Juan de Arellano Basket of Flowers (c.1664); Museo del Prado, Madrid
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"Three things are necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to desire and to know what he ought to do"--St. Thomas Aquinas
Christoff's Old Masters, "The Sporting Life" Autumn 2020 Link: https://indd.adobe.com/.../53dd6abd-01c7-4630-92fd... To the right: the latest issue of Christoff's Old Masters, on the theme of "The Sporting Life". This issue, digitally accessible through the link above and in print in several weeks, is a visually and intellectually captivating investigation into the theme of the great outdoors in Old Masters and Classic-Modern painting. Perhaps as a respite to the culture of confinement we must live through at the moment, this issue's essays, images, and erudition will transport one to the exciting world of "Man against Nature" as depicted in the most glorious paintings of the genre dating from the 15th through 20th centuries--and with a particular focus on Winslow Homer and the "struggle against the elements" in his art.. This issue also provides an overview of the record-breaking auction season that took place between July and October 2020, along with an analysis of present macroeconomic conditions by way of top Barron's contributors and independent analysts of excellent reputation. This overview also includes a look at the gold market, always a good indicator of rising interest in the hard-asset market and therefore long-term investment in art. Above all, this issue is dedicated to the theme of sporting art, The feature gallery of the issue is Thomas Colville Fine Art, LLC, whose five decades specializing in 19th and 20th century American and European art brings to life the 'great outdoors' in a splendid collection of Impressionist and Abstract works. The "Force of Destiny", Summer 2020 https://indd.adobe.com/.../fc72460e-8e65-48f6-80b8... Bottom right: This beautiful issue centers on Spanish Renaissance and Baroque works, highlighted by the feature guest dealer Nicolas Cortes of Madrid. As the inaugural issue, its introduction emphasizes the significance of what I call "the value of Value" and why it is so important to keep this outlook in mind especially during times so wildly unstable as they currently are. This world devalues Value--with its paper money, its paper morals, paper principles and paper priorities. But then....there are Old Masters. It was a record year of sales in 2019 and January 2020--including works ranging from such blue-chip names as Rubens, Brueghel, de Ribera and Cimabue to the brilliantly sublime second tier led by the likes of Giovanni di Paolo, Sebastiano del Piombo and mysterious Bohemian “Masters”. As ever, these works offered up eternal images of strength, beauty, intellectual abstraction and emotional profundity that narrate the meaning of life through the language of abstract and aesthetic expression . Whatever social and economic transformations may follow in the wake of the coronavirus crisis, Destiny will always favor and reward those qualities of human dignity, competence and fiscal foresight that are timeless. On the following pages we present: a celebration of Old Masters works that recently made auction records, provide an overview of the current macroeconomic state of the world against which fine art plays the role of monetary safe haven, a glorious gallery in Madrid specializing in Spanish Renaissance and Baroque art as well as historical and art scholarship that highlight the sheer thrill of the Old Masters treasure hunt. Please enjoy. |
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HARD-ASSETS MATTER: LATEST MACROECONOMIC HIGHLIGHTS
Updates on the ongoing destruction of free market capitalism, the rampaging U.S. national debt and the faux-money frenzy of the Federal Reserve. “We have gold because we cannot trust governments” ― Herbert Hoover Please Click Here 
El Greco, "The Burial of the Count of Orgaz",1585, St.Igancio, Toledo
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NOTES FROM THE POLO LOUNGE: LATEST ESSAYS
Whatever Happened to the 'Man of the Right' TAKI Magazine January 18, 2021 "The main failure of the rise of the conservative right in America has been its fear of producing its own brand of cultural elitist in the style and substance of the well-bred Reactionary. Its cultural contribution has produced no aesthetic vision, no artistic sophistication—only the cult of commentary, endless commentary...." On The Beautiful Violence of Old Masters Painting December 1, 2020 "To define art is to define life.” —William R. Bradshaw, 1890 Once upon a time, there was a rape that changed the course of world history. The event was immortalized in a stunning work of art, Tarquino e Lucretia, by the late Renaissance Venetian painter Tiziano Vecellio, or more commonly “Titian” in the English-speaking world. The scene depicts the soldier Sextus Tarquinius, the son of a sixth century (BC) Roman king, dagger in hand, implacable anger, insatiable desire in his eyes, about to assault the “chaste and virtuous” Lucretia, wife of his cousin and kinsman Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus. The intensity of the image captures the aggressor’s passion and his victim’s horror as his body lunges forward and she recoils in fear—a voluptuous figure of blonde waves and alabaster body engulfed by the lonely luxury of her dark bedroom. Tarquinius has come one evening to visit the home of Lucretia and her husband, Collantinus, and other visiting fellow soldiers. Aware of and aroused by the noblewoman’s famed dignity and reputation, Tarquinius stealthily enters her room that night and threatens to kill her if she does not consent to his advance, stating that he will defend the murder to her husband as an honor killing of an adulterous discovery between her and one of her slaves. Following the act, Tarquinius flees and Lucretia later tells the entire story of what took place before her husband and her brother. She then commits suicide before the two of them, declaring that in the choice between life and honor, death is the only way to preserve the latter. In the ensuing outrage, led by Collantinus and his friend Lucius Iunis Brutus, war is declared on the royal Tarquinius family and the Kingdom of Rome is destroyed. In its place, the ancient Republic of Rome is established, built on the martyrdom of Lucretia, who lives on in Western memory as one of the nine great heroines of antiquity. “Alas, Tarquino!,” the poet Ovid would write during the reign of Augustus nearly five centuries later. “How much that one night cost you your Kingdom!” The emotions captured in Titian’s rendering of that criminal scene on Lucretia’s wedding bed are as seductive as they are dreadful.....(please click here for the essay) On the Necessity of Elitism in the Fine Arts Marcia A. Christoff September 2020 * Near the end of life, a man or woman might ask themselves what destiny would have had in store for them if at some critical juncture in their maturity he or she had heeded the wisdom of a cautionary friend or a far-sighted foe. Today, what was once called ‘high art”, or the more safely neutral “fine art”, is confronted with the same question. It is on the defensive everywhere in the Western world. Although recent record sales at Old Masters auctions and a steady increase in attendance at the major museums prior to the coronavirus pandemic suggest an encouraging longing for the lofty, the position is deceptive. The institutional status of high art survives tenuously under a veneer of tradition; it is almost absent in education and broader media; its influence marginalized to that of a well-educated cult. The implied reason for this is that so-called elitist art has no place in an increasingly egalitarian society. If, however, the natural hierarchies of art that are to be enjoyed in any free society are eradicated, there will disappear with them one of the most powerful expressions of the principle of equality in that society: popular access to and education through aesthetic excellence. Such is the fate of the cultural life of this country if vigilance is not practiced by those who defend Western high art and resistance is not directed towards those whose long-term agenda is to discredit and even destroy it.... Please click here for more "The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do" --Galileo Galilei (d.1642) 
Juan Fernández el Labrador, "Four Bunches of Grapes"(1630-35);
Museo del Prado
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