Sense and Sensibility: Roger Fry on Caravaggio and Futurism

In October 1922, Roger Fry published in The Burlington Magazine an article-review on seventeenth century art and architecture entitled, in error, ‘Settecentismo’.[1] The article was a vigorous attack against the art of this period, it focused mainly on Caravaggio and those who, according to Fry, ‘went a- whoring, following the new idol.’[2] Fry’s text, although …

From exotic genius to precursor of modernity: El Greco in The Burlington Magazine (1903-1920)

In the first two decades of the twentieth century The Burlington Magazine contributed to a definite shift in the criticism of El Greco in Britain: from a biographic, almost novelistic approach into documentary rigour and formal analysis. The first significant mention of El Greco in the Burlington appeared in February 1908 when the aristocratic writer …