Art at the Rothschild Waddesdon Manor

Art, chez Rothschild at Waddesdon Manor in the United Kingdom is reported for FT.com by Rachel Spence.

Master Artist Wolfgang Beltracchi and The Beltracchi Project with Manfred Esser

"Art" thou familiar with the Beltracchi Project? or Manfred Esser?


"Red Picture with Horses", faked as a Heinrich Campendonk painting, but actually painted in Campendonk's style by Wolfgang Beltracchi
linked from Spiegel Online International

Wolfgang Beltracchi (born Wolfgang Fischer)
linked from Spiegel Online International

Confessions of a Genius Art Forger is really a great read at Spiegel Online International, because it is so exemplary of the follies of our modern age, an era in which greed and envy in overheated markets rules the world, whether this be Facebook membership, financial credit derivatives, housing bubble investors, misled judges or patent monopolists.

It is a world in which expertise is often a cloak for ignorance. Indeed, it is a world in which a master forger can believably claim to better understand the works of master artists than the art experts who he easily duped for decades. It is a world in which the master forger understood that he was essentially selling "envy", as he explained for his amazing success, and not art per se.

In our view, admitted master "forger" Wolfgang Beltracchi (born Wolfgang Fischer), in spite his forgery of many paintings over the past decades, may be the "greatest" painter as such of our era, an art era in which many imposters of no talent have laid claim to be artists and are sometimes even rewarded by investors equally lacking in art talent for their follies.

No one, on the other hand, can doubt the artistic talents of Wolfgang Beltracchi. The painting talent of Wolfgang Beltracchi is so phenomenal that he was able to paint numerous paintings in the greatly varying styles of many acknowledged masters of previous eras, then attribute those paintings to those masters, and then sell those paintings at enormous sums to a professional and lay public who paid top prices for the "envy" of owning a masterpiece. And they were masterpieces indeed, but painted by Beltracchi.

The amazing thing is that Beltracchi had no originals to copy. Rather, he "forged" paintings "lost" over the centuries, as attributed to various masters in the literature and sometimes described, but for which no original images existed. The paintings that he created were so good in imitating the masters' styles that expert and layman alike accepted them as genuine originals -- for decades.

Now THAT is artistic talent. It is one thing perhaps to copy or fake or forge the style of ONE painter. But to be able to imitate the style of so many painters -- that is art genius of a different kind. Indeed, an argument could even be made that Beltracchi's artworks -- in painting talent -- perhaps even surpass the masters in the very styles that he is imitating.

Hence, it is now the Beltracchi Project with Manfred Esser.
From photo to painting.
"Art" thou ready to take a look?

All the Art and the Records Division at the Frick via Humanities

Amy Lifson has the report at All the Art at Humanities magazine.

Ralph Lauren Modern English Glamour in Fall 2012 Collection: One of the World's Top Fashion Designers Hits the Mark Again: Stein Mart Deals

Ralph Lauren is one of our favorite fashion designers.

Did you know that Ralph Lauren's son, David Lauren (b. 1971), in September 2011 married Lauren Bush, granddaughter of former President George H.W. Bush, both in the photo below from Wikipedia.


Right in the spirit of the London 2012 Olympic Games, Ralph Lauren has an Autumn 2012 Collection featuring, as Ralph Lauren himself states:

"[T]he heritage and romance of England. My collection for Fall 2012 is about a modern glamour inspired by the timeless character and refined elegance of an authentic way of living."

See Fall 2012 - RalphLauren.com.

Hat tip to an ad originally seen at the New York Times, but our posting here is not an ad, just our interest in Ralph Lauren clothing and, as an aside, the attendant political connection.

We might add here that some years ago we bought a Ralph Lauren blazer at a Stein Mart store in the USA and some months later priced that same blazer at the Ralph Lauren (New) Bond Street Store in London, England, where it cost FOUR times more.

London and UK are much more expensive than the USA and so of course you have to price high to pay the rent, so higher prices are to be expected in the UK, but our U.S. purchase shows you what great deals Stein Mart can offer.  Thanks to my brother-in-law, who knew where to buy.

We do add here as a suggestion to the Ralph Lauren online presence, that you should add some Pinterest-capable images of the collection to your online pages. I wanted to "pin" the Fall collection page, but no luck.

As for Stein Mart, the online website is below standard and a bit "thin". In addition, why are there no stores in Europe, where there would seem to be a greater market for discount-priced quality clothing than in the USA?

The State of the Art in Art

The state of the art in Art
is analyzed by Simon Critchley
at The Brooklyn Rail
in Absolutely-Too-Much.

Is he right?

Contemporary Art Including Damien Hirst Union Flag for 30th Olympiad London 2012 Featured at Arrested Motion Art Blog

The Arrested Motion art blog takes its name from a quote by William Faulkner:

"The aim of every artist is to arrest motion..."

Now whether or not that is true is another quesiton, but some good images of contemporary art are found at this blog, including the Damien Hirst union flag for the 30th Olympiad at London 2012.

LEONA'S ART CLASS: Training the Eye

LEONA'S ART CLASS: Training the Eye: - Sent using Google Toolbar

Lots of Really Neat Stuff at Creative Greed - Inspiring Individuals

Lots of really neat stuff at Creative Greed - Inspiring Individuals

Marcel Breuer Digital Archive at Syracuse University Library: Architecture and Furniture Design

Marcel Breuer Digital Archive

"The Marcel Breuer Digital Archive represents a collaborative effort headed by Syracuse University Library to digitize over 30,000 drawings, photographs, letters and other materials related to the career of Marcel Breuer, one of the most influential architects and furniture designers of the twentieth century."

200 Years of Grimms Fairy Tales at the Goethe-Institut San Francisco

'200 Years of Grimms Fairy Tales': new artworks
is the story by Stephanie Wright Hession at SFGate.com.

Europeana - Explore Europe's Cultural Collections

Check out Europeana, "Think Culture", and explore Europe's cultural collections.

Large Legos Hadron Collider and Other Geeky Lego Creations

At the Los Angeles Times,
Deborah Netburn reports on a Large Hadron Collider made with Legos, and other geeky Lego creations.

Art and Copyrights: A Rapidly Ticking Clock of Coming Massive Copyright Problems

Randy Kennedy has the story at The New York Times Art & Design Section
in Art & Leisure, Apropos Appropriation,
stating that the Richard Prince Lawsuit Focuses on Limits of Appropriation,
and writing inter alia:

"[I]f the case has had any effect so far, it has been to drag into the public arena a fundamental truth hovering somewhere just outside the legal debate: that today’s flow of creative expression, riding a tide of billions of instantly accessible digital images and clips, is rapidly becoming so free and recycling so reflexive that it is hard to imagine it being slowed, much less stanched, whatever happens in court."

Read the whole thing with a discussion of the case, etc.

Crossposted from LawPundit.

Kansas Anti-Art and Anti-Science: What is Left? Superstition and Ignorance?

The governor in Kansas recently eliminated state funding for its arts programs, putting all of those employees in the state arts programs on the unemployment rolls and losing federal funding in greater amount than what was saved -- the governor of course ran on a platform of local job creation, but now also plans to seek an end to public broadcasting in Kansas.

Name one thing in the arts that the State of Kansas is known for -- I was stumped except for Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz -- so that dropping State funding for the arts is -- shall we say stupid, as an understatement.

The great leaders of history were often great art patrons and INCREASED their support for the arts.

If you elect the exact opposite types of people, however, do not wonder that you grow up in area without culture and if you find that is the way much of the US Midwest is viewed elsewhere.

Read the Los Angeles Times story at Culture Monster on the end of State arts funding in Kansas: Kansas governor eliminates state's arts funding.

We hope that neighboring Nebraska does not follow Kansas in that backward State's muddled footsteps.

The politicians in Kansas explain that no one should be compelled by taxes to pay for arts -- we are talking here about minimal amounts, but -- we add the comment -- that it seems as if these same politicians greatly approve giving massive tax subsidies to religion and religious sects, which is seen as OK because it conforms to THEIR belief system.

But why should people who do not believe in those religions have to pay more taxes to pick up the slack because those religions pay no taxes?

This discrepancy in being anti-art and anti-science but pro-religion shows that exemptions for religion are nothing but scams favoring one group of people over another and one group of ideas over another group of ideas.

That is the kind of blinded and misguided sophistry that makes for a brainwashed public and for a religion-mesmerized and uncultured citizenry who are then hardly to be distinguished from the third-world countries that are allegedly America's enemies.

The main comment that we hear from Europeans who visit for the first time in America, and especially the Midwest, is that much of the country consists of ignorant, culturally backward citizens. Well, no wonder.

Perhaps it is no surprise that Kansas has also been at the fore of the movement for dark age anti-science teaching in the schools: see here.

To counterbalance this ominous development in Kansas, it is of interest to look at the National Endowment For The Arts Forming Interagency Research Taskforce On The Arts And Human Development — a task force of 13 federal agencies being developed to foster more research on how the arts affect human development at all stages of life.

However, we share Paul Krugman's legitimate worry in a recent article at the New York Times about "Republicans Against Science":

"Now, we don’t know who will win next year’s presidential election. But the odds are that one of these years the world’s greatest nation will find itself ruled by a party that is aggressively anti-science, indeed anti-knowledge. And, in a time of severe challenges — environmental, economic, and more — that’s a terrifying prospect."

It is also a terrifying prospect to nations other than the United States.

National Endowment For The Arts: How the Arts Affect Human Development

The Huffington Post reports in National Endowment For The Arts Forming Interagency Research Taskforce On The Arts And Human Development that:

"The National Endowment for the Arts is forming a task force of 13 federal agencies to foster more research on how the arts affect human development at all stages of life."