Duncan Murrell

You love art, but painting mystifies you. Rejoice! Here are three books I love that demystify the act of painting and offer insight into the lives, personalities, talents, and obsessions of a working artist. #BookRecommendations #ArtLover #ArtHistory #ArtandSociety

Monet's massive Nymphéas, The Water Lilies, were dusted this week. It got me thinking about that dust and all the other indignities the grand masterpieces of Impressionism have suffered over time. #ClaudeMonet #Impressionism #ArtHistory

Did the first critic of Monet and the Impressionists get it wrong in 1874? Check out these bon mots from Louis Leroy’s review in “Le Charivari” and decide for yourself! No fair using the hindsight of art history. #ClaudeMonet #Impressionists #Impressionism #ArtHistory

One of the beautiful things about Impressionism was that those painters were interested in painting ordinary life, but lugging the studio into the world was pretty cumbersome. But two inventions freed Monet and the others to go out into the world and paint right there. #ClaudeMonet #Impressionism

No one who knows her work would call Patti Smith a sellout. In the interview below, she makes a case for the joy of engaging others with your art and argues against the impoverished view of life and art that would think of an artist with a following as something inferior. #PattiSmith #Artists

In our most recent roundup, we're highlighting 10 weird girl horror books and the bold, unsettling narratives that define the genre. Read the article here: buff.ly/md62CDY #BookRecs #HorrorBooks #WeirdGirlHorror #FeminineRage #BookSky

“After a month of looking at these Renoirs,” said one suspected burglar, “we just couldn’t take it anymore.”

Why is Claude Monet's "Luncheon on the Grass" cut up into two panels at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris? The story really amuses me, but the painting feels poignant, as a sort of last farewell to his wife's innocence and youthful joy. #ArtHistory #PublicArt #ClaudeMonet #EdouardManet

Did You Get Your Feelings Hurt, Boy? substack.com/@duncanmurre...

There's an argument to be made for Rodney Mullen, a skateboard visionary, and skating videos as important and influential works of art themselves. Watch the video to see if you agree! #SkateCulture #RodneyMullen #CulturalHistory #VisualCulture

Authoritarians generally prefer public art that either glorifies or commemorates, and the only subject worth glorifying and commemorating in 2026 is Donald J. Trump. Put his name on it and spray gold everywhere in the Oval Office. Now that's art. Or something. #ArtHistory #Design #ArtEveryday

You can look at one of Claude Monet’s paintings of haystacks and say, "That doesn’t look beyond me." But what you're seeing is the culmination of a hundred different kinds of talent and dozens of years of study that can’t really be taught. #ClaudeMonet #Caricatures #ArtHistory #Art

Impressionists were radical and revolutionary, painting subjects that were truer to their experience of life. They left behind the evidence of their creation and made art that looked less 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 but more 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘦. #Impressionism #Art #ArtHistory

One of my favorite ways to learn about art is to watch documentaries, so here are three of my favorites about three incredible artists. #ArtHistory #AgnesMartin #GerhardRichter #JeanMichelBasquiat #Documentaries

Trump Announces New ‘Dodger Dividend’ For Anyone Who Avoided Military Service

Hilma af Klint invented abstraction years before Wassily Kandinsky, but until recently, she was largely left out of art history. But even so, her work still exists and she was a pioneer of abstraction who deserves her place in the public history of art. #Art #Abstraction #HilmaafKlint

An excerpt from THE MONET AFFAIR, coming in May 2027! Blanche Hoschedé Monet, Claude’s daughter-in-law and a painter in her own right, occupies the emotional center of this novel, and by the end of it, she has more than earned a moment of peace. #BookSky #Excerpt #Art #ClaudeMonet #ForthcomingBook

The depressed coal community to exploited fracking community to future data center host pipeline should receive more attention right now in data center coverage. Once a community is identified as a sacrifice zone, it's pretty hard to shake that perception.

I have a brand new, shiny website at "duncanmurrell.org". My site contains all of my "Great Stuff" posts about art and writing and anything else I care to call to your attention. Sounds fun to me. Visit it here: duncanmurrell.org #AuthorWebsite #WebsiteLaunch #AuthorSky #BookSky

We’re not changing it.

Claude Monet's pond at Giverny is a great tourist attraction but also the subject of his last and final masterpieces. Clemenceau urged Monet to make those paintings, but there's an intensity there, embodying the memories of an old man looking back on a long, flawed life. #Art #ClaudeMonet

[Exit Queen.]

A museum can be a formidable place where many become frustrated that they can't see what the big deal is. I’m here to tell you that there doesn’t have to be. Art becomes alive when it connects to us and makes us feel something, and most artists make work to be seen or experienced by you! #Museum

After I had called a friend to complain that I was a fool to think I could write, he sent me a copy of A GIACOMETTI PORTRAIT by James Lord. My friend didn’t really explain, but I understood that there was something in the book to take heart from. And yes, there was. #Inspiration #AuthorSky #Creator

I am publishing a novel next year based on the life of the painter Claude Monet and his family. At this point, you may be wondering, why? Or, more to the point, why Claude Monet? Over the coming months, you’ll read many answers to that question here, but I'll start with two. #BookSky #ClaudeMonet

Rest in power.

And funny, he doesn’t look like the most superior man in earth.

Hooboy, people are going to fetishize paper books to death. I have a copy of The Varieties of Religious Experience that I inherited on the death of a friend and mentor I loved, and she is all over the margins taking the old man to task. I flip through it and she’s in the room.

“…Jenni Parido, whose most recent work experience before securing the coveted role as US Venice Biennale Commissioner was running a pet food store in Florida, told Hyperallergic in an email that the organization did not receive ‘corporate or foundation funding’ for the pavilion.”

When you realize that, of the many hundreds of multi-million dollar sales on the international market (a new Van Gogh last week, for instance), very little goes to the artist or their estate, you realize what Gerhard Richter meant when he called it unfair. Capitalism and investing ruins culture.

Apple is shuttering a retail store in Maryland that was the ​company's first to unionize, and preventing workers there from transferring to other locations in retaliation, a union ‌alleged in a complaint filed reut.rs/422S1Yv

Your tough social media posts are not impressing me, elected officials. If you have to tell me that you're opposed to a madman threatening to exterminate a whole civilization, we are truly lost. Don't mimic what your constituents are already telling you; you're supposed to know more than we do.

Concnered that the fear of a nuclear strike will make us so relieved when it doesn't happen that we won't recognize the extent of the horror conventional weapons of mass destruction can wreak when controlled by a command structure without care for innocent life. He is not above ordering a Dresden.

"A whole civilization will die tonight" is classic Stephen Miller, the evil and mentally ill psychopath emboldened by hiding behind another evil and mentally ill psychopath. These aren't the words of Donald Trump, but they express his desire.

Trump was warned this would happen. He did it anyway. Now, over 10,000 Veterans lost their homes. 90,000 more are on track for foreclosure. On top of cutting jobs, slashing benefits and throwing our heroes into an unnecessary war. The most anti-Veteran President in history.

This is officially the single WORST administration for Veterans in American history.

Don't you dare, ever, accept anyone who says this administration cares about the people in its military. Those of us who served are just fodder, toy soldiers to be flung around, pew-pew, and eventually lost in the backyard.

* just finished covering my Harry Potter tattoo with the Sora logo * what