By Bonnie James America’s First Black Poet and Her Encounters with the Founding Fathers Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Basic Civitas Books, 2003, 129 pages Phillis Wheatley is perhaps the most fascinating and thought-provoking American you never heard of. She arrived in Boston on July 11, 1761, at about age 7, […]
Classical Culture
Vermeer and His Contemporaries: The Golden Age of Dutch Painting
As the Dutch East India Company established its empire around the globe, painters of the Dutch Golden Age examined the interiors—intimate spaces in the home, and of the human heart and mind. Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. October 22, […]
Reflections of the Classical and Renaissance Ideas – From Bosch’s Brabant to Fragonard’s Paris
By Bonnie James Fragonard: The Fantasy Figures October 8 – December 3, 2017 West Building, Main Floor Bosch to Bloemaert: Early Netherlandish Drawings from the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam October 8, 2017 – January 7, 2018 West Building, East Outer Tier Two new exhibitions opened on Sunday, Oct. […]
What if Donald J. Trump Read Shakespeare?
By Bonnie James As I was considering the latest announcement from the Trump Administration, this one pronounced by the toad-like personage of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, lately, the Attorney General of the United States, rescinding DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), or Dreamers Act, thereby subjecting some 800,000 young people, […]
The Genius of the Della Robbia: Clay from the Arno Transformed by the of Art of Man
The Genius of the Della Robbia Clay from the Arno Transformed by the of Art of Man Genesis 2:7: And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. Della Robbia: Sculpting with […]
Post-election: Beauty will Prevail!
Here’s a proposal: Instead of stressing, despairing, obsessing over the unthinkable election taking place today, do something good for yourself. If poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world (Shelley), then painters are the unacknowledged shapers of how we view the world. The National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.) has […]
Rembrandt van Rijn: ‘Love Gives Birth to Art’
The life of Rembrandt, born July 15, 1606, was, to a significant degree, affected by two history-changing events. The first took place on Dec. 20, the year of his birth: Two English merchant companies, under the patronage of King James I, set sail from London, their destination, the New World, […]