Art and Eye

  In the dimness of candlelight, Joseph Wright of Derby depicts three figures gazing intently at the Classical nude sculpture in the centre of the work. The viewer joins in this exploration, taking their own seat at the table right in front of the the leaning, contrapposto figure, which seems to be an imitation of the Borghese Gladiator. From light to dark, from flesh to marble, Derby's painting is typical of his tenebristic style, yet here he takes on a new subject that expands beyond his oeuvre of portraits, or even beyond his most well known work An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump. Certainly, the work in question bears similarities to the  Air Pump , particularly in the sudden explosion of light cast across the sculpture. Not only does this illuminate the musculature of the lean, stretching gladiator, but it also allows to viewer to catch a glimpse of the faces which surround the table, all of whom are individualised - in fact, the work is even said to include a portra...

  The Laughing Cavalier is a man on the cusp of unseriousness. His eyes follow a viewer around the room, his curled moustache twitches endearingly as if he struggles to maintain composure, whilst his lip is pursed to stop laughter escaping. The pose, meanwhile, is proud and monumental, filling the canvas with a foreshortened elbow and shoulder pushing into a viewer's world, serving to emphasise the silks and expensive dress against the monochromatic background.  Frans Hals was first and foremost a portrait painter. His oeuvre includes wedding portraits of solo male and female sitters, multifigure works including The Banquet of Officers from 1627, yet his depictions often turned to peasants or comical characters, notably his Jester with a Lute now in the Louvre, proving that portrait painters also had range. The Laughing Cavalier remains an equally intriguing work: despite being Hals' most famous piece, the sitter remains anonymous. Yet, the smile is so familiar to a viewer, an...

  Strikingly simple and strongly meditative, Zurbarán's multiple depictions of St Francis, including this example from the National Gallery's collection in London, are uniquely his. Drawing on the lineage of artists who recreated the saint, from Giotto to El Greco and more, Zurbarán's Tenebristic ode to the techniques of Caravaggio gifts us St Francis in an altogether different light.  St Francis' makeshift habit is pieced together from two scraps of cloth, alluding to the extreme life of poverty he chose to lead. Zurbarán may even be drawing more closely from the life of the saint here, a set of stories which are defined by dress and clothing - for example, on the path to sainthood, Francis famously gives his cloak to a poor man, and later, his renunciation of worldly goods is often represented by the stripping of his clothes, both of which are expertly rendered by Giotto in the basilica at Assisi. In true Caravaggisti fashion, Zurbarán includes a rip in the foreshorte...

  A collection of monolithic, monochromatic and freestanding dresses construct Anselm Kiefer's Women of Antiquity series, begun at the turn of the twenty-first century and revitalised by the artist in 2018. Exhibited most notably in his so-called 'studio' La Ribaute, these luxuriously tactile gowns have subsequently travelled across both exhibition venues and the art market. Mytris , who is weighed down by the book which constructs the head of the figure, is one such example. Kiefer, today, is one of the most talked about artists. A slow rise to fame has now blossomed into exhibitions that have drawn on literary references (Finnegan's Wake at the White Cube in 2023), expositions detailing his earlier working life (at the Ashmolean in early 2025), or his connections to canonical artists (Van Gogh/Kiefer at the RA which recently concluded). His colossal canvases suck a viewer in, his colours are captivating, as the artist draws on themes of violence, spiritualism, desolat...

  With an idiosyncratic artistic practice which defies artistic categorisation, Howard Hodgkin's Lovers was eight years in the making. It bleeds out of its dark frame towards a viewer, illustrating a swirling motion of vivid reds and greens which cannot be controlled. Towards the left-hand side of his panel, the artist has captured a more humanised form; a figure in orange curled in a fetal position and protected by the nest of colour illustrated on the opposite side. Perhaps, Hodgkin suggests another example of human love here, through the allusion to comfort, safety and protection. Opposite, he captures untameable human emotion with single sweeps of brushwork, firstly in red, then in green, then red again, exploding outwards with yearning and urgency.  Running away from school to pursue his artistic career, Hodgkin went on to represent Britain at the Venice Biennale, whilst he also won the Turner Prize and earned himself a knighthood. However, he never attached himself to an...

  Tomás Saraceno's interests in spider webs might seem uncannily odd to some viewers, however, to put aside that arachnophobia is to produce intriguing works of art. Boxed in and spectacularly spot lit, the works are confined by an omnipresent curator and the hand of Saraceno is certainly present, yet there is still room for freedom, for uniqueness. Their display in the round enables a visitor to explore for themselves. Simplistically black and white with no fuss, they are mesmeric displays, ritualistic and quietly captivating.  Saraceno has made a name for himself through 'Arachnophilia', a community of researchers striving to know more about the spider web and its uses. However, the artist has also spoken at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, he has created his own 3D models of webs and he works across both media and scale with incredible ease - for instance, in 2022, he transformed 25,000 square feet in The Shed, New York, into a web stretched at both twelve and fort...