Cassone has readers in 89 countries!

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The World Wide Web is an awe-inspiring phenomenon. As the editor of Cassone, I love hearing from those readers who contact us through the website but of course that is only a minority of all who see the magazine each month. I keep a close eye on the data showing where our readers are, however, and find it very exciting to see that Cassone is being read in 89 very diverse countries ranging from Iraq to Sri Lanka, Australia to Austria., as well, of course, as the UK and USA. The fact that Cassone is bringing art without ‘artspeak’ to people right across our globe is quite simply wonderful.

Cassone is often ahead of the news. Recently, British TV viewers will have seen Dr Andrew Bamji being interviewed by Jeremy Paxman for his three-part series on the Great War. They talked about the work done at Sidcup hospital on rebuilding injured soldiers’ faces after that war. Cassone readers will know that Julian Freeman wrote about this in last August’s issue: ‘Face value: The timely resurgence of Professor Tonks’ .   Dr Bamji had been extremely helpful in supplying images to illustrate that article.

Watching all the publicity for the film Monuments Men, which is based on a nonfiction book on the recovery of Nazi looted art treasures, I remembered that in our May 2012 issue, Professor Larry Silver had reviewed another book on finding lost art treasures stolen by the Nazis (Hitler's Holy Relics. A True Story of Nazi Plunder and the Race to Recover the Crown Jewels of the Holy Roman Empire). Larry Silver found it unputdownable: as so often, the truth here is probably more gripping than even Hollywood can manage!

For this our ‘refreshed’ March issue, Ian Jones visited the David Bailey ‘Stardust’ exhibition  at the National Portrait Gallery, which you can read all about in our Photography section. When was the last time you visited an exhibition and were ‘invited to touch, climb, move through or walk under or around each work’? It would never happen? Rosalind Ormiston was pleasantly surprised at the ‘Sensing Spaces’ exhibition at the Royal Academy; you can find her report in our Architecture section.

In New York Victoria Keller went to the exhibition at the Frick Collection ‘Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes from the Hill Collection’. Victoria tells me that this exhibition is a delight and its installation is a real credit to both the Frick and the Hills themselves. Modern paintings are shown alongside these centuries-old sculptures, just as they are displayed in their owners’ own home. If you are in NY it is well worth a visit.

Rosalind Ormiston also reviews the two other – and very different – exhibitions: ‘Strange Beauty: Masters of the German Renaissance’ at the National Gallery, London and ‘Martin Creed: What’s the Point of It?’  at the Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre.

Rosalind McKever went to an evening auction of Arte Povera  at Christies, ‘Eyes Wide Open: An Italian Vision’,  where on 11 February the sale realized a total of £38,427,400 / $63,020,936 / €46,074,453 establishing 13 records for the artists concerned.  Hardly ‘Poor Art’ any more! Do read her account of this movement and the collection that was sold.

Highgate Cemetery is one of the most famous in the world and yet by the mid-20th century it was overgrown and neglected. Jenny Kingsley has written for us  a Perspectives piece on this place ‘that has an evocative sense of gentle gloom and mystery’ and explores how English Heritage came to list Highgate as a Grade I Park and Garden.

Finally we have several book reviews on various subjects and covering a wide interpretation of art in all its forms.  As usual an eclectic mix from Cassone – the online magazine appreciated round the world!

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Cassone - ca-soh-neh - the box a wealthy Italian bride of the Renaissance period took to hold her trousseau; a box of beautiful things.