Julian Bell | The New York Review of Books

A Curious Temperament

“I don’t have any programmatic agenda for art, merely a hope to cut through received patterns of thought.”

April 20, 2024

The Must-Also-Haves

In Nicole Eisenman’s paintings and sculptures, a system’s impending demise may reveal itself in feverish hilarity.

Nicole Eisenman: What Happened

an exhibition at the Museum Brandhorst, Munich, March 24–September 10, 2023; the Whitechapel Gallery, London, October 11, 2023–January 14, 2024; and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, April 6–September 22, 2024

May 9, 2024 issue

Bodies That Flow

A new exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery shows that conservatism has had no more articulate advocate than Peter Paul Rubens.

Rubens and Women

an exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, September 27, 2023–January 28, 2024

January 18, 2024 issue

The Emptied Cosmos

Bringing readers on a walking tour of Rome’s churches, Gabriel Pihas argues in a new book that for over a millennium, nature was God’s chief display board.

Nature and Imagination in Ancient and Early Modern Roman Art

by Gabriel Pihas

December 21, 2023 issue

Opulence and Humility

An exhibition devoted to Saint Francis forms a doorway between artistic tradition and the wider terrain of spirituality.

August 17, 2023 issue

A Mind in Space

Adam Elsheimer’s painting Flight into Egypt is in many ways a witness to humanity’s developing grip on nature, though its origin isn’t straightforward.

May 11, 2023 issue

An Impulse Felt Round the World

A recent show and catalog on Surrealism proposes that the thoughts expressed in André Breton’s 1924 manifesto were latent in disparate urban centers, only awaiting his coining of a movement identity.

Surrealism Beyond Borders

an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, October 11, 2021–January 30, 2022; and Tate Modern, London, February 24–August 29, 2022

May 26, 2022 issue

A Kinetic Endlessness

Nicolas Poussin explored insistently the transitions from three dimensions to two, and a delight of a new exhibition of his work is the thoroughness of his curiosity.

Poussin and the Dance

an exhibition at the National Gallery, London, October 9, 2021–January 2, 2022; and the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, February 15–May 8, 2022

February 24, 2022 issue

The Body in Swooping Close-Up

The National Gallery’s Artemisia Gentileschi exhibition foregrounds the will and charisma of the painter’s female figures.

Artemisia

an exhibition at the National Gallery, London, October 3, 2020–January 24, 2021 (temporarily closed November 5–December 2)

December 17, 2020 issue

‘Teeming with Things Unknown’

Goya: A Portrait of the Artist

by Janis A. Tomlinson

October 8, 2020 issue

The Painter of Souls

Lorenzo Lotto Portraits

an exhibition at the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, June 19–September 30, 2018; and the National Gallery, London, November 5, 2018–February 10, 2019

January 17, 2019 issue

More Light!

In David Hockney’s work, the video and the iPad lie side by side with the canvas and photo composite, all surfaces intended to please

David Hockney

an exhibition at Tate Britain, London, February 9–May 29, 2017; the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, June 19–October 23, 2017; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, November 20, 2017–February 25, 2018

A History of Pictures: From the Cave to the Computer Screen

by David Hockney and Martin Gayford

December 21, 2017 issue