Anna Desnitskaya

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William Gropper (American, 1897-1977), Night Life

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Richard Nadler
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French 75 Studios

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Jeanne Amato, 'Morning Light'
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Matsuyama Miyabi, 'Self-Portrait: Pt. 12 The Wave', 2023.
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Yoshikazu Tanaka
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Julie Curtiss (French, 1982) - Limule (2021)

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Naoki Hayashi, Flight School - Breaking the Surface
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The Inevitable Rise of the Art TV

The Samsung Frame TV, first announced in 2017, doesn’t look all that great as an actual television. But switch it off and it sure is pretty—certainly much better to look at than an empty black void.

This is thanks to its matte-finish, anti-glare screen and the picture-frame-like bezels that together transform whatever fine art you choose to display on the TV when it's in standby mode (Samsung offers a variety of high-resolution digital slides) into something that resembles a framed painting. In the years since its debut and through a few updates, the Frame TV has become one of the more considered options for people who live in smaller spaces without dedicated rooms for watching TV.

It has taken a while for other brands to catch up, but we're now seeing a huge wave of Frame-like TVs hit the market. The trend is largely driven by aesthetes in cities where smaller living rooms are the norm, but it's getting a boost from advances in screen design.

Late last year, Hisense announced its CanvasTV, a frame competitor that also has a matte screen and displays art. (We have a review unit coming shortly.) TCL has the similar NXTvision model that uses a Vincent van Gogh self-portrait in the marketing, and LG has announced the Gallery TV (also repping van Gogh) for later this year. Even Amazon has decided to throw its hat in the ring, with the Ember Artline TV. Announced this week at CES 2026, Amazon's $899 television can display one of 2,000 works of art (available for free to Ember Artline owners) and even has a tool that uses Alexa AI to help you decide which artworks are the best fit for your room.

So what's so great about Art TVs, and why do brands seem to be pivoting so hard into the category?

Part of it has to do with personal space. It's true that many younger buyers just don't have the same taste or sense of style as folks from previous generations. But also, young city-dwelling professionals are less likely to have the room to place a large screen in a dedicated area in their home, a pain point compounded by the fact that TV screen sizes have ballooned over the past decade.

The other reason TV makers are getting artsy has to do with the evolution of TV technology itself. Brands are choosing to step into this space now because they have finally developed the means to create matte screens that can accurately represent a painting or a fine art photograph. Though Samsung is a pioneer in the space, matte LED screens are enjoying something of a renaissance across all television brands.

A typical glossy TV display reflects light like a window, but a matte screen absorbs light like a canvas might. This effect enables any art pieces displayed on the screen to look extra realistic. Another advance in technology is backlighting. Where previous generations of these Art TVs needed to be lit from the edges of the display in order to maintain their painting-like thinness and allow them to be mounted flush against a wall, brands have recently been able to employ more advanced lighting systems while keeping the TVs slim. Local dimming, better backlighting processing, and the ability to adjust the screen brightness to match a room's ambient lighting when in “art mode” make these new displays look better than ever.

by Parker Hall, Wired |  Read more:

Image: Samsung/PCMag

[ed. See also: Ambient Intelligence in the Living Room (MDPI).]

Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, 1974
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[ed. Joni never gets enough credit for her excellent paintings.]

Dog Eat Dog, 1985

Lorraine Munro, Collage, (paper collage), 1981 
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Michael Moccia, Receipt Art
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Enzo L’Acqua

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Frances Featherstone, 'The Sight of the Stars Makes me Dream' said Vincent Van Gogh. Selected by the Royal Institute of Oil Painters 2023.

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[ed. From the series From the Perspective of the Angels]

Gary Erbe (American, 1944), Take Five, 1981-82.

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Fossil Words and the Road to Damascus

Caravaggio, The Conversion of Saint Paul
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[ed. Fossil word(s). When a word is broadly obsolete but remains in use due to its presence in an idiom or phrase. 

For example, I've always understood the phrase Road to Damascus to be a sort of epiphany or form of enlightment (without knowing what it actually meant). Another example would be Crossing the Rubicon (a point of no return; or decision with no turning back). Of course, these aren't outdated words/phrases as much as shorthand for mental laziness (or trite writing habits). Wikipedia provides a number of examples of actual fossil words, including "much ado about nothing" or "without further ado" (who uses ado in any other context these days?); or "in point", as in "a case in point", or "in point of fact". So, to help promote a little more clarity around here -- Road to Damascus:] 

***

The conversion of Paul the Apostle was, according to the New Testament, an event in the life of Saul/Paul the Apostle that led him to cease persecuting early Christians and to become a follower of Jesus. Paul, who also went by Saul, was "a Pharisee of Pharisees" who "intensely persecuted" the followers of Jesus. Paul describes his life before conversion in his Epistle to the Galatians:

For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers...

As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?"

"Who are you, Lord?" Saul asked.

"I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting," he replied. "Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do."

The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. Paul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.

— Acts 9:3–9

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

Illustrations: Felicia Bond

[ed. For future reference. Wish I'd known about this book (and series) when my grandaughter was a bit younger, but maybe it's not too late (still seven, but she's growing up fast).]

Ozu: The Bond Between Parent and Child

Why was I thinking about flower arrangement while watching “The Only Son” the first sound film made by the Japanese master Ozu? It must have involved the meticulous and loving care he used with his familiar visual elements. In Japan in 1984 I attended a class at the Sogetsu School, which teaches ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arranging. I learned quickly that sorting a big bunch of flowers in a vase was not ikebana. One selected just a few elements and found a precise way in which they rested together harmoniously.

If you think that ikebana has nothing to do with film direction, think again. The Sogetsu School was then being run by Hiroshi Teshigahara, the director of “Woman in the Dunes,” who left filmmaking to become the third generation of his family to head of the school. after he died in 1991, his daughter became the fourth. I gathered that the Teshigaharas believed when you studied ikebana you studied your relationship with the material world.

Now turn to Yasujiro Ozu, who is one of the three of four best filmmakers in the world, and certainly the one who brings me the most serenity. I’ve seen 14 of his films, four of them with the shot-by-shot approach. That doesn’t make me an expert, but it makes me familiar with his ways of seeing. In the films I’ve seen, he has a few favorite themes, subjects and compositions, and carefully arranges and rearranges them. Some say “he makes the same film every time.” That’s like saying “all people are born with two eyes.” What matters is how you see with them.

Over an opening frame of “The Only Son” (1936), we read a quotation by the writer Akutagawa: “Life’s tragedy begins with the bond between parent and child.” So do most of Ozu’s films. Again and again, he focuses on parents and their children, and often on their grandchildren. A typical plot will involve sacrifice by a parent or a child for the happiness of the other. It is not uncommon for both parent and child to make sacrifices in a mistaken belief about what the other desires. The issues involved are marriage, children, independence for the young, care for the old, and success in the world.

He tells these stories within a visual frame so distinctive that I believe you can identify any Ozu film after seeing a shot or two, sometimes even from a still. How he came upon his approach I don’t know, but you see it fully mature even in his silent films. For Ozu, all depends on the composition of the shot. He almost never moves his camera. He usually shoots from the eye level of a person seated on a tatami mat. He often begins shots before characters enter, and holds them after they leave. He separates important scenes with “pillow shots” of exterior architectural or landscape details. He uses evocative music, never too loud. I have never seen him use violence. When violence occurs, people commit it within themselves.

Parents and children, then families, are his chosen subjects. He tells each story with his familiar visual strategy, which is pure and simplified, never calling attention to itself. His straight-on shots are often framed on sides and back, and with foreground objects. His exteriors and groups of two or more characters are usually at oblique angles. Is this monotonous? Never, because within his rules he finds infinite variation. A modern chase scene is much more monotonous, because it gives you nothing to think about.

In “The Only Son,” there is a remarkable moment when we have a great deal of time to think. The story is about the son of a widowed mother who works in a provincial silk spinning mill. This is hard and spirit-crushing work, but she does it to put her son through high school and set him on his road in life. After graduating, he follows an admired teacher to seek his future in Tokyo. Four years pass. His mother comes to visit him, unannounced. They are happy to see one another, they love one another, but he has a surprise: He has a wife and an infant child. Why didn’t he tell her? We gather he didn’t want to create an occasion for her to visit Tokyo and find that he is very poor, has a low-paying job, teaching geometry in a night school, and that he lives in a desolate district in view of the smokestacks of the Tokyo garbage incinerators.

The rest of the plot you can discover. It leads to a conversation in which he shares his discouragement, and tells her she may have wasted her sacrifice. She encourages him to persevere. He thinks he’s had a bad roll of the dice. There is no place for him in Tokyo. Simple mill worker that she is, what can she reply to this? She sits up late, sleepless. He awakens, and they talk some more. She weeps. In a reframed shot, his wife weeps. Then Ozu provides a shot of an unremarkable corner of the room. Nothing much there. A baby bottle. A reproduction of a painting. Nothing. He holds this shot. And holds it. And holds it. I feel he could not look at them any longer, and had to look away, thinking about what has happened. Finally there is an exterior pillow shot of the morning.

If Ozu returns to characteristic visuals, he also returns to familiar actors. In “An Only Son,” the small but important role of the hero’s teacher is played by Chishu Ryu — the teacher who, after moving to Tokyo, fails to realize his own dreams and, as the son bitterly tells his mother, is “reduced to frying pork cutlets.” This was Ryu’s seventh film for Ozu. In all he was to appear in 52 of Ozu’s 54 films, between 1929 and 1962. He is the old father in “Tokyo Story” (1953).

Ryu is an actor who we recognize from body language. He exudes restraint, courtesy. He smokes meditatively. He said Ozu directed him as little as possible: “He had made up the complete picture in his head before he went on the set, so that all we actors had to do was to follow his directions, from the way we lifted and dropped our arms to the way we blinked our eyes.”

by Roger Ebert, RogerEbert.com |  Read more:

Image: The Only Son

[ed. I don't watch much tv, which is sometimes unfortunate. It'd be nice to have that little distraction whenever boredom (or ennui) sets in and whatever book I'm reading isn't finding traction. Anyway, tonight I decided to look for a foreign film that would be time well spent. Of course, in deciding what to choose I fell down this rabbit hole. I've seen Tokyo Story, but little else of Ozu's work. I'll start with The Only Son, then see what An Autumn Afternoon has to offer:]

***

"The more you learn about Yasujiro Ozu, the director of “An Autumn Afternoon” (1962), the more you realize how very deep the waters reach beneath his serene surfaces. Ozu is one of the greatest artists to ever make a film. This was his last one. He never married. He lived for 60 years with his mother, and when she died, he was dead a few months later. Over and over again, in almost all of his films, he turned to the same central themes, of loneliness, of family, of dependence, of marriage, of parents and children. He holds these themes to the light and their prisms cast variations on each screenplay. His films are all made within the emotional space of his life, in which he finds not melodramatic joy or tragedy, but mono no aware, which is how the Japanese refer to the bittersweet transience of all things.

From time to time I return to Ozu feeling a need to be calmed and restored. He is a man with a profound understanding of human nature, about which he makes no dramatic statements. We are here, we hope to be happy, we want to do well, we are locked within our aloneness, life goes on. He embodies this vision in a cinematic style so distinctive that you can tell an Ozu film almost from a single shot."