In this lecture delivered as part of the Rising Tide Foundation series “Towards an Age of Creative Reason”, Matthew Ehret introduces the fight to establish a cultural revolution in the arts and sciences initiated by Benjamin Franklin, and a small international network of co-conspirators of the 18th century which was then understood to be the vital…
Category: Visual Arts
Symposium: Rediscovering the Infinite Through Classical Art
The Rising Tide Foundation presents the Symposium: Rediscovering the Infinite Through Classical Art, which opened with a presentation by Cynthia Chung on Shakespeare and the use of tragedy in elevating an audience’s knowledge of human nature in order to break free from tragic dynamics within us. This was followed by a lecture delivered by Matthew…
Sparks of a New Renaissance in Painting Emerge from China
By Matthew Ehret It is rare to see new artistic movements arise. It is even rarer that such artistic revolutions manage to respect the best traditions of the past while at the same time infuse something new and improved into society. The fatal error made by many innovators attempting to break with the often stultifying…
Virgil or Aristotle… Who is Contemplating the Bust of Homer?
By Gerald Therrien One of Rembrandt’s greatest paintings is known by some people as ‘Aristotle contemplating the Bust of Homer’. Since no surviving records exist from either Rembrandt’s hand nor the patron who commissioned this masterpiece in 1653 AD, speculation has run rampant for over 350 years as to the true identity of the mysterious…
Cultural Warfare and the American Revolution (Franklin, Benjamin West and S.B Morse Revisited)
Did you know that the leading painter of England during the American Revolution (who also served as President of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts) was a Philadelphian republican ally of Benjamin Franklin named Benjamin West? Did you know that a renaissance movement uniting arts and sciences was what made both the American revolution possible…
Why Must Aesthetics Govern A Society Worthy Of Political Freedom? Ask the CIA
By Matthew Ehret In the mid-1990s, a series of exposés featured on the London Independent and elsewhere brought a dark secret to light. Many were startled by the revelation that the entire evolution of 20th century modern art was directed in large measure by the CIA! This not only included the direct financing of abstract painters like Jackson Pollock…
Unifying Spirit between East and West: Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766), Italian Renaissance painter in the Forbidden City.
By Matthew Ehret “In pursuing the Belt and Road Initiative, we should ensure that when it comes to different civilizations, exchange will replace estrangement, mutual learning will replace clashes, and coexistence will replace a sense of superiority. This will boost mutual understanding, mutual respect and mutual trust among different countries” -Xi Jinping, Belt and Road…
How the Hudson River School of Canadian Painting was Derailed
At a historical inflection point during the American Civil War, it was uncertain what Canada would become… would we become an independent republic, or a part of Lincoln’s America or would we remain a Northern anti-American confederacy under British control? (Britain’s other confederacy did fail in 1865 after all). Nowhere was this battle over our…
Francisco de Goya: Master Critic of the Human Condition
By Adam Sedia Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) is one of Spain’s best known painters. Heir to the tradition of El Greco, Velázquez, Murillo, and Zurbarán, textbooks consider him the last of the Old Masters and simultaneously first of the moderns. But Goya’s importance derives from a deeply individual approach to his subject matter,…
Through Darkness, Light: The Hidden Idealism in Goya’s “Black Paintings”
Francisco de Goya (1746-1828), one of the greatest painters in the long Spanish tradition, is famous for the dark and macabre subject matter he depicted, as epitomized in his famous “Black Paintings” made toward the end of his life. The apparent darkness of his art, however, was the product of the disillusionment that came from…