it’s art is for people who suspect a painting can change how they live.
Every week, one artwork, looked at slowly, with a philosopher or a poet for company: Dante beside Miró, Hemingway beside Hopper, Dostoevsky beside Schiele. Around a thousand words, ten minutes with your coffee, no art degree required.
Try one, right now
Look at the sheet above. Brown packing paper, a sketch for a painting Klimt would cover in gold. In the corner, in pencil, three words in his own hand: Kopf, Hals, länger. Head, neck, longer. This from a man who kept no diary and wrote almost no letters; a note to the only reader he trusted, himself. Twenty seconds ago it was an old drawing. Now it is a man talking to himself at night. That is what these essays do: stand in front of one work until it opens.
Start with these
The newest essays are always free. After two weeks, each one joins the archive, which belongs to paid subscribers.
How it works
Free: one essay a week, usually Tuesday, in your inbox, whole and free for its first two weeks. No daily digests, no filler. If you want a daily rhythm, the Notes feed carries one artwork a day.
Paid: the full archive, every essay ever published, and the knowledge that the weekly one stays free for everyone else.
Reading on an iPhone? Subscribe at itisart.substack.com in the browser, not inside the app. Apple adds 30% to the price.
What readers say
Who writes this
I’m Vittorio Zappa. Italian; I have lived in Paris and come back to Tuscany. I spend my time between paintings and the books that talk to them, and these essays are what happens when the two meet. I write one a week, when something is worth saying.
it’s art publishes one essay a week on a single artwork: paintings by Hopper, Klimt, Miró, Schiele, Hockney and others, read closely and paired with philosophy and literature. Art history for how to live, in ten minutes a week.
Questions
Is it free? Yes. Every new essay is free from the day it is published, for two weeks. Then it joins the archive, which is for paid subscribers. The best way to read everything is simply to arrive on time.
Can I write to you? Please do. Reply to any email or message me on Substack. I read everything and answer almost everything, and the messages where someone has been standing in front of a painting without working out why it holds them are my favourite kind.
What if I want to leave? There is an unsubscribe link at the bottom of every email. No hard feelings; take a painting with you.
Ho letto poco di tuo, ma trovo questa presentazione veritiera: apri finestre da cui osservare diversamente l'artista e noi stessə e/o la vita.