London\’s National Gallery unveils newly restored Piero della Francesca nativity scene: Insights from the art world

A SUMMARY OF THE MOST EXCITING ART NEWS FROM AROUND THE GLOBE

While we focus on Indian art, we can’t obviously function in a vacuum. It’s a small world and everything is connected, especially on the web. So, let’s train our spotlight across the world map to see what’s going on — from art trends to socio-political issues to everything that affects the great aesthetic global consciousness. Or, let’s just travel the world and have some fun!

Hope for black, queer immigrants by the art of Didier William

The city of Miami is home to the largest Haitian population outside Haiti. Artist Didier William, who was born in Haiti, was raised in North Miami, making him one of many immigrants from the island to call it home. There, William picked up his Haitian mother’s medications at a local Walgreens and worked at the dollar store down the street from the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami. That institution is now about to open William’s largest exhibition to date, with more than 40 paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints set to go on view on December 1. Titled “Nou Kite Tout Sa Dèyè” (“We’ve Left That All Behind” in Haitian Creole), the exhibition is notably not a homecoming, according to William, who is now based in Philadelphia. Read more on Art news. 

London\’s National Gallery unveils newly restored Piero della Francesca nativity scene

A new restoration of Piero della Francesca’s wondrous Nativity (early 1480s) has solved a longstanding mystery: the painting is not unfinished, as has long been believed. Rather, the National Gallery in London proposes the picture represents a profound and moving vision of Christ’s birth, as seen through the eyes of the 14th-century saint and mystic Bridget of Sweden. The painting has just gone back on display in London, following 15 months of painstaking conservation treatment in the museum’s studios. Piero’s picture is one of the National Gallery’s most cherished masterpieces for many reasons: the refined grace and eloquence of its figures, the rich softness and luminosity of its colours (painted in the newly refined oil technique), its supreme balance and harmony, its spiritual and narrative power, and its combination of solemn grandeur and rustic simplicity. The Virgin kneels humbly on a rocky promontory, adoring the Christ child, who lies naked on the ground before her (protected from the bare soil by the spread of her blue mantle, which she has allowed to fall to her waist). His arms reach out to her—as in St Bridget’s vision—while angels provide a polyphonic musical accompaniment. Behind them, the ground falls away to lead the eye through the twisting Umbrian landscape of Piero’s native San Sepolcro beyond. Two shepherds, the elderly Joseph and an ox and donkey bear witness to this vision. And it is this visionary quality that has been given a revelatory new dimension. Details on Art Newspaper.

Three Vermeer paintings authenticated by Rijksmuseum

Ahead of its blockbuster survey of Johannes Vermeer, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has authenticated three paintings with contested attributions, expanding the Dutch artist’s small oeuvre. The three additions include Girl with a Flute, which made headlines in November when the Rijksmuseum reversed a decision by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC to strip its authentication. In October, the curator of the National Gallery of Art, Marjorie Wieseman, said it was likely produced by “an associate of Vermeer—not by the Dutch artist himself, as was previously believed.” The announcement followed a long scientific and artistic analysis. The team of curators, conservators, and scientists concluded that the author had botched the layering of pigments, resulting in a coarse finish unlike the precise brushwork synonymous with Vermeer. Read more on Art news.

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