and a network of f...

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1 week ago Blueprints by Marcus Du Sautoy: Every artist is actually just a good mathematician

In his fascinating new book, Marcus Du Sautoy explains how mathematics underpins all creativity on earth.

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2 w. ago The Mastermind review – Josh O’Connor is world’s worst art thief in Kelly Reichardt’s unlikely heist movie

Cannes film festival Reichardt’s quietist, observational style is unexpectedly successful at creating a super-naturalistic depiction of an art gallery robberyIt needs hardly be said that the title is ironic. The abject non-hero of Kelly Reichardt’s engrossingly downbeat heist movie, set in 1970s Massachusetts, is weak, vain and utterly clueless. By the end, he’s a weirdly Updikean figure, though without the self-awareness: going on the run with no money and without a change of clothes, to escape from the grotesque mess he has made for himself and his family.This is James, played with hangdog near-charm by Josh O’Connor; he is an art school dropout and would-be architectural designer with two young sons, married to Terri (a minor complaint is that the excellent Alana Haim is not given enough to do). James depends on the social standing of his father Bill, a judge, formidably played by Bill Camp, and is borrowing large sums of money from his patrician mother Sarah (Hope Davis), ostens...

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3 w. ago The Art of Batting by Jarrod Kimber: The Ins and Outs of Cricket's greatest batsmen

Mark Mason discovers what makes the world's best batsmen tick, and all the things we can learn from them.

Politics