Joseph R. Phelan is a writer and scholar who contributed art criticism and essays to The Weekly Standard between 2006 and 2018. His pieces for the magazine focused on visual art, covering major painters and exhibitions including Turner, Constable, Cézanne, and Venetian masters.
Although he is best known for his landscapes, there is a power and tense stillness in Paul Cézanne’s depictions of his family, neighbors, and friends.
A beautifully carved marble votive relief of Asklepios, the god of medicine, leaning on his staff welcomes us as we enter The Greeks: Agamemnon to Alexander at the National Geographic Museum. The noble procession of the god and his children confronting a group of worshippers echoes, on a small…
Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese
J.M.W. Turner
Only a Promise of Happiness
Constable's Great Landscape