Recent stories of note:
The Belgian Surrealists who are starting to gain on Magritte
Emma Crichton-Miller, Apollo
Sitting quietly in the Magdalena Quarter of Bruges, Belgium, is the Groeninge, a museum of classical Flemish and Belgium art. Such Old Masters as Jan van Eyck and Pieter Bruegel adorn every room—except for the last gallery, which houses an eclectic group of Belgian Surrealists. Far from discordant, this leap in time and style reveals the deep resonances between the religious-mystical work of Belgium’s classical artists and the uncanny experiments of the Surrealists who lived so many centuries later. Chief among these twentieth-century painters is, of course, René Magritte. But as Emma Crichton-Miller points out in Apollo, Magritte’s contemporaries prove to be just as fascinating as the man in the bowler hat. Of special note is the work of Paul Delvaux, whose strange, serene images have begun to fetch higher and higher sums at auction.
“Pesellino: A Renaissance Master Revealed” Review: An Overlooked Florentine No Longer
Cammy Brothers, The Wall Street Journal
It’s not often a new Renaissance master is rediscovered, but Cammy Brothers of The Wall Street Journal argues that just such a phenomenon has recently occurred: a small exhibition of Francesco Pesellino (ca. 1422–57) has debuted at London’s National Gallery, “Pesellino: A Renaissance Master Revealed.” Never heard of Pesellino? You’re not alone. The artist had never been the subject of a monographic exhibition until the National Gallery’s show. But in Brothers’s accounting, the artist represents the best of the Quattrocento’s aspirations. Saturated with narrative and detail, his work was in high demand in his time; perhaps it will become so in ours as well.
“An exciting new model for repatriation”: rotating display of Cycladic treasures, on loan from Greece, debuts at the Met
Gabriella Angeleti, The Art Newspaper
Upon entering the Met’s Greek and Roman wing, visitors are often seduced immediately toward the tall figure of Aphrodite at the end of the main hall. Along the way, they should be careful not to skip over one of the most interesting spaces in the museum: the Cycladic galleries, which have been closed in recent months. Yesterday, however, the galleries reopened in an expanded form, filled out with new donations from the philanthropist Leonard N. Stern. The Met’s display is the result of a new agreement—arranged in part by Seán Hemingway—with the Greek government, wherein the works are owned by the Greek state but on long-term loan to the museum. Over the course of the agreement, pieces of the collection will be periodically returned to Greece in exchange for other artifacts. Even more exciting, the arrangement provides funding for a new wave of research into this understudied art.