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One of the things I like most about Caravaggio is the sense of an unfolding emotional journey you get with his art. Early Caravaggios are sarky, confident, brazen. Late Caravaggio’s are dark, exhausted, tearful. A life put through the wringer. #Caravaggio
Beep beep. It’s the birthday of Puvis de Chavannes. French mystical symbolist. His work isn’t my cup of tea - too pale and wan and mannered. But he was a big influence on some good painters, and they say he was a helpful teacher. I just wish everyone in his art cheered up a bit!
If you missed me on Dora Maar at Tate Modern, it's here, top of the list. https://t.co/QZrp4pBid1
I went into the show really wanting to love it, but it didn't quite happen. Some good things. Some not.
Beep, beep - and beep some more! Today is a huge day for art birthdays. Diego Rivera, Lucian Freud, Camille Claudel, Albert Gleizes, Adolph Menzel, Wilfredo Lam and Aristide Maillol were all born today. Phew. Where to start?
Achtung achtung. It's the birthday of weird and nervy Otto Dix. Most of us have a braking mechanism. But not Dix. The prints he made of the First World War are some of the scariest in art. And his portraits from the 1920s break some kind of record for awkwardness and anxiety.
This is not a beep beep. But it is the birthday of Rene Magritte! People forget his tragic side. His mother committed suicide. When they dragged her from the canal, her nightdress around her head. All around his house were cement works. The dust got everywhere.
Beep beep. It's the birthday of Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986). What a life! Her art seems always to have its foot jammed to the pedal. No holding back. No brakes. And will you look at those sexy stamens waving in the air like tongues or penises. French kissing stamens! #Okeeffe
Beep beep. It's the birthday of the Flemish 'dead beastie' maestro, Frans Snyders (1579-1657). Rubens loved him and worked with him often. Snyders did the snakes in the great Rubens Medusa! I like him because his underlying ambition is to comment on humanity, not on animals.