Category Archives: Art and design

Hazlitt on painting

Posted on July 10, 2014 by David Brussat

Here is a passage from my favorite writer William Hazlitt’s essay “On the Pleasure of Painting,” written, I think, in the early 1820s. The famous British critic is known most for his essays on Shakespeare and other literature, but his … Continue reading →

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The first Palladiophiliac

Posted on June 25, 2014 by David Brussat

Sir Robert Walpole is said to have been Britain’s first prime minister, a fact that many people know. How many people know that he was also Britain’s first Palladiophiliac? The Wall Street Journal has a fascinating piece, “The Singular Style … Continue reading →

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Biennale beanball

Posted on June 23, 2014 by David Brussat

The 14th Venice Biennale opened June 7 and runs into November, the lalapalooza of world architecture, this year curated by Dutch starchitect Rem Koolhaas. The usual suspects of architecture criticism have had their go at it, and it has proved … Continue reading →

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The Frick’s future

Posted on June 11, 2014 by David Brussat

Plans emerged yesterday for an expansion of the Frick Collection. an addition reverent, it seems, in its devotion to the sensibility of the mansion built in 1913-14 for Henry Clay Frick by Carrere & Hastings, expanded by John Russell Pope … Continue reading →

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An ecclesiastical mood

Posted on June 8, 2014 by David Brussat

Something of an agnostic myself (and a Jewish one, to boot), I used to take my son to various churches not to give him a taste of theology (he was only 2 then, and we lived near Grace Church in … Continue reading →

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Palladio the Erroneous

Posted on June 7, 2014 by David Brussat

Along with Calder Loth, in his latest essay for the Classicist Blog at the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, I mean no disrespect to Andrea Palladio, the 16th Century architect and teacher of classicism. His influence on architecture has … Continue reading →

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Providence Opera House

Posted on May 28, 2014 by David Brussat

I had the pleasure of foisting my viewpoint upon a captive audience at a recent meeting of the Providence Netopian Club. For the uninitiated, which is surely almost everyone, Rhode Island founder Roger Williams, the father of religious (or “soul”) … Continue reading →

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Mackintosh . . . modernist? Nah.

Posted on May 26, 2014 by David Brussat

No sadist, I open with an image of the glorious facade of the Mackintosh Building, not with the image that has eaten away at the backside of my last several posts on the fire at the Glasgow School of Art … Continue reading →

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Sad. Sad. Sad.

Posted on May 23, 2014 by David Brussat

Indications are that after the horrible fire today in Scotland, the Glasgow School of Art’s famous Rennie Mackintosh Building has survived, with, as fire officials put it, 90 percent of the building structure considered “viable” and 70 percent of the … Continue reading →

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Italy’s got beauty, eh?

Posted on May 16, 2014 by David Brussat

My friend Maria Ruggieri, the famous jewelry designer of Providence (her firm, Ti Adoro, at tiadorojewelry.com), recently visited the Italian family seat of her boyfriend, Gigi, of Toronto, who is from the lovely region of Lake Orta near Milan. She took … Continue reading →

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