{Cory Korkow | 34 | Art Historian}

She’s a post-doctoral fellow in European Painting at the Cleveland Museum of Art – and a girl who knows how to curate her own style!

At a wedding, wearing a little gold vintage hat found at Busy Broad Millinery in Cleveland

{a bit about Cory}: I am an art historian who moved to Cleveland after finishing my PhD, to take a fellowship at the Cleveland Museum of Art, cataloging their stunning collection of portrait miniatures. I’ve had sixteen addresses in the nine cities in six states and three countries in the last thirteen years, and am currently on the job market and longing for a permanent place of my own where I can unpack all of my boxes.

On a menswear kick last fall: in Brooks Brothers Black Fleece and vintage with Michel Perry shoes

{favorite physical places to shop}: My favorite places to shop in Cleveland are vintage stores: Flower Child for gorgeous dresses that you’ll never see on anyone else; Chelsea’s is bursting with endless racks of clothes catalogued by decade, and where I found my gentleman friend a flawless, fits-like-a-glove, 1960s tuxedo by Anthony Sinclair (the London tailor who designed all of Sean Connery’s James Bond suits); Deering Vintage in Tremont has such elegant coats; and Busy Broad Millinery has beautifully constructed vintage and just-designed hats. The thread connecting all of these places is the affection their owners have for vintage clothes, and how genuinely they enjoy watching their lovingly selected pieces being given a new life.

{favorite online physical places to shop}: I’m regularly combing through discount designer and sample sale websites including yoox, Gilt, and Swirl but also shop online retailers with regular sales, free shipping and great customer service, like shopbop.

{inspirations}: Traveling – in Cleveland or around the world, I am reminded that someone will always think you look bizarre or out of place, so why not wear what makes you feel like yourself? I enjoy getting dressed in the morning, and I like to think that it shows. I find it inspiring to watch my four little nieces, who dress for fun and without the pressure of knowing yet what is “appropriate.”

William Burges’ Victorian ceiling at Cardiff Castle in Wales

For many reasons ornamenting a home can sometimes be accomplished with more abandon than outfitting oneself. I love walking through old homes especially to see how men and women have created spaces and designed furnishings that make their fantasies more tangible.

I’m also inspired by my research, where I see the costumes people have chosen to immortalize themselves in throughout history. Every period has its version of the safe LBD, and when you come across that brazen woman who instead had her portrait painted wearing something like a wildly striped gown with ten colors, a Turkish costume or an outrageous hat, even one or two hundred years later she piques my interest and makes me smile!

{best kept secrets}: Right now my fashion daydreams are about:

• Shoes that outstrip my purchasing power: Guillaume Hinfray and Tabitha Simmons
• Clothes: the saturated colors and unusual silhouettes of Harvey Faircloth
• Letterpress: Cleveland’s Oddball Press
• Jewelry: Sandee Shin’s body armor pieces, at armorjewelry.com.
• Blog: photos of the gorgeous (and very real) fashions of the last two or three centuries at historicalfashion.tumblr.com

{a few of Cory’s favorite things}

Posted by: Reena

Only 2740 more links to go to get every blasted asset I have over there linked to from here. Lots of copying and pasting from excel file I created from their database to do this. My right pointing finger hurts from clicking the mouse so much lately, lol.

Again, I just want to re-iterate here that this is NOT spam. It’s a list of art links that I’m creating to later use for commentary purposes here in this blog. What I want to do is give some examples of various trends my artworks have been going the last few years, expound on where those trends will lead me in the future, and also use this link list to make this blog more comprehensive and complete in showing my various forms of artwork.

This is both a reference for those that enjoy my artwork as well as for myself, both for visual viewing purposes as well as for historical and documentation purposes. I am trying to more or less account for all my artwork online up to this point in time so that going forward it’ll be easier for anyone reading this blog as well as myself and any art historians to see where I’ve been, where I am, and where I’m headed in my art, its themes, its purposes, its concepts, in various relations between art that I have created and am working on now or in future projects, etc.

This entire blog is sort of an auto-biography from me, by me, and to me, Jeff Thomann, aka Mastermesh, aka Maria Mastermesh Mesh… and it’s also something intended for you dear reader, and you, fellow art lovers and art historians as well. This is me and my story. Come along with me on the ride, if you dare.

Also, he was literally an Art Historian James Bond

He wrote mostly about the art scene from the 17th century to the modern era.

Update: Some more info about him.  I may do an entry about him as a person when I read some of his books.

[The Nature Photographer] belongs to that rare category of people who put beauty before profit and contemplation before interest – people for whom beauty is profitable and contemplation is a fundamental attitude for the enrichment of life.
In this group he will find himself in the company of the most generous and elevated minds, of those who, be they artists or not, have offered us the means of feeling at peace with the universe, of feeling the trace of the infinite and the presence of the eternal. Certainly they are a composite group and those who lead it will seem way above us, but the important thing is to feel that one is marching under the same banner, to the sound of the same fanfare.
Nature awaits him with her infinite variety; the discovery of distant lands, or opportunities no less Important or desired for, which may be just around the corner. Enjoyable walks await him, stimulating journeys; the priceless satisfaction whatever may be the outcomes of his photography, of a day well spent. 

Camillo Semenzato

(1922-    )

Italian Author & Art Historian

If you greatly admire many of

Edward Weston’s photographs

– as I do – and if you find them

aesthetically majestic, recognize

their substantial influence and

their high status in contemporary

criticism, you may turn to the

photographer’s writings in an

effort to discover his intentions,

his philosophies, perhaps even his secrets.

Expect complexity.

Estelle Jussim

(1927 – 2004)

Art Historian, Communications Theorist

This link gives you a little more info on Estelle,

 as well as listing a few of the books she’d written:

#mce_temp_url#

For a full list of books, try a search engine such as BookFinder.com:

#mce_temp_url#

Museums of photography

are still rare in the world,

though their number has

increased in the last ten

years.

But what do these museums

of photography show ?

Not only the photograph

itself, but more especially

its technical evolution and 

that of the instruments with which it was taken – 

the photographic instruments.

Who would think of exhibiting at the same level the painter’s brush, paints and oils with the product of these utensils ? Nor we are shown the object and the instrument of production in the applied arts. This is however what happens for photography in most instances. The instrument takes on considerable importance and the photograph is still considered much more as the result of a technique and the camera than as the product of mind, thought and vision. It is here forgotten that photography is above all the bearer of a message, a new language and mode of expression for man.

Anna Fárová

(1928 -    )

Art Historian

Anna Fárová: a life in photography:

#mce_temp_url#

Can you tell us a little about yourself?

I’m an art historian specializing in post-WW II Italian film and painting and American and British contemporary art. I received my BA from San Diego State University and my MA from Birkbeck College, University of London. At the moment, I’m working as a freelancer, writing for arts publications both online and in print and supplementing my income with a bit of sub-editing. I think overall, given the pretentious nature of the art world – I prefer the more academic side of things as far as working within the art industry.

Prior to becoming an art historian I was a travel agent for 8 years, which was a lot of fun – now If I can just combine those two interests – and win the lottery – I could just travel around the planet looking at art and taking in the sights – that would be brilliant!

How did you end up in London? Why London?

I ask myself that question every day! The truth is – my husband is British, so I moved here to be with him. Otherwise, I would surely be back in Southern California by now!

You’re an Arts journalist? What does that include?

Hmm, I suppose I’m an arts journalist, but I prefer the title, Art Historian, because in my opinion, most arts journalists are more interested in getting their opinions in print than they are with supplying balanced critical support for their arguments. Which is a nice way of saying that most arts journos are up their own arse!

For me it includes writing about art – exhibition reviews, features, interviews for glossy art mags, online websites and academic journals. It also means that I’ve got to do something else to pay the bills!

Maybe someday it might mean that I’m the author of my own book!

Why arts journalism? What made you chose it rather than an academic career, one in a museum etc. ?

Well, actually it chose me, it’s not easy trying to find a job in the arts so I was really open to all sectors. When I moved to London it was really hard to find a job, which is why I started freelancing – I wanted to keep my foot in the door so to speak in the art world and stay on top of what was going on. So, in the beginning I did a lot of writing for free in Art Rabbit, The Art Book, Dazed Digital, etc., just to gain some experience.

I’ve worked in a few museums, most memorably was the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York. Museum work is fun and can be rewarding but unless you are the Director, the pay is really low and the climb up the ladder is not a fast one.

I still aspire to get more involved in the academic side of things – if someone would care to fund my PhD – I’m all for it! If not, I’m quite interested in teaching adult education art history courses in the near future. And I do prefer writing for academic journals rather than glossy arts mags.

What’s your favorite period in art? (I know better than asking favorite artist. There are too many!)

That’s a really hard question to answer – As far as writing, contemporary art is a good target because it hasn’t been theorized to death like the Renaissance or something. As far as personal taste – I ‘m not a huge fan of conceptual art or trash that portrays itself as art, so I do often have a hard time with contemporary art – for instance, Damian Hirst’s shark in a tank – what’s that all about? I’m a huge fan of very tactile art – painting, sculpture, architecture, more than digital, conceptual, etc. I’m kind of old fashioned that way. I like to see that some effort (and passion) has gone into it.

What makes you like contemporary art enough to write about it?
I’m actually very hot and cold with contemporary art – there is a lot of it that I don’t like – I don’t have much time for the YBA’s, for instance. But it’s easy to write about – it’s current, it’s always changing, it hasn’t made it to the history books yet.

What are your favorite things to write about? (Exhibitions? Art criticism? etc.)

Exhibitions reviews can be fun, but I prefer feature articles because there is more involved. Interviews are great to conduct but transcribing them afterwards is my least favourite part of the job!

What’s the most annoying part about writing about art?

Coming up with new ideas can be a challenge – and sometime even when you have your topic you can’t just tell yourself to sit down and write, you are either in the mood to write or you’re not – I get writer’s block a lot!

You have a blog too, right? What’s it about? How long have you been posting?

I do have a blog called VisualBites – it’s mostly about contemporary art, but not exclusively, it’s basically my way of keeping up with the art market and what’s going on in the art world and it’s a space where I can share my own opinion in a casual way. I guess I’ve been posting for over 2 years now. Please check it out for yourself: http://visualbites.blogspot.com

What role has your blog played professionally or personally?

I keep a list (including links) of my published works on my blog – so it’s sort of like an online CV and I often direct prospective employers to it to see samples of my work. I’d like to think that it’s helped me get commissions, a few people have contacted me via my blog – and it is good practice, I suppose.

What’s your favorite, current exhibition in London?

Currently, there’s nothing that’s really hit home with me – the last really great exhibition that I saw was Raqib Shaw — Absence of God at the White Cube, Hoxton Square in July, really amazing work!

Anything else?

I guess just some advice to emerging art professionals — it’s unlikely that you will get rich from a job in the arts unless you have some really good connections or you get that lucky break – so, my best advice is to do what you love doing and don’t take any shit from anyone – get your experience and then do what you want!

Mummy. James aged 5.

How we see the art world is very much influenced by the commentators:
The art historians, the art critics etc.
The term art historian carries with it an implied degree of knowledge about the quality of art. However, although they may have the best of intentions it is quite possible for an art historian to learn all the dates and movements etc, but be unable to acquire the necessary ability to access quality. Often the claims made about many art historians understanding of art or painting are not always justified. Commentators in other disciplines such as music, maths or tennis are usually exponents in that particular field. In fact it would be unthinkable to have a commentator in maths who was not a very considerable exponent. Reading between the lines it soon becomes evident that many art historians understanding of art is flawed. Before we deal with this in any depth, it is often expedient for artists to go along with the writings of commentators, in fact it would not be an exaggeration to say that artists careers are made by a certain symbiosis. Each giving the other what is required to drive the market, this is fine when both are in a reified atmosphere, the realms of genius. My concern is that the recent past has seen a rise in the less visually literate becoming involved in the arts. As often or not it seems more like the blind leading the blind, beginning with that transition period known as the Modernists. That period from the late 19th century to the early 20th century. The question is, is it now time for a review of this period? Hind sight is never a bad thing, is it now time to say that some of the information that we were fed was not always correct. I know from my own experience that some of the information from Art College was not factually correct. Coincidently I saw the same information repeated recently on a TV documentary on art i.e. that the some what strange sinewy images painted by Cimabue where done in this fashion out of choice. The art historian on the documentary made a point of saying that Cimabue could quite easily have painted a more representational image. This a fundamental flaw in the art historians understanding of the painter. The art historian continued with how wonderful the eyes were in the Byzantine paintings and he reasoned that they had been painted in this way to seem elemental and filled with awe. Art historians often have the idea that if someone is called an artist they are automatically granted a God given talent, that they can paint like Michael Angelo and that any divergence from this is through choice and certainly not through lack of ability, they seem to misconstrue sheer inability for design. Byzantine work can be considered analogous to a childs attempt at producing a picture. They both confuse symbols with vision. Nicely illustrated in Ernst Gombrich’s book Art and Illusion, where another art historian, this time a much celebrated art historian, suffers from a more dramatic example of this misunderstanding.

Egyptian life class

Although vision is part of that perception, visually this symbol has very little resemblance to mummy. Gombrich in his book ‘Art and Illusion’ asks the question “a problem which has haunted the minds of art historians for many generations……….will the paintings we accept as true to life look as unconvincing to future generations as Egyptian paintings looked to us?” What Gombrich fails to understand here, and it seems fellow art historians, is that the Egyptians were illustrating perception.
This is not a progression, as Gombrich suggests where painting improves with time, this is pre disentangling vision from perception. I hope the minds of art historians are hence forth released from this haunting (I excluded those who were so much further up the artistic ladder than Gombrich that they were never so haunted) So the reader is left in no doubt of Sir Ernest Gombrich’s status in the art world I list his honours and credits below:
Gombrich, Sir Ernest (Hans Josef) (1) Knighted 1972. (2) CBE 1966. (3)FBA 1960. (4) FSA 1961. (5) PhD (Vienna). (6) MA Oxon & Cantab. (7) Director of the Warburg Institute & Professor of the History of the Classic Tradition in the University of London 1959-76. (8) Research Asst. Warburg Inst., 1936-39. (9) Research Fellow, 1946-48. (10) Lectr, 1948-54. (11) Reader, 1954-56. (12) Special Lectr, 1956-59, Warburg Inst., Univ. of London. (13) Durning-Lawrence Prof. of the History of Art, London Univ. University Coll, 1956-59. (14) Slade Prof. of Fine Art in the University of Oxford, 1950-53. (15)Visiting Prof. of Fine Art, Harvard Univ. 1959. (16) Slade Prof. of Fine Art, Cambridge Univ. 1961-63. (17) Lethaby Prof. RCA. 1967-68. (18) Andrew D. White Prof-at-Large, Cornell, 1970-77. (19) A Trustee of the British Museum, 1974-79. (20) Mem., Museums and Galleries (formerly Standing Comm. on Museums & Galleries),1975-82. (21) Hon. Fellow, Jesus Coll., Cambridge, 1963. (22) FRSL. 1969. (23) Foreign Hon. Mem., American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1964. (24) for. Mem., Amer. Philosophical Soc., 1968 (25) Corresponding Member: Accademia della Scienze d Torino, 1962. (26) Royal Acad. of Arts and Sciences, Uppsala, 1970. (27) Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschapen, 1973. (28) Bayerische Akad. der Wissenschaften, 1979. (29) Royal Swedish Acad. of Sciences, 1981. (30) Hon. FRIBA, 1971. (31) Hon. Fellow: Royal Acad. of Arts, 1982. (32) Bezalel Acad. of Arts & Design, 1983. (33) Hon. DLitt: Belfast, 1963, London 1976. (34) Hon. LLD St Andrews, 1965. (35) Hon LittD: Leeds, 1965, Cambridge, 1970, Manchester, 1974. (36) Hon., DLitt: Oxford, 1969; Harvard, 1976. (37) Hon. Dr. Lit. Hum; Chicago, 1975; Pennsylvania, 1977; DU Essex, 1977. (38) Hon. DHL Brandeis. 1981. (39) Hon Dr RCA, 1984. (40) W.H.Smith Literary Award, 1964. (41) Erasmus Prize, 1975. (42) Hegel Prize, 1976. (43) Medal of New York Univ., for Distinguished \Visitors, 1970. (44) Ehrenkreuz fur Wissenschaft und Kunst, 1st cl., Austria, 1975. (45) Medal of College de France, 1977. (46) Orden Pour le Merite fur Wissenschaften und Kunste, 1977. (47) Ehrenzeichen fur Wissenschaft und Knust, Austria. 1984.

What we perceive can give us shorthand we know as symbols and introduces a value judgement: what is the most important aspect of this subject? When the subject is a person, this value judgement shifts up a gear, the physiological impact of the face of this subject takes precedence over feet or knees, the eyes on this face out rank any other feature. When these features are translated into 2D their precedence is ranked by size. In reality eyes are give or take, about the size of finger nails, yet if we look at the Byzantine example we can see that they are relatively enormous. This dysmorphia continues into the Proto Renaissance, tiny hands and big heads are all too apparent in works as late as Giotto. Medically speaking this type of image could be called a physiological homunculus. Why civilisations should react like a child is a mystery, but whether by a child or a civilisation this sort of work can not really be considered art. Even during the early period when the problem began to be addressed the proto Renaissance artists such as Cimabue 1240 – 1302, Duccio 1255 – 1318 and Giotto 1267 – 1337 I would have a great deal of difficulty calling this work ‘art’. The Renaissance can really be considered the science of vision, it is interesting that civilisations which produced the symbolic representations prior to the science of vision, such as Japan with the Hokusai wave approach, don’t have a word for art.

Cezanne.

Cezanne.

When I was a student in the sixties suggested reading was Herbert Reed a Concise History of Modern Painting. In the opening pages he refers to Cezanne and suggests that he was the first artist to be objective: ‘let us ask why in the long history of art it had never previously happened that an artist should wish to see the world objectively’.  Firstly, I hope I have made it abundantly clear that the entire period of the Renaissance was devoted to the retinal image. But secondly, has this much respected and influential historian never heard of Vermeer or seen his ‘Maid with a milk jug’.

Vermeer. Maid with a jug.

As we have seen from what has gone before it seems that there is a wide discrepancy between the none artists view and what the artists where aiming to achieve or in fact where achieving. Herbert Reed goes on to touch on Impressionism, a movement which could have be said to have had its waters muddied, by its title, suggested by a critics slur: That the paintings where merely impressions.
Herbert Reed speaks of Impressionism as a subjective movement. However, the truth is somewhat different the movement emerged parallel to the invention of photography. Painters had a big break through when they realised that a camera did not see objects as separate entities, as in a bottle on a table, two separate objects, but as patches of light. The bottle may be lost and found in the tones and colours of the table. A second and just as important aspect was that the grainy resolution was oblivious to distance, hence the trade make rain effect of Impressionism. Nether did the mindless machine pay any attention to the psychological precedence. Equal treatment was given to all areas whether a finger nail sized eye or a finger nail itself.

Art historian.

The pioneer historian of Indian art and foremost interpreter of Indian culture was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, of mixed Sinhalese and British parentage. He was educated at Wycliffe College and the University of London where he earned a doctorate in geology. He was named as the director of mineral surveys of the then Ceylon in 1903 but soon transferred his interests to the arts of Ceylon and India. In 1910-1911 he was put in charge of the art section of the Great United Provinces Exhibition in Allahabad, India. Six years later when the Dennison W.Ross collection was donated to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Coomaraswamy was appointed as the Fellow for research in Indian, Persian and Muslim Art a post that he held until his death. He enhanced the Museum’s Indian collections but was primarily concerned with scholarship and contributed extensively to learned journals throughout the world. He was concerned with the meaning of a work of art within a traditional culture and examining the religious and philosophical beliefs that determine the origin and evolution of a particular artistic style. A careful scholar, he also established an art historical framework for the study of the development of Indian Art. His publications ranged over Indian music, dance, Vedic literature and philosophy as well as art. He also contributed to Islamic and Far Eastern studies. Coomaraswamy’s definitive ‘Catalogues of the Indian Collections’ in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston was published in five volumes during 1923-’30. The ‘History of Indian and Indonesian Art’ (1927) remains the standard text in the field. The ‘Transformation of Nature in Art’ (1934), ‘The Figures of Speech’ and ‘The Figures of Thought’ (1946) are collections of essays expressing his views on the relationship of art to life, traditional art and the ideological parallels between the arts of the East and the Pre-Renaissance West.

compiler: benny

A very thought-provoking and interesting book based on the search for the long-lost painting The Taking of Christ by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio with lots of additional information on the life and times of Caravaggio, thought-provoking vignettes on some of the leading Caravaggio scholars and other art historians in modern times as well as an educational look into the world of art history – the topic of art restoration in particular.

Happy Reading!

Here’s further information on the book from Amazon.com:

The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece by Jonathan Harr

The author of the book, published exactly one month ago today,  is the American art historian Cynthia Saltzman.

Two days prior to the book’s publication in America the author was interviewed by Smithsonian Magazine:

 Old Masters, New World: America’s Raid on Europe’s Great Pictures by Cynthia Saltzman

As always, Happy Reading!

Portrait by Lorenzo Castello

Denis Mahon

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sir Denis Mahon

Born    November 8, 1910 (age 97)

 London, England

Nationality     British

Occupation   Art collector and historian

Parents           John FitzGerald Mahon

Lady Alice Evelyn Browne

Sir John Denis Mahon CH (born November 8, 1910) is a British collector and historian of Italian art. Considered to be one of the few art collectors who is also a respected scholar, he is generally credited with bringing Italian Baroque painters to the attention of the public and scholars throughout the English-speaking world.

Mahon is part of a wealthy Irish-English family.[1] After attending Eton, Mahon enrolled at Christ Church, Oxford University, where he received an M.A. He spent a year working at the Ashmolean Museum under the supervision of Kenneth Clark, then in 1933 he enrolled at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. It was here that he was introduced to Italian Baroque painting in a series of lectures by Nikolaus Pevsner, who also gave him private tuition. He bought his first artwork, Guercino’s Jacob Blessing the Sons of Joseph in 1934 in Paris for £120. He subsequently met art historian Otto Kurz, whom he frequently used as an Italian translator, in the late 1930s, and together they travelled to Russia to study Italian masters.

Mahon’s Studies in Seicento Art and Theory, a series of essays promoting Italian art of the 1600s, was published in 1947. In the 1950s, he became a trustee of the National Gallery. In the 1960s, Mahon and Sir Anthony Blunt became embroiled in a nasty, public feud over the iconography of paintings of Nicolas Poussin, a subject where both were recognized experts who had published extensively on Poussin.[2]

In 1999, Mahon, who has received honorary doctorates from the universities of Newcastle, Oxford, Rome, and Bologna, donated his entire art collection to public museums throughout the British Isles and Italy. A leading proponent of admission-free art museums, he was knighted in 1986, and made a Companion of Honour in 2002 for his services to art.

In December 2007, a painting Mahon bought for £50,400 the previous year (and which was considered to be the work of an anonymous follower of Caravaggio) was authenticated by him as a true Caravaggio. It is an early version of the painting The Cardsharps. The painting is thought to be worth up to £50 million.