Those beautiful Impressionist realist landscapes that make you wish you lived in a place where, with once glance, you could look down on farms and streams, mountains and villages, may not be quite as realistic as they appear. The vast majority of such canvases, which are almost always painted as if the viewer (and the painter) are looking down from the heavens at the glorious lands below, actually tend to be impossible views, at least, if the artist is meant to be standing in one place as he paints. A new exhibition in Salford examines the varied reasons for such mild deceptions, which range from God complexes to public relations gimmickry to simple humor.
Tag: 07.23.03
The Little Label That Could
When Robert von Bahr started recording classical music 30 years ago for his own label, BIS, he hauled his own equipment, begged record stores to carry his products, and generally did all the things that plucky little doomed labels do to try to stave off their inevitable demise. But the doom part never happened, and today, BIS is one of the most respected labels in the world of classical music. It has an astonishing array of high-quality artists and repertoire in its catalog, a commitment to new music and little-known composers, and a reputation as the leading purveyor of the music of Jean Sibelius, thanks in large part to an ongoing partnership with Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä, considered to be the leading living interpreter of that composer’s work.