“A Bird to Overhear”

In this 25-minute video -- https://vimeo.com/666753146 -- artist Brece Honeycutt draws us into her journey of wonder at the world around us -- and of woe for the lack of regard with which we treat it. "A Bird to Overhear" is an essay filled with Honeycutt's own keen-eyed observations interspersed with lessons gleaned from scientists, …

Images from “Revealing Krishna: Journey to Cambodia’s Sacred Mountain”

Here are some images to complement my review in yesterday's Wall Street Journal of a show at at the Cleveland Museum of Art. This 18th-century painting at the Cleveland Museum of Art illustrates the iconography artists in India developed to communicate the story of young Krishna lifting Mount Govardhan. The mountain is tiny, protecting the …

Art of the Seal

"... for all their eloquence, the Mesopotamian seals have yet much to tell us...." This is how I end my piece in the July-August issue of AramcoWorld about cylinder seals that were widely used in Mesopotamia from about 3500 to 300 BCE. The stones themselves attest to a wide network of trade and exchange while …

New, improved links

The days of clicking a link to one of my reviews only to run smack into a firewall -- they're over! The Wall Street Journal has changed the system so that the links provided for an article now by-pass the firewall. You can't go roaming from there, but at least clicking the link won't inflict …

The difference images make – and making room for them

There is always more to say about a show or work of art than can fit in an essay or review, and my piece on "The Kimono in Print" is no exception. I was so happy to see that Kate LaVoie, the arts page photo editor, uploaded more than a half dozen images onto the …

Exploring the South Indian Temple Hall at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Rama after defeating his enemy, the demon RavanaHanuman, the monkey king who helped Rama rescue Sita from RavanaSita, Rama's wifePurushamirukam, "man-beast"Larger than the other reliefs on these slender columns, this portrays the donor, a royal patron here dressed as a simple devotee This is not so much a blog as a supplement to my masterpiece …

Drumroll, please… for Syncretease!

For years, we've been urging my brother to have his collages photographed and launch them into the world through a website. He might say we finally wore him down; we (his wife, daughter and I) prefer to think Dixon finally saw the light. Check out his work, at http://www.syncretease.com

Trees aren’t always just trees

There were some kind of cypress (I think) trees near our home in south India that looked like guests at a cocktail party, one limb reaching out for a drink, another curling back as though to bring a cigarette to the lips.  Maybe that's why I get such a kick looking at the inventive depiction …

A basket made of ivory

So many works, so few column inches...  Here is one of many pieces I couldn't squeeze into my review of the Asian Export Art Gallery at the Peabody Essex Museum (which you can read in the WSJ or in my archive).  The museum simply labels it, "Basket, 1800-15."   What is it, you ask?  Why, …

Ah, my little astrolabe…

On and off for the last year and a half, I've been obsessing on astrolabes.   I'd master (or so I thought) one of its functions -- say, figuring out what time the sun will set on a given day.  Then  I'd give astrolabes a rest, focus on a review or other deadline, and come back …