Tag Archives: Painting

“Two Lesbians,” by Corbusier

Posted on October 17, 2017 by David Brussat

I have just started a book, newly published, that I’ve been awaiting for ages: Le Corbusier: The Dishonest Architect, by Malcolm Millais. It is a critique of Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris, better known as Le Corbusier, or Corbu. One of Millais’s earlier … Continue reading →

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Words that protect a nude

Posted on April 11, 2017 by David Brussat

The essay that accompanies the girl being sold at a Roman slave market in the 1884 painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904) tries to cover up the nude with protective words. The writer, Titus Techera, performs an act of charity in … Continue reading →

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The architecture of music

Posted on September 30, 2016 by David Brussat

And vice versa, with painting thrown in. This is the subject of a fascinating essay written a decade ago by Steven Semes, author more recently of one of my bibles, The Future of the Past: A Conservation Ethic for Architecture, … Continue reading →

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Hail buildings archaeology!

Posted on May 13, 2016 by David Brussat

Hugh Kavanagh, an Irish student of architecture from Cobh, Ireland – a seaside town known also as Queenstown, which was the Titanic’s last port of call and boasts Pugin’s St. Colman’s Cathedral – sends me an extraordinarily sensible essay. He … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Preservation, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Peter Thornton’s Providence

Posted on March 30, 2016 by David Brussat

Tomorrow evening at City Hall, some of the buildings of Providence that I love and have photographed over the years will be on display as buildings loved and painted by the artist Peter Thornton of our fair city. His show … Continue reading →

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Painting in Porto, Port.

Posted on January 8, 2016 by David Brussat

Malcolm Millais, author of Exploding the Myths of Modern Architecture, is a British engineer and architect who has retired to Porto, in Portugal, where he has taken up the pastime of painting – as Churchill did after his Gallipoli military … Continue reading →

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An idea for visual pushback

Posted on February 16, 2015 by David Brussat

Architecture, along with almost every other major human endeavor outside of food and music, is largely visual in its effect. Traditional architects rely on the appeal of their work to the eye as they try to push back against the … Continue reading →

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Disproportion by definition

Posted on December 10, 2014 by David Brussat

Above is my promised second reclining nude by Ingres, “The Sleeping Odalisque,” to be delivered after responses to my post “Naked proportion.” My promise to post another reclining nude by Ingres was slowed down by an apparent insufficiency of response. … Continue reading →

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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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Hyperphotography of Jean-Francois Rauzier

Posted on March 16, 2014 by David Brussat

Consider this an ad, gratefully posted, for the photographic work of Jean-Francois Rauzier, who once gave me permission to use his “Versailles” (above) with a column. Here is some of his wonderful “hyperphotography,” a sort of detailed architecture montage of … Continue reading →

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