u/ArtBobby

A piece called Feminist Explorations (link below) examines Linda Nochlin's trailbrazing 1971 essay and its relevance today:

"Nochlin’s article crackles with profound insights, from its initial invocation of John Stuart Mill , to its highlighting of specific training techniques, such as drawing nude models, that female artists were long denied access to, to a clear-eyed analysis of the societal trope of “feminine well-roundedness” that simultaneously redirected women from the single-minded pursuit of excellence while condescendingly framing their artistic accomplishments as mere dilettantism." Read more: https://ideasroadshow.substack.com/p/feminist-explorations

You can watch a detailed conversation with John H. Elliott, Former Regius Professor of Modern History at University of Oxford (1930-2022), in which he talks passionately about his undergraduate encounter with a 17th-century painting of Count-Duke Olivares in the Prado museum which led him on a lifelong odyssey to study the history of Spain and the Americas in the early modern period to become one of the greatest Spanish historians of our age. This is an open access source here: https://ideasroadshow.substack.com/p/the-antidote.

Raphael was really a remarkably productive artist across so many genres and styles. During the last years of Raphael's short life, he was involved in many architectural and archaeological projects that he was particularly passionate about. Architecture had consistently played a central role in Raphael’s creative vision well before he was in charge of designing actual buildings. His deep love of classical antiquity and artistic adoption of so many of its features clearly predate his 1508 move to Rome and the classically-obsessed world of early 16th-century Rome was the perfect fit for Raphael, determined to integrate antique principles into contemporary art.

While Raphael was the chief architect responsible for the design and construction of Saint Peter’s, Pope Leo also put him in charge of all stone and marble to be used for its construction. The stage was set for embarking on one of his most ambitious projects of all: a rigorous cataloguing and reconstruction of all ancient Roman monuments and sculptures.

* Here is a free short video about his extensive efforts in architecture and archaeology.

https://youtu.be/zSHtGz4cqMg

The Florentine Baptistery contains 3 separate sets of famous doors - in this essay you can read the history, details about the artists involved and lots of overlooked details. In the early 1320’s Florence’s Arte di Calimala, its major cloth guild, decided to spruce up the wooden entranceway to the south portal of the Baptistery (the one facing the centre of town which likely received the majority of traffic), initially opting to cover the doors with metal plates and then deciding to create entirely new doors, likely influenced by the two hugely impressive late 12th century metal doors of Pisa’s cathedral by Bonanno da Pisa. Read more here: https://ideasroadshow.substack.com/p/revolving-doors

🎨 How did Michelangelo influence Titian and vice versa & for how long did their unspoken artistic dialogue continue? Watch this illustrated video podcast with Michelangelo scholar Bill Wallace to learn more! it contains lots of concrete examples and comparisons.

** https://youtu.be/bHZX8WbbFkA

Here is an interesting piece about leading art historians (and other historians) who use a mosaic-style approach very effectively to fill in historical gaps with informed imagination in order to make artists and their world come alive, tessera by tessera. The essay also includes a link to another video podcast with Michelangelo scholar Bill Wallace: https://ideasroadshow.substack.com/p/imagining-the-past

Here is an interesting article about halos in Medieval art:

"Why was it, I wondered, that those belonging to the top four angels were in front of the Virgin’s throne and thus appeared to “cut into” it, as opposed to those of the lower two that were so clearly behind it? A few moments later I noticed that it’s actually rather more complicated than that: the top two angels have both their head and protruding foot in front of the throne, the middle angels have their head in front and their lead foot behind, and the lower angels have their head behind and lead foot in front – a most intriguing set of symmetrical positioning."

https://ideasroadshow.substack.com/p/angelic-insights

Properzia de’ Rossi (c. 1490–1530), was a sculptor with a reputation for excellence in many different fields - painting, music, literature, engraving - and she was included in Vasari’s Lives of the Artists. Here is an interesting article about her work and also about Sofonisba Anguissola's influence on other women artists: https://ideasroadshow.substack.com/p/sofonisbas-chess-game-the-f-word.