California Literary Review

Xu Beihong: A Chinese master of styles that straddle East and West: Xu Beihong is widely recognized as the father of modern Chinese painting, both for his innovative ink works that did much to revitalize the traditional Chinese form and for his willingness to embrace Western techniques, particularly French Realism. [IHT]

‘Outsider’ With Insider’s Influence: The fascination of artists with the work of Henry Darger is easy to understand. Not only do his images beg to be psychoanalyzed, but, like any so-called “outsider” artist, Darger seems to represent the creative impulse at its most potent and pure. [NY Sun]

An Engineer Takes On the Art Experts: Leonardo painted “The Battle of Anghiari” on a wall in Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio in 1505. The mural commemorated a victory by the forces of the Florentine Republic, which had been restored just a few years earlier with the overthrow of the ruling Medici family. But the Medici soon regained power, and in 1563 they hired Giorgio Vasari to cover up Leonardo’s work with a painting celebrating one of their own martial successes. Mr. Seracini, reasoning that Vasari would not have destroyed the work of an artist he so admired, has long believed that the earlier painting is still there, behind a second layer of brick wall. He points to the only two words painted on Vasari’s mural: cerca trova (roughly, “seek and ye shall find”), which he suspects may refer to the lost Leonardo. [WSJ]