Brian Alfred on Jo Baer

Its minimal linear elements raced around the side of the canvas and played with my expectations of where paint would normally be.

Raoul Middleman on Paul Cezanne

There is almost a metaphysical postponement of finish throughout these portraits, a hesitation as if waiting for an informant of the future to complete them.

Carol Diamond on Al Held

Each hue resonates as cool or warm, deep or shallow, allowing the eye and the sensibility to soak in energy, light and form as pure color sensation.

David Humphrey on William John Whittemore

I like thinking, though, that the painting makes a complete body out of dispersed heterogeneous parts, a complicated body constrained and subdivided by guardrails, pedestals, canvas edges, bowler hats and neckties.

Julie Heffernan on Pierre Bonnard: Part II

Bonnard is no easy reach. The challenge he sets for all narrative painters is formidable: how to use both understatement and wild speculation to tell a bold story well…

Julie Heffernan on Pierre Bonnard: Part I

Bonnard’s was a revolution in subject matter, turning a dining room table into a phantasmagoric carnival and a woman at her toilette into a primal spectacle…

John Goodrich on Henri Matisse

While I admire Picasso’s drawing, prints and sculpture, Matisse still represents for me the fullest mixture, in the modern age, of discrimination and passion.

Gary Stephan on Paul Cezanne

Picasso said of Cezanne: “He is the father of us all.” In this essay I want to take the “us” expansively.