Welcome to the Journal of  Art in Society

Finding your way around

A full rundown of what you'll find inside is set out below. You can also check our most popular articles and our country-by-country guide

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​Art reviews

• Concise reviews of recent art-related books - and films as well.

Cultural trends and changes

• Gabriel Metsu and the gentle art of letter writing -- we examine the 17th century craze for writing and reading letters, and how this became a major feature in Dutch art, featuring in  masterful paintings by artists such as Gabriel Metsu and Jan Vermeer
• Exploring Gustave Caillebotte’s Paris Street, Rainy Day: exploration of Caillebotte’s famous painting, sometimes described as his masterpiece, and of his lesser-known but major achievements in a wide range of other areas
• A very rich book for the very rich: a detailed look at the 15th century ‘January’ feasting-day miniature from The Limbourg brothers' Très Riches Heures of the Duke de Berry
• Millet and the Angelus: the strange story of how this painting of potato farmers sold for a fortune, inspired patriotic fervour, a madman’s attack, an obsession by van Gogh, a possible dead baby & the introduction of a revolutionary new way of rewarding artists 
• The Two Women in White: we examine two extraordinary creations, both involving mysterious women in white, that enthralled and shocked 1860s Britain ~ Wilkie Collins’ bestselling novel and Whistler’s outrageous portrait
• Elsheimer’s Flight into Egypt: how this tiny painting revolutionised the boundaries between art, religion and science 
• Feathers, fashion and animal rights: the powerful role played by images in the fight against the controversial Plumage Trade
• On the trail of the Last Supper: how depictions of the Last Supper have changed over different cultures and different times
• Science becomes art: how Joseph Wright's paintings of scientific experiments exploited brilliant light to depict a new type of knowledge (and what a "freeborn mouse" thought about it all)
• The art of giraffe diplomacy: How an African giraffe walked across France and became a pawn in an international power struggle.  
• The Futurists declare war on pasta: What does one make of a major art movement that glorifies war, gets a kick out of steam locomotives and then puts out a cookery book?
• Floating pleasure worlds of Paris and Edo: an analysis of two depictions of pleasure worlds in France and Japan reveals some startling similarities and contrasts
• Toulouse-Lautrec, the bicycle and the women's movement: how the 1890s cycling boom inspired a classic Toulouse-Lautrec poster and stimulated the growing movement for women’s rights.
• From the Rokeby Venus to Fascism: in Part 1 we examine the art slashers of the suffragette movement in Britain, and in Part 2 we analyse why some militant suffragettes made the unlikely graduation to Fascism.

Catastrophes and scandals

• NEW Millais, Charles Dickens and the Holy Family: 19th century artist John Everett Millais’ sensational Christ in the House of his Parents  provoked howls of outrage and ridicule from the critics, including Charles Dickens. We analyse what their hostility tells us about attitudes in Victorian England to the “proper” roles of religion and art.
• NEW Jacques-Louis David’s The Death of Marat: heroes and villains in the French Revolution ~we examine how and why a respectable 24-year-old woman carried out a carefully-planned assassination and hos its depiction in art transformed teh death into a potent instrument of propaganda
• How one man saved the “greatest picture in the world” -- the story of how a WW2 artillery commander risked court martial to save Piero della Francesca’s 15th century masterpiece The Resurrection
• Vermeer’s concert, the Gardner collection, and the art heist of the century: how Jan Vermeer's The Concert became the centrepiece in a massive, unsolved art theft
• The Controversies of Constantin Brancusi; two scandals that made the sculptor Brancusi into a public figure and helped define the boundaries of art
• Art and survival in Patagonia; how destroyed Patagonian Indian cultures have lived on through their remarkable rock and body art. 
• Surviving the Black Death: how one Italian painter prospered despite one of the worst natural disasters in human history
• The Isenheim Altarpiece: in Part 1 of our exploration of Matthias Grűnewald's extraordinary sixteenth century master-work, we examine its possible role in healing victims of disease; and in Part 2 we examine how it became a pawn in a struggle for power between nations - and between radically different conceptions of art
• Julie Manet, Renoir and the Dreyfus Affair: insights into a famous controversy from an unexpected but well-placed source 
• The shocking birth and amazing career of Guernica: how Picasso's monumental painting came to be created and assume such extraordinary recognition.

Forgotten women artists

• Forgotten Women Artists #1 Arcangela Paladini: as the first in a series, we look at the life and works of the 17th century Italian prodigy Arcangela Paladini
• Forgotten Women Artists #2: Jane Loudon: in the second of our series on forgotten women artists, we examine the life and works of the remarkable 19th century artist, futurist, horticulturist and author Jane Loudon
• Forgotten Women Artists: #3 Marie-Gabrielle Capet: in the third in our series on forgotten women artists, we follow the fortunes of the talented but obscure 18th century French artist Marie-Gabrielle Capet.
• Forgotten Women Artists #4: Michaelina Wautier: in the fourth in our series on forgotten women artists, we analyse how the reputation of Michaelina Wautier has been restored after more than three centuries of obscurity. 
• Forgotten Women Artists #5 Thérèse Schwartze: in the fifth article in this series, we examine the life and career of Thérèse Schwartze, a talented Dutch artist who achieved the peak of fame and success over a century ago.
• Forgotten Women Artists #6: Christina Robertson: A Scottish artist in Russia: in the sixth article in this series, co-authored by Dr Elizaveta P Renné & Jane Anderson, we examine the extraordinary life & career of a highly successful 19C Scottish painter who became virtually forgotten in her homeland after she left to pursue her art career in Russia 

Lost and found art

•  Emerging from Obscurity: Georges de La Tour’s Musicians’ Quarrel: a detailed look at a painting by an artist who has achieved extraordinary fame after having been forgotten or ignored for almost three centuries
• Murder, Caravaggio and The Taking of Christ: we explore the Irish rediscovery of a lost masterpiece by Caravaggio, and its unexpected connection with a murder over a hundred years ago
• The rescue of the fabulous lost library of Deir al-Surian. The momentous rescue of what has been described as one of the greatest libraries in Christendom, from the desolate wastes of the Egyptian Desert
• Lost masterpieces of Egyptian art from the Nebamun tomb-chapel: a story of survival, censorship and adaptation 
• The Sphinx of Delft: the astonishing twists and turns in the reputation of the celebrated 17th century Dutch artist Jan Vermeer 
• Bernardo Bellotto and the reconstruction of Warsaw: how a hidden cache of 18th century artworks provided a blueprint for the resurrection of a destroyed city
• The surprising discovery of an early graphic novel: Charles Sarka and his long-delayed and unexpected claim to fame
• Carpaccio's double enigma: Hunting on the Lagoon and the Two Venetian Ladies; the unlikely story of how two contrasting paintings turned out to be one
• Michelangelo's disputed Entombment: the mysteries that enshroud this controversial painting extend even to the identity of the artist 

All about Bruegel

• Seeing the Light: Bruegel’s Conversion of Saul: we examine the mysteries that surround this controversial painting -- was this painting simply about a miraculous conversion, or did it also contain crucial links to traumatic current events?
• Bruegel’s White Christmas: The Census at Bethlehem: the masterpiece that was probably the first-ever painting of a White Christmas, and one of the first times that a painter ever depicted this pivotal Biblical episode
• The emergence of the winter landscape: Bruegel and his predecessors: how the essential elements of a snowy winter landscape ultimately came to fuse in Bruegel's Hunters in the Snow.
• Bruegel and the Two Faces of Summer: Haymaking and the Harvesters; analysis of two paintings from a series described as the highpoint of Bruegel's lifework, and a milestone in the development of European landscape painting 
• ​​Bruegel's Peasant Wedding Feast: We analyse the many mysteries in this painting -- the puzzling third foot, the disappearing kissing couple, the missing bridegroom and even the codpiece affair
• Lost in Translation: Bruegel’s Tower of Babel: we examine the origins of this iconic work of art, and explore what the artist was trying to say 
• ​​Perception and Blindness in the 16th Century: Bruegel’s The Blind Leading the Blind: our analysis of this painting by Bruegel, a work that has been described as one of the finest pictures ever painted
• “All life is here”: Bruegel’s Way to Calvary: a detailed exploration of Pieter Bruegel's famously complex and intriguing Way to Calvary
• Bruegel's Icarus and the perils of flight: Bruegel's enigmatic work has inspired some radically different  interpretations but still remains a mystery

​Lives and livelihoods

• Rose-Marie Ormond: John Singer Sargent’s muse and “the most charming girl that ever lived”
• The extraordinary career of Granville Redmond: deaf artist, silent movie actor and mentor to Charlie Chaplin
• Dr Jekyll, Frankenstein and Shelley's Heart: the curiously intertwined lives and creations of the Shelleys and Robert Louis Stevenson 
• The adventures of Nadar: photography, ballooning, invention and the Impressionists: the truly extraordinary life of the multi-talented nineteenth century Frenchman Felix Tournachon
• Colonial artist, thief, forger and mutineer: Thomas Barrett's amazing career: barely four weeks passed between the creation of the eighteenth century convict Thomas Barrett’s first work of art and his execution by hanging
• Watchmen, goldfinders and the plague bearers of the night: how three traditional occupations of the night were perceived -- from the uncomfortable, to the distasteful to the horrific.
• Strange encounters: the collector, the artist and the philosopher: the oddly-productive relationships between the eccentric art collector Albert Barnes, the painter Henri Matisse and the philosopher Bertrand Russell.
• Sarka of the South Seas: a full account of the American watercolourist Charles Sarka’s colourful life, work and travels
• Should artists get royalties?: some recent developments affecting artist royalty rights schemes in Australia and the UK have revived an acute and often acrimonious debate.

Techniques and technology

• The Art of Shadows: the many, often-overlooked, ways in which cast shadows are used by artists ~ or not used ~ to convey reality, mood or information in their works
• Art as a barometer of climate changes: what can artworks tell us about climate changes that occurred in past eras?
• Prussian blue and its partner in crime: while the discovery of Prussian Blue was hailed as a breakthrough for artists, and led to a revolution in Japanese art, its derivatives have killed countless thousands
• Egyptian Blue: the colour of technology: the unexpected discovery of some remarkable properties of a 4,500 year old pigment may have significant implications for our technological future   
• The life and death of Mummy Brown: the extraordinary story of how the crumbled remains of mummies came to be used by European artists right up to the twentieth century 
• Comets in Art:  reflecting changing social attitudes, comets have come to be represented in art in a multitude of ways, from objects of terror and portents of disaster right through to badges of prestige or of divine guidance 
• Art in a speeded-up world: how radical changes in the concept of "time" during the nineteenth century inspired revolutionary changes in literature and art
• Early influences of photography on art: an in-depth analysis of the far-reaching impacts that the invention of photography had on nineteenth century painting
• Why wasn’t photography invented earlier? or is this just a case of hindsight bias?

Authenticity and meaning

• The dramatic life of a controversial masterpiece: Leonardo’s portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci: we examine this little masterpiece and try to make sense of its extraordinarily chequered history.
• Deception and Misdirection: Hieronymus Bosch’s The Conjuror: we explore this enigmatic 15th century painting of trickery and deception whose real meaning has remained disputed to this day
• Reflections on a Masterpiece: Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère -- an analysis of Manet’s last and perhaps greatest masterpiece, described as “one of the canonical images for modernist art history” 
• An Exploration of Vision, Reality and Illusion -- Jan van Eyck's Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele; we analyse how this highly advanced 15th century artist was able to manipulate illusions in order to create a totally convincing and realistic world   
• Masters of All They Survey -- Gainsborough’s Mr and Mrs Andrews: one of England’s most popular paintings, despite being unfinished & long hidden from public view, and the notable controversies over its meaning
• Understanding Petrus Christus’ A Goldsmith in his Shop: we look at the various interpretations of what this 15th century masterpiece actually depicts
• Carpaccio's Miracle on the Rialto: an extraordinary painting that features a miracle, a splinter and an exorcism, not to mention slaves and a small fluffy dog
• The origins of an Australian art icon: how some unexpected influences may have played a crucial part in the creation of Charles Meere's iconic Australian Beach Pattern.
• ​Titian, Prudence and the three-headed beast: why has this odd allegorical painting by Titian attracted so many radically-different interpretations?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Philip McCouat                         

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