Perfection of Forms

(Museum of Biblical Arts and The Dahesh Museum of Art)

By ROBERT EDWARD BULLOCK, Special to the Sun | October 18, 2013

For several centuries, the Academic tradition of representational art achieved the seemingly contradictory goals of both the imitation of nature and the perfection of forms. "Sacred Visions," which opened Friday at the Museum of Biblical Art, brings together over 30 works by Gustave Doré, Jean-Léon Gérôme and their contemporaries, from The Dahesh Museum of Art and will go far to rekindle the public's interest in, and understanding of, their achievements in the 19th and early 20th century.

The Bible stories were primary subject matter in the formal academies such as the École des Beaux-Art in Paris and, combined with the Academic study and mastery of human anatomy, made for powerful and expressive works.

(read the full review at The New York Sun.)

Modern Art Turns 100

(The New York Historical Society)

By ROBERT EDWARD BULLOCK, Special to the Sun | October 12, 2013

In 1913, The International Exhibition of Modern Art landed at New York's 69th Regiment Armory and caused such a scene that we are still talking about it a century later. In "The Armory Show at 100," which opened Friday, The New-York Historical Society assesses the impact on American culture when modern art arrived full-force and roaring, whether we were ready for it or not.

The Armory Show, as it came to be known, displayed American paintings by William Glackens, George Bellows, Robert Henri and others alongside those of European artists such as Odilon Redon, Paul Cézanne, and Vincent van Gogh. Depending on one's view, the exhibition was either a symbol of progress or regression, simultaneously derided and celebrated as it traveled to Chicago and Boston.

(read the full review at The New York Sun)