Judith H. Dobrzynski
Judith H. Dobrzynski
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Pundicity: Informed Opinion and Review
 

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'Monet/Mitchell: Painting the French Landscape' Review: An Artistic Kinship Revealed
A Saint Louis Art Museum exhibition explores the commonalities between Claude Monet and the abstract painter Joan Mitchell.

May 4, 2023  •  The Wall Street Journal

St. Louis

Near the end of "Monet/Mitchell: Painting the French Landscape," three works by Monet, "Water Lilies" (1917-19) and two titled "The Japanese Bridge" (1918-24), display an unusual side of the great French Impressionist. Together, they show him using highly gestural, squiggly, intertwined brush strokes; intense, unnatural colors; mere hints of features like the bridge; exposed areas of canvas, and allover compositions that give the paintings a decidedly abstract quality. "Water Lilies" has sometimes been hung upside down.

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Traces of Ancient Uzbekistan
After years of cultural diplomacy, seldom-seen artworks and newly excavated artifacts from the Central Asian nation will go on display in Berlin.

April 15, 2023  •  The Wall Street Journal

Landlocked at the center of Central Asia, hidden behind the Iron Curtain as part of the Soviet Union, then ruled by a former Communist Party boss for a quarter-century until 2016, Uzbekistan is largely unknown in the West today. A sweeping new exhibition in Berlin aims to change that. Following outreach by Uzbekistan's current government in late 2018, negotiations that included a state visit to Tashkent by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and years of planning, "Archaeological Treasures of Uzbekistan: From Alexander the Great to the Kushan Empire" will open in two venues on Berlin's Museum Island on May 6.

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An exhibition about biblical heroine Judith stars iconic Caravaggio painting
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts has made the most of a loan exchange with the Palazzo Barberini in Rome

April 14, 2023  •  The Art Newspaper

For at least 20 years, Nicholas Poussin's Death of Germanicus (1627), a prized painting in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia), has been on the "do not loan" list. But when the Palazzo Barberini in Rome asked to borrow it for an exhibition celebrating the legacy of Pope Urban VIII on the 400th anniversary of his election, the Minneapolis museum relented. It was an important show, and the Poussin had been commissioned by a nephew of Urban VIII, who was born Maffeo Barberini. The painting remained in the family until 1958.

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Masterpiece: Isenheim Altarpiece: Grünewald's Towering Biblical Tableaux
Among the most affecting artworks ever created, painter Matthias Grünewald's 16th-century polyptych is an awesome, unfolding journey through places hellish and paradisiacal

March 18, 2023  •  The Wall Street Journal

The Musée Unterlinden in Colmar, near the German border in northeastern France, sits at the end of many an art pilgrimage to a spectacular work: the Isenheim Altarpiece (1512-16) by Matthias Grünewald. This intense, imaginative polyptych—lauded by innumerable textbooks—ranks high among the most affecting artworks in all of art history. Alternately shocking and pleasing the eye, it has influenced generations of artists, including Picasso, Matisse, Otto Dix and Jasper Johns.

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Review: 'Roman Landscapes: Visions of Nature and Myth From Rome and Pompeii'
Created centuries before landscape emerged as an independent subject in the Renaissance, the artworks on view in San Antonio depict peaceful, pastoral and often imagined natural scenes.

March 13, 2023  •  The Wall Street Journal

San Antonio

If, as the medieval saying goes, all roads lead to Rome, might the artistic path to landscape painting trace back to the eternal city as well? That is a theme of "Roman Landscapes: Visions of Nature and Myth From Rome and Pompeii" at the San Antonio Museum of Art, which has gathered about 65 wall paintings, relief sculptures, mosaics, and glass and metal vessels created between 100 B.C. and about A.D. 250 as evidence.

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