Beyond the Canvas
An art blog with opinions
 

This year I saw a lot of beautiful, inspiring, thought-provoking, memorable, urgent and necessary art. This list is in chronological...

Eclipsed by Ferrara's and crushed between Venice's and Florence's, Bologna's Renaissance art fails to garner the attention and...

My dear Ukrainian friend Halyna makes veggie borsch for me. She also makes kapusta (red cabbage), Olivier (Russian) salad and blinis,...

Today Instagram is aflood with red hearts, declarations of eternal love, schmaltzy quotes and unmissable promotions. And while swathes of...

"Good artists copy; great artists steal." - Apocryphal quote The history of modern and contemporary art is littered with instances of...

Whether it’s the first one or the latest of many, a visit to Florence’s Uffizi is bound to leave you breathless. Such are the quality and...

"If I have to change my lifestyle, I don't want to live." - Robert Mapplethorpe In this powerful self-portrait Robert Mapplethorpe looks...

“I always use simple elements, I don’t want to add or subtract anything. I never even wanted to deform either: I isolate and I represent....

At long last, my reading drought has come to an end. I am currently re-reading the original version of The Life Before Us written in 1975...

“My photography has always provided me with an opportunity to open myself up and see the world around me. And most of all, photography...

“We are at a precipice in this country, and we are either going to move forward or we are not.” - Carrie Mae Weems In 2016, nearly half...

Venice is, among many other wonderful things, synonymous with glass. The work of the Murano glassblowers has inspired countless artists...

"The wall is a monument to openness over enclosure, lightness over heaviness, transience over permanence — it’s also fraught with...

‘The series was created from a personal need for spiritual grounding after experiencing trauma. The search for what gives meaning to our...

The Leopold Museum in Vienna's MuseumsQuartier is one the many gems of the city's outstanding cultural offering, arguably among the...

Discovery no. 1: Gorky Park is a name I used to associate with a spy movie from the 80s. Now I know where it is, it took me well over an...

With permanent installations across the globe, Barcelona-born Jaume Plensa is the one of the doyens of large scale artistic projects in...

There are many reasons to visit the Getty Centre, which is nestled in the hills overlooking West Los Angeles. The first is probably its...

Today is the most awaited day of my year. The hopeful and feverish monitoring of the evolution of the buds on my beloved pear tree...

Luxembourg-born Edward Steichen is one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century. He was one of the founders of the...