Judith H. Dobrzynski
Judith H. Dobrzynski
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Pundicity: Informed Opinion and Review
 

Latest Articles

Masterpiece: Isenheim Altarpiece: Grünewald's Towering Biblical Tableaux
Among the most affecting artworks ever created, painter Matthias Grünewald's 16th-century polyptych is an awesome, unfolding journey through places hellish and paradisiacal

March 18, 2023  •  The Wall Street Journal

The Musée Unterlinden in Colmar, near the German border in northeastern France, sits at the end of many an art pilgrimage to a spectacular work: the Isenheim Altarpiece (1512-16) by Matthias Grünewald. This intense, imaginative polyptych—lauded by innumerable textbooks—ranks high among the most affecting artworks in all of art history. Alternately shocking and pleasing the eye, it has influenced generations of artists, including Picasso, Matisse, Otto Dix and Jasper Johns.

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Review: 'Roman Landscapes: Visions of Nature and Myth From Rome and Pompeii'
Created centuries before landscape emerged as an independent subject in the Renaissance, the artworks on view in San Antonio depict peaceful, pastoral and often imagined natural scenes.

March 13, 2023  •  The Wall Street Journal

San Antonio

If, as the medieval saying goes, all roads lead to Rome, might the artistic path to landscape painting trace back to the eternal city as well? That is a theme of "Roman Landscapes: Visions of Nature and Myth From Rome and Pompeii" at the San Antonio Museum of Art, which has gathered about 65 wall paintings, relief sculptures, mosaics, and glass and metal vessels created between 100 B.C. and about A.D. 250 as evidence.

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'La Cartonería Mexicana | The Mexican Art of Paper and Paste' Review: Festive Figures
An International Museum of Folk Art exhibit includes finely crafted animals, skeletons and more, made to celebrate events in the liturgical year.

February 16, 2023  •  The Wall Street Journal

Santa Fe, N.M.

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'Pattern and Flow: A Golden Age of American Decorated Paper' Review: A Delicate Art's Delights
An exhibition at the Grolier Club highlights hand-made decorated papers from the 1960s to the 2000s.

February 2, 2023  •  The Wall Street Journal

New York

The bright, bold colors are perhaps the first thing visitors will notice upon entering "Pattern and Flow: A Golden Age of American Decorated Paper, 1960s to 2000s." Closer inspection reveals that the designs they form—swirls, waves, angel wings, peacock feathers, leaves, flowers and more—are even more enchanting. The handmade ornamental paper sheets by 53 artists on view in the Grolier Club's ground-floor gallery provide stunning evidence that there actually was a glittering "golden age." Who knew?

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ICONS: Picasso's Landscapes
A new exhibition makes the case that paintings of places were a crucial part of the artist's work.

January 21, 2023  •  The Wall Street Journal

The name of Pablo Picasso immediately brings to mind any number of paintings, styles and genres—his breakthrough African-influenced "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" (1907), the antiwar "Guernica" (1937), his Cubist still lifes, the surrealistic portraits of his lovers, and on and on. What doesn't usually surface? Landscapes. The genre comprises just a small proportion of Picasso's lifetime output, perhaps 200 of his estimated 13,500 paintings, and none are well-known to the public.

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