Robert Francis James

Ever since Plato, Western philosophers have studied art. So much so that in the 17th century, German philosophers, big on classification, saw fit to create a separate branch of philosophy they called aesthetics , a term derived from the Greek aisthetikos , meaning “about perception.” The German philosopher, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel , went a step farther in the the 19th century to create a separate branch of aesthetics that we know today as art history . G.W.F. Hegel Hegel believed that the study of art not only allowed us to understand perception, but to understand the past, present, and future—to understand history . History was a big deal to Hegel, whose greatest contribution to philosophy was the famous idea of the dialectic . The dialectic, Hegel said, is a “grand narrative arc” that moves pendulum-like, unfolding in stages from thesis to antithesis to synthesis . Each tick-tock of the dialectic reveals another facet of the ultimate reason for the universe, which ...

Join me on Saturday, April 23, at Art Fest at Whitehall , in Middletown, Delaware. You’ll see all my recent paintings and enjoy a chance to shop for fine art pieces and handmade crafts from hundreds of other Delaware artists. There’s live music and food-truck fare is available, so you won’t miss lunch. Admission is free. Art Fest at Whitehall is open from 10 am to 2 pm. The rain date is Sunday, April 24, from 10 am to 2 pm. The address is 801 Mapleton Avenue, Middletown, Delaware 19709. The post Art Fest appeared first on Original still life oil paintings for sale l Robert Francis James .

I’m ready to pack off to Ireland, home of my ancestors. Ireland’s government has announced it will begin to pay 2,000 Irish artists $355 a week under a new universal basic income (UBI) program. There are no restrictions on how artists may spend the money. I’m guessing Guinness is celebrating the likely windfall. The new program represents “recognition, at government level, of the important role of the arts in Irish society,” a news release says. “It also places a value on the time spent developing a creative practice and producing art.” The artists—all 2,000 of them—will be chosen at random to receive the weekly stipend from a pool of applicants. Artists can apply online beginning today . A spokesperson for the Irish government said the money equates to compensation for the unaccounted time artists spend on their work. “The time spent on creative practice is what underpins Ireland’s world renowned arts and culture.” she said. You gotta love a nation that loves its artist...

“Immersive exhibitions are a recent scourge,” says artist and writer Sarah Rose Sharp in Hyperallergic . But one new show passes her sniff test. Now at the Prado, the show makes use of The Sense of Smell , a 17th-century painting by Jan Brueghel the Elder and Peter Paul Rubens, to grab viewers by the nose. The 1618 painting, one of a series the two artists devoted to the senses, depicts Venus and Cupid, surrounded by flowers and perfume-making gear. The Prado hired a Spanish perfumer, Puig, to create 10 custom scents and load them into diffusers that it deployed around the gallery where The Sense of Smell is on display. Viewers can activate the dispensers by touch screen. Puig produced scents of jasmine, rose, spikenard, fig tree, orange blossom, daffodil, and a bouquet mixing four flowers’ odors with the smell of kid gloves. Viewers can also push a button to spray the gallery with the scent of a civet, a relative of the the mongoose. Its musk was used in 17th century to an...

Yours truly was interviewed by the UK creativity magazine, The Table Read . Enjoy! The post Interview appeared first on Original still life oil paintings for sale l Robert Francis James .