It began, the story goes, with an insult, unless the insult was a compliment—with ambitious young artists, one never knows. Édouard Manet would have been about thirty when he visited the Louvre and met Edgar Degas, only two years his junior but as sullen as a teen-ager. Degas was hunched in front of a Velázquez painting of the Infanta Margarita Teresa, trying to copy what he saw. Manet, the chatty type, looked down at his fellow-artist’s attempt and said, “How audacious of you to etch that way, without any preliminary drawing, I would not dare do the same!” It was the early eighteen-sixties, and a two-decade friendship, marked by endless subliminal pokes and a few out-and-out slashes, had just been born.
“Audacious” is a weaselly word, but I mean the best when I say that “Manet/ Degas,” the Met’s sprawling yet intimate two-hander, is an audacious show. To me, it comes as a breath of fresh air, since—I might as well admit this now— I’ve often found its co-stars easier to respect than to enjoy. With Degas, I know I’m not alone: the austerity of his paintings borders on nastiness. (That they’ve decorated so many little girls’ bedrooms is one of art history’s tartest ironies.) Manet is a gentler painter, beloved by many, but his work has a peculiar stiffness that’s sometimes hard for me to take in bulk—I can’t always tell if it comes from the artist, his subjects, or both. What follow, then, are the thoughts of a reformed skeptic, who’s still not blind to these artists’ foibles but has learned to love them unconditionally.
Denne historien er fra October 23, 2023-utgaven av The New Yorker.
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Denne historien er fra October 23, 2023-utgaven av The New Yorker.
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The Football Bro - Pat McAfee brings a casual new style to ESPN.
If, on a cool weekend morning in autumn, you happen to be watching “College GameDay,” on ESPN, don’t worry about figuring out which of the broadcasters behind the improbably long desk is Pat McAfee. He’s the one with the roast-pork tan, his hair cut high and tight, likely tieless among his more businesslike colleagues. The rest of the onair crew—Lee Corso, Rece Davis, Kirk Herbstreit, Desmond Howard, and, newly, the former University of Alabama coach Nick Saban—tend to look and dress and talk like participants in an old-school Republican-primary debate. McAfee, though, favors windowpane checks on his jackets and a slip of chest poking out from behind his two or three open buttons. If the others are politicians, he’s the cool-coded megachurch pastor who sometimes acts as their spiritual adviser.
The Dark Time. - On the Arctic border of Russia and Norway, an espionage war is emerging.
On the Arctic border of Russia and Norway, an espionage war is emerging. The point of contact between NATO and Russia's nuclear stronghold is the small town of Kirkenes. For years, Russia has treated the area as a laboratory, testing intelligence and influence operations before replicating them across Europe.
MIRROR IMAGES
‘A Different Man” and The Substance.”
OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY
Proximity to wealth proves perilous in Rumaan Alam’ novel Entitlement.”
EYES WIDE SHUT
How Monet shared a private world.
WITH THE MOSTEST
The very rich hours of Pamela Harriman.
HUGO HAMILTON AUTOBAHN
On the Autobahn outside Frankfurt. November. The fields were covered in a thin sheet of snow.
TRY IT ON
How Law Roach reimagined red-carpet style.
SORRY I'M NOT YOUR CLOWN TODAY
Bowen Yang's trip to Oz, by way of conversion therapy and S..N.L.”
SNIFF TEST
A maverick perfumer tries to make his mark on a storied fashion house.
