Articles by Alice Mansfield

About Alice Mansfield

A graduate of the Slade, Alice has painted and written about art all her life. With her children now having now grown up and departed the nest, she recently took up sculpture. More Posts

The Riviera/A History in Pictures (Part Two)

Whilst I enjoyed the second part of this programme broadcast yesterday it was with certain reservations. The main problem was that, by being a travel history of the Riviera from the end of the nineteenth century to the present day and a review of the artists that painted there, the scope was too [...]

July 31, 2020 // 0 Comments

British War Artists / World War Two

A subject often covered on the Rust is World War One so I knew I would be fascinated when our last lesson in our course on Tuesday was on the war artists of World War Two. War artist is a loose term. The status of war artist was not made official till 1916 and even then the output was subject to [...]

July 20, 2020 // 0 Comments

The Origins of the World/Gustave Courbet 1866

A popular figure in the National Rust is our picture editor Malcolm. One of the joys of us contributors is – after we have completed our post as a draft – seeing what accompanying photos Malcolm has selected for it. He has a totally free hand but if he feels them to be inadequate he [...]

July 10, 2020 // 0 Comments

Lives of the artist

When I studied French and German literature for my A levels our teacher had a rather pedantic view that little was served in studying the life of the writer. In fact as I soon appreciated it’s crucial. Michael Stuart was complaining to me that in his music course he learned far too little [...]

July 3, 2020 // 0 Comments

Great Paintings of the World/Channel 5

I was pleasantly surprised by the first programme presented by Andrew Marr on the Mona Lisa. Would it be more about Andrew Marr than Leonardo da Vinci ? What could Marr tell us about the Mona Lisa we do not already know? On both counts I was wrong. Marr knows and loves his art and brought [...]

June 8, 2020 // 0 Comments

Christo

There are several notable features about the artistic work of Christo who died recently aged 85. His large scale outdoor works were not commissioned – he received nothing for them – and although they took years sometimes decades to plan with his wife Jeanne Claude they were dismantled [...]

June 2, 2020 // 0 Comments

Tintoretto

I finally watched this SKY ARTS appreciation of the Venetian artist of the sixteenth century Tintoretto whose real name was Jacopo Robusto. His father was a dyer (tintoro) and, as the Italians like to add “etto” or “ino” on a surname to denote “ little”, he acquired the moniker [...]

May 12, 2020 // 0 Comments

Becoming Matisse/BBC 2

In any art programme the presenter is all. Will he/she let the paintings speak for themselves or will they interpose themselves? In this programme it soon became obvious that the presenter Sophie Matisse was the latter. She’s the great granddaughter of Henri Matisse, the granddaughter of Pierre [...]

April 26, 2020 // 0 Comments

Virtual reality v actuality

I would like to start a new Rust debate of virtual reality, which I will call virtuality, against actuality. In a recent article in The Spectator Martin Gayford considered this as museum and art galleries shut down, then offered the possibility of viewing their art on line. He felt a photograph of [...]

April 12, 2020 // 0 Comments

The Art Mysteries (BBC4) Waldemar Januszczak

Every Wednesday evening on BBC4 Waldemar Januszczak unravels the mystery of a painting and last night it was Paul Gauguin’s Vision After the Sermon. The picture depicts Jacob’s famous wrestle with the Devil in the bible, symbolises good and evil before a congregation in a small church. There [...]

April 1, 2020 // 0 Comments

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Christopher Lee and cricket loving film stars

August 11, 2020 // 0 Comments

In May 1959 C.P. Snow delivered a lecture at Cambridge entitled The Two Cultures which subsequently became a book. It was about the ignorance of academics in the humanities [...]
The US PGA

August 10, 2020 // 0 Comments

Traditionally the USPGA is always played this week and is known as Glory’s Last Shot as it’s the final Major. This year it was the first after taking up its [...]
Back in the fold again …

August 10, 2020 // 0 Comments

No longer able to claim my former status as a correspondent – I unofficially retired from my post as a contributor on matters relating to English rugby Premiership team [...]
First Test – some thoughts

August 9, 2020 // 0 Comments

Although this Test did not achieve the climax of the 1963 Test v West Indies at Lords nor v Australia at Trent Bridge in 2005 it shared with them a continuity of gripping [...]
A tutor who gets his message across well

August 9, 2020 // 0 Comments

Here’s another in my occasional series of musical ‘treats’ that I have come across whilst doodling around on the internet since the coronavirus pandemic and [...]