articles that do not fall within our usual remit.
The exhibition of Marianne von Werefkin at De Fundatie in Zwolle starts with an intimate painting of Vera Repin knitting a child’s sock. It confirms that Ilja Repin was right in comparing her treatment of chiaroscuro to that of Rembrandt! However, the self-portrait she makes a decade later shows that she is moving away from this academic style of painting more towards impressionism.
Remember George Clooney’s The Monuments Men film? It follows the death-defying escapades of a group of art experts tasked with finding and saving priceless works of art before they are stolen or destroyed by the Nazis. Leonid Marushchak, a 38-year-old historian by training, has taken on a similar task as war rages in his native Ukraine . . .
Scapino Ballet dancer Ashton Benn gives an insider’s view of Ed Wubbe’s final production.
After moving to the Netherlands in July, I was warmly welcomed into the company and tasked with learning the show. Fortunately, many of the dancers and circus performers helped create Oscar in 2022 and had the choreography tucked inside their muscle memories . . .
This is the story of how a 2,800 year-old Cypriot oinochoe, or wine jug, ended up in a small apartment in Eindhoven. Its journey from ancient Cyprus to a Dutch domestic environment is as intriguing as the archaeological importance of the vessel itself. The saga begins nearly a century ago, far from both Cyprus and the Netherlands, in Sweden.
In this exhibition Mayken Verhulst is finally positioned as the Mater Familias of the Brueghel family. In her day she was well known, for she is mentioned in contemporary sources as one of the most meritorious 16th-century female painters of watercolours, all of which were unfortunately lost . . .
Extracurricular is a feature which enables us to include items that are perhaps outside our normal remit . . . On a recent visit to Brussels I spent an exceptionally entertaining and pleasant evening at the Théâtre Royal de Toone. Hidden down a dark and dingy alley off one of the city’s main shopping streets, and only 100m from the Grande Place , . .
Some artists are simply known by their first name Leonardo and Michelangelo being the most famous. However, there are also female painters of great acclaim of whom Artemisia is probably the most well-known. But there is one other female artist whose first name was enough to make you swoon: Rosalba.
Three hundred and fifty years after Rosalba Carriera’s birth her name again is the talk of the town, especially when this town is Dresden.
For a noble woman like Sofonisba Anguissola it was extremely difficult to become a professional painter for a number of reasons. First of all, a lady of her standing was not allowed to sell her work. The portraits she made were paid for by returning favours to her family. Secondly, even though learning how to paint befitted a noble lady, there was no way she was allowed to study the human anatomy.
