Popular perceptions of van Gogh are often preoccupied with heart-wrenching accounts of mental illness, but Van Gogh: Self Portraits avoids speculative psychoanalytic readings of one tortured face after another.
Olivia McEwan
London based Olivia McEwan is a trained art historian with BA and MA degrees from the Courtauld Institute, now a freelance writer focusing on the London art world; this academic background contributing to a writing style that — positive or negative — is argued with crucial fairness and balance. Combined with curatorial awareness, she is also a practising painter of predominantly figurative work, lending a keen eye and understanding of painterly technique which powerfully informs her criticisms of historical and emerging arts.
Posted inArt
Why Is a Virtual Veronese Artwork at a Physical Museum?
To play devil’s advocate, you could argue that eventually technology will be so good that everyone will have VR, and there is no need to travel to the National Gallery at all to see art.
Posted inArt
A Hogarth Survey Has Good Intentions but Misses the Mark
Why assemble the most significant grouping of Hogarths from far and wide without indicating why calling out the faults in historical artworks is important to our understanding of our world today?
Posted inBooks
“I Will Show Your Lordship What a Woman Can Do”: Artemisia Gentileschi’s Compelling Feminist Life
Sheila Barker’s account reveals an undeniably strong character and confidence distinct from, or perhaps in conjunction with, her practical survival needs.
Posted inArt
Dürer’s Journeys Offers a Detailed Examination of the Worldly Artist
By recording unusual sights encountered throughout his travels and disseminating these via workshop practices, it’s understandable why Dürer is so prominent in art history.
Posted inOpinion
How is This Possibly the Right Time for a Fabergé Show at the V&A?
So legendarily precious and complex are the Fabergé eggs that they have become a byword for insane expenditure.
Posted inArt
A Well-Intentioned Poussin Show Almost Gets it Right
Poussin and the Dance is a valiant attempt to break into Poussin’s staunchly academic oeuvre and provide a relatable point of entry, highlighting the exciting elements of revelry and movement despite impenetrable and unemotional rendering.
Posted inOpinion
The Queen of England’s Inaccessible Art Collection
We owe this rare opportunity to visit the Royal Collection to the temporary closure of the Picture Gallery, where the artworks usually hang.
Posted inOpinion
How the Labels in the British Museum’s Africa Galleries Evade Responsibility
Despite the British Museum’s active participation in work towards restitution, the current display and captioning fail to be forthright or responsible.
Posted inArt
Marina Abramović Enhances Her Brand
Abramović’s interests lie more with perpetuating herself as a product than with what she actually expresses through her art.
Posted inArt
National Gallery Shakes off Tired, Lazy View of Artemisia Gentileschi as “Victim”
Seeing how impressive and successful Gentileschi was in her lifetime, it is staggering that it has taken a show such as this to dispel her unfair dismissal by art history.
Posted inArt
Tate’s Bold Decision to Tackle the British Baroque
The political, dynastic, and religious machinations of this era should have provided ample material for a meaty exploration of the relationship between art and power.