Best Art History Reference Web Site

Dr. Christopher L.C.E. Witcombe's award winning web site offers the very best in online art history resources. Give it a browse.

"Upon completion of his A-Level exams at Reading School in England, Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe, a British subject, moved to Florence, Italy, where he studied painting for three years at the Accademia di Belle Arti. He then moved to the United States to study art history at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he received a B.A. Summa cum Laude in 1973 and an M.A. in art history in 1976. He obtained a Ph.D. in art history from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania in 1981. He has been a professor of art history at Sweet Briar College in Virginia since 1983. His primary area of research is Italian Renaissance art with a special interest in sixteenth-century Italian prints on which subject he has written several articles and published two books..."

Link Best Art History Reference website

Wolf Kahn Interview - New Art TV

Born in Stuttgart in 1927, the son of the conductor of the Stuttgart Philharmonic, Wolf Kahn left Nazi Germany in 1939 and in 1940 joined his father and siblings in New York, where he became a student at the High School of Music and Art. He later enrolled in the studio school of Hans Hofmann and became studio assistant to the renowned abstract expressionist.

Steeped in Hofmann's modernist theories, Kahn nonetheless developed a style of landscape painting that owes as much to the impressionists as it does to abstract expressionism. His vision impaired at age 80, Kahn is now making paintings that have never been more abstract, gestural, or luminous. - New Art TV

Link Part 1 with Link to Part 2, New Art TV

Working from Life: The Coldstream Method - Sir William Coldstream (1908 - 1987)

"Coldstream was committed to painting directly from life; he once remarked, "I lose interest unless I let myself be ruled by what I see". His type of realism had its basis in careful measurement, carried out by the following method: standing before the subject to be painted, a brush is held upright at arm's length. With one eye closed, the artist can, by sliding a thumb up or down the brush handle, take the measure of an object or interval. This finding is compared against other objects or intervals, with the brush still kept at arm's length. Informed by such measurements, the artist can paint what the eye sees without the use of conventional perspective. The surfaces of Coldstream's paintings carry many small horizontal and vertical markings, where he recorded these coordinates so that they could be verified against reality."

"As a result of his painstaking methods, Coldstream worked slowly, often taking scores of sittings over several months to complete a work. His subjects include still-life, landscapes (usually centered on architecture), portraits, and the female nude."

The Tate Gallery has several of his paintings. - Wikipedia

William Coldstream influenced several prominent modern British painters including Euan Uglow and Frank Auerbach.

Link William Coldstream, Wikipedia
Link Euan Uglow, Google Images
Link Frank Auerbach, Google Images

Want to Light up a Movement? Think Art, Engage the Heart - Bill McKibben, Huffington Post

Bill McKibben
Huffington Post, July 5, 2010


"Right now the left brain really isn’t doing the trick. We’ve known about climate change for 20 years—known that it’s the greatest threat humans have ever had to deal with. And so far we’ve done…nothing. Oh, some little stuff here and there, but nothing on a scale big enough to matter. Environmentalists have believed that the scientific facts— unimpeachable, and unbearable—would be enough to force action. They’ve believed fervently in statistic, in bar graphs, in pie charts, in white papers, in executive summaries, in closed-door briefings. It’s all noble, but it’s meant that we never managed to build a movement around global warming. You don’t build movements with bar graphs..."




Full Text  "Want to Light up a Movement? Think Art, Engage the Heart," by  Bill McKibben, Huffington Post, 7/5/10 

The Secret Powers of Time

Stanford Psychology Professor Philip Zimbardo speaks about how concepts of time affect our work, health and well-being. Time influences who we are, how we view relationships, our health, and broader local and global sociological issues . View this brief, fascinating RSA animation of his lecture.