The Magic of Iris Murdoch

The Artist’s Closet

Every Friday night I go to the Met to draw.

July 21, 2017

Being Chris Ware

Chris Ware’s grandmother is everywhere in his work, and the passages about the end of her life are his finest writing. This grandmotherly kernel, which he has in common with Proust, is something I did not know about Ware before reading Monograph.

January 3, 2018

A Sketched Guide to Michelangelo

The Michelangelo show at the Met is a conundrum. On the one hand, the work is for the most part so private. On the other hand, the show is a blockbuster, full to the brim with the kinds of people who go to big name museum shows.

February 24, 2018

Mark Twain’s ‘Advice to Little Girls’

If at any time you find it necessary to correct your brother, do not correct him with mud—never, on any account, throw mud at him, because it will spoil his clothes. It is better to scald him a little, for then you obtain desired results. If your mother tells you…

July 15, 2011

Sketching an Uncertain Future

Eleanor Davis is one of the very best cartoonists working today.

November 2, 2019

A Magician in Pigment

Titian was a painter of astonishing versatility, a master of landscape, of portraiture, of sacred painting, historical painting, mythology, a magician who could turn a dab of pigment into a flame, a pleat, a thunderbolt, a twinkle in the eye, a Cupid’s wing.

November 8, 2013