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By JIM FUSILLI

‘Sweet Heart Sweet Light” (Fat Possum), the new disc by Spiritualized, didn’t quite turn out the way leader Jason Pierce intended.

“It was a hard record to make,” he said, calling from London. “I wanted to make something that was easier to do, but it turned out to be the hardest.”

He said his goal for the album, Spiritualized’s 11th (including live discs and compilations), was to keep the music lean—”simple and exposed,” as he put it—and let the songs deliver the impact. “Sometimes, when you know how to do it, you have to unlearn it to make it more interesting,” he said.

Press Here Productions

The band takes a step back to basics with its new album, ‘Sweet Heart Sweet Light.’

Spiritualized backed off a bit on “Sweet Heart Sweet Light” but, as it was with the group’s other discs, the new album still features the kind of arrangements that take special care: thick, droning, not-so-simple waves of swooping, swirling guitars and synths under Mr. Pierce’s laid-back vocals. The core four-piece unit is built to play big, with Tony “Doggen” Foster on guitars and bass, Kevin Bales on drums, Tom Edwards on keyboards, and Mr. Pierce on guitars and keys. Here it’s augmented by a string quartet, a horn section featuring free-jazz players, and a choir. Several tracks written as simple rock ballads build in intensity to extended codas. “So Long You Pretty Thing,” the track that closes off the album, starts off as a sing-along between Mr. Pierce and his young daughter, Poppy; almost eight minutes later, his voice rides atop billowy brass and strings. Another track, “Life Is a Problem,” was once a fairly straightforward tune but soon incorporated an orchestra. “We played it like a Mississippi blues, but it works better with an orchestra,” Mr. Pierce said.

Mr. Pierce is a student of rock’s past masters and is intrigued by other musical forms. He’s made free jazz and experimental electronic albums under the name J. Spaceman.

“When you start studying music, something that you previously loved, you find yourself wanting to know how did they synch the vocals or how did they achieve that sound,” he said. His many tastes emerge on Spiritualized’s discs, as the band shifts its emphasis by adding and subtracting vintage R&B, booming 1960s rock, punk, Delta blues, choral music, blaring horns and elements of gospel to its mix. “Sweet Heart Sweet Light” is less complex than the group’s previous efforts, but not by much.

Following its highly regarded and—thus far—career-defining 1997 album, “Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space,” with which his band stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Oasis and Radiohead as the U.K.’s best band, Mr. Pierce worked for four years on its follow-up, “Let It Come Down,” employing more than 100 musicians to achieve the recording’s Phil Spector-like wall of sound. The gospel-influenced “Amazing Grace” came out two years later.

In 2005, Mr. Pierce suffered a near-fatal bout of pneumonia and respiratory failure. He rallied to release “Songs in A&E”—as in the Accident and Emergency Ward at Royal London Hospital—by 2008. That same year, the band performed “Ladies and Gentlemen. . .” in its entirety at the Sydney Opera House and New York’s Radio City Music Hall with an orchestra and choir, allowing the band and its guests to approach the grandeur the recording had achieved in the studio. “They were amazing experiences,” he said. But for a forward-looking artist, there is a contradiction to playing old material: “I suppose it will be history one day. But there’s no need to hurry it along.”

Now 46 years old, Mr. Pierce is still plagued by health problems that made “Sweet Heart Sweet Light” a challenge to complete. “I was undergoing treatment for a liver disease, which is pretty gruesome. I could work one hour a day, or one hour a week.” Though it was recorded in London, Los Angeles, Reykjavik and Rockfield, Wales, Mr. Pierce said he had to mix the album on his laptop rather than in a studio when the budget ran dry.

Despite his ailments, Mr. Pierce said he still aims to create grand works. To his mind, dedicated effort is the only way to do it. “So much of music today is [about] looking back at great moments like they could drift away. The only way to slow that down is by making great records now. I refuse to believe the rock ‘n’ roll doctrine that you just throw it down and it happens.” If that were the case, he added, “We’d all be sitting around waiting for magic.”

Spiritualized will tour the U.S. and Canada throughout May. The new songs, as well as his back catalog, will be performed in the “simple and exposed” form Mr. Pierce envisioned when he wrote “Sweet Heart Sweet Light.” “We’re back to [being] like a little punk band: five pieces, two guitars.”

Mr. Fusilli is the Journal’s rock and pop music critic. Email him at jfusilli@wsj.com or follow him on Twitter: @wsjrock.

A version of this article appeared April 12, 2012, on page D4 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Spiritualized Revival.

By KAREN WILKIN

New York

Victoria and Albert Museum, on long-term loan to The National Gallery, London

‘Fra Teodoro of Urbino as St. Dominic’ (1515), by Giovanni Bellini.

Portraits, from gritty Lucian Freuds to the fatuous kitsch perpetrated by street artists, are such a constant presence in our visual landscape that it’s hard to remember that the genre’s history is far from continuous. For centuries, throughout the ancient world—in Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece—human beings were depicted according to strict, near-abstract conventions, except for a short-lived period of relative naturalism during the reign of the renegade monotheist pharaoh, Akhenaten. The Romans, of course, excelled at memorial portraits, sculpting heads uncannily like people we still encounter on present-day Italian streets and, in the further reaches of the Empire, painting those astonishing, liquid-eyed face-panels for Roman-era Egyptian mummies.

Medieval manuscripts sometimes include images of donors, but essentially as emblems of kingship or duchesshood rather than as reports on the particularities of recognizable persons. Aristocrats, in the Middle Ages, are depicted no more specifically than peasants performing labors appropriate to the seasons; they’re just better dressed. It’s not until the Renaissance that we again find representations as sharply characterized as those of ancient Rome, evidence not only of what the 19th-century Swiss cultural historian Jacob Burckhardt called “the revival of antiquity,” in his seminal work “The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy,” but also of, in Burckhardt’s terms, “the development of the individual” and “the awakening of personality.”

These new attitudes come to life in the delectable survey “The Renaissance Portrait: From Donatello to Bellini,” a collaboration between the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. More than 150 paintings, sculptures, reliefs and drawings trace the development of the likeness, mainly during the 15th century, from stylized profile images, inspired by antique medals, to three-quarter views of convincing personages who turn easily in space and coolly appraise us. It’s a stunning show, with a checklist that reads like the iconic collection of an ideal museum of the quattrocento, plus compelling works by less familiar Italian artists and a few splendid Netherlandish portraits for comparison.

Organized both chronologically and thematically, the exhibition begins with a Donatello “speaking reliquary” (c. 1425): a gilded bronze bust designed to house a skull fragment of St. Rossore, the image denoting the type of relic enclosed. Somehow, Donatello transforms a traditional devotional form into a potent evocation of an individual, pointing the way to the vividly personal paintings and sculptures of demure women and powerful men in subsequent galleries.

The Donatello bust is accompanied by early quattrocento paintings of male profiles by Masaccio, Paolo Uccello and (probably) Domenico Veneziano, all of them with red cappucci—long-tailed hoods—piled on their heads. Despite their robust modeling, they seem schematic, as do many of the images of young blondes that follow, paintings by such masters as Filippo Lippi, Sandro Botticelli and the Pollaiuolo brothers, and suave marble busts by Desiderio da Settignano and Andrea del Verrocchio. So it’s no surprise to learn that the men may be posthumous portraits, made as symbols as much as truthful likenesses, or that the women, with their elaborate hairstyles, opulent jewelry and piquant profiles, are better interpreted as idealized embodiments of modesty and chastity than as accurate records of particular people.

Yet as we move through the exhibition, we are increasingly surrounded by specific individuals with particular attributes. Portraits of the Medici and their associates announce what Burckhardt called “the modern idea of fame,” a concept further explored, later on, in medals, busts, drawings and paintings of assorted (mostly male) notables, from clerics to humanist poets to merchants. Some are corpulent and jowly, others are lean and bony, still others have impressive noses or stubborn chins; all have had their most distinctive features emphasized, as if to ensure immediate recognition or confirm relationships. We note, for example, the long, narrow d’Este face, captured by Pisanello in his portraits of Leonello, the marquess of Ferrara, in a Rogier van der Weyden portrait of Leonello’s “natural son.” We see how the erudite, hard-bitten humanist-warrior-duke of Urbino, Federigo da Montefeltro, and his small, blond son Guidalbaldo share an overbite and a sturdy chin.

The Medici section includes multiple versions of Botticelli’s commemorative portrait of Giuliano de’ Medici, Lorenzo il Magnifico’s brother, murdered in 1478 in the “Pazzi Conspiracy.” Supporters of the family commissioned images of the long-nosed, dark-haired young man with downcast eyes as signs of solidarity and loyalty. Lorenzo himself appears many times, in different mediums, most unforgettably in a fierce death mask. (The identification of the subject of a fresh little drawing by Leonardo da Vinci is disputed.)

We can learn a lot about the conventions and the development of Renaissance portraiture from this absorbing exhibition. We can compare drawings, sometimes made from life, with finished paintings or medallions. We can measure Benedetto da Maiano’s preparatory terra-cotta bust of the tough-minded Florentine banker Filippo Strozzi against the finished marble version (both 1475). Mostly, we can revel in such superb works as Giovanni Bellini’s 1515 “Fra Teodoro of Urbino as St. Dominic,” a sympathetic portrait of an elderly ascetic, holding a lily, that prefigures the entire Pre-Raphaelite movement. There’s Antonello da Messina’s skeptical young man with thick curling hair and a black cappuccio (1478) and Laurana’s nuanced marble of the introspective bluestocking Beatrice of Aragon (c. 1474-75). And much more. These glimpses into history, these interesting faces, gorgeous clothes and richly worked jewelry, come to us via incisive drawing, subtle modeling, glorious color and seductive surfaces. That’s a lot.

Ms. Wilkin writes about art for the Journal.

A version of this article appeared February 2, 2012, on page D4 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: From Out of a Featureless Crowd.

By LEE LAWRENCE

Gainesville, Fla.

With the opening of the 26,000-square-foot David A. Cofrin Asian Art Wing, the University of Florida’s Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art is adding a conservation laboratory for Asian art and devoting almost 7,000 square feet—about one-sixth of its total exhibition space—to works from China, Japan, Korea and South and Southeast Asia. Designed by Kha Le-Huu & Partners of Orlando, the wing retains the Harn’s characteristic openness, including floor-to-ceiling windows that look out onto a new rock-and-water garden. But the new galleries feel different. Here, mahogany floors, ceilings and columns impart a warmth well-suited to the works on display.

These include selections that came to the Harn at its founding in 1990—most notably Korean paintings and ceramics from Gen. James Van Fleet (who commanded the U.S. Eighth Army and United Nations forces from 1951 to 1953) and a variety of Indian paintings and sculpture collected by Roy C. Craven (whose 1975 “Concise History of Indian Art” still features regularly on many Asian-art syllabi).

Asia was thus a primary focus from the start, a commitment the Harn has now deepened at a cost of $20 million. Original funders and consistent contributors to the museum, David A. and Mary Ann Harn Cofrin gave $10 million that the state of Florida was to match under its Major Gift Challenge Grant Program. When budgetary constraints forced Florida legislators to suspend the program, the university forged ahead anyway, taking out loans it hopes the state will eventually reimburse. “The goal is to make students citizens of the world,” museum director Rebecca Nagy explains, “and the arts are central to that mission.” Given Asia’s prominence, she adds, “the better students understand it, the better prepared they will be.”

With nearly 2,000 Asian works in its permanent collection, the museum can now display some 680—almost four times as many as before. For its inaugural installation, curator Jason Steuber stops mid-20th century (more recent works are included in the contemporary-art wing). Most visitors, he discovered, associate Asia with ceramics, which is one of the Harn’s strengths. So, starting in a gallery of the main building renovated to match the new wing, he surrounds us with bowls, ewers, vases, dishes and the occasional figurines, tiles and plaques, arranged by country and displayed in tall mahogany units.

A wall text alerts us to the role trade routes played in disseminating materials and designs. Thus primed, we notice, for example, that blue pigments achieved with cobalt pop up in Syria, China, Vietnam and Japan; that the green and orange glaze of 15th- and 16th-century Chinese Ming figurines echoes that of a 12th- to 13th-century platter from Afghanistan; that ancient Chinese forms recur at different points in China’s history when ruling dynasties looked to the past.

From here we move seamlessly into the new wing, where there is enough space for us to absorb, undistracted, the Buddha figures and undulating pagoda rooflines carved on a sandstone pillar from 11th- to 12th-century China; the dynamic gestures and multiple symbols in a 10th-century relief of the Hindu goddess Durga as she simultaneously spears a buffalo and strangles the demon emerging from its mouth; or the elaborate headdress on a late sixth-century Bodhisattva’s head from China.

“The Harn Museum has deepened its commitment to Asian works at a cost of $20 million.”

What makes the installation work so beautifully is that it alternates from this kind of sparse configuration to dense clusterings. Surrounding the airy central space, intimate alcoves showcase masks and Tibetan Buddhist objects while display cases variously teem with carved Chinese jades or a smorgasbord of Indian reliefs, statuary and ritual objects from the third to the 20th centuries. This open-storage format proves highly effective. With more objects on view, we see connections and shifts in technique and design, and movable shelves create cubbyholes perfect for small bronzes and reliefs.

Overall, wall texts frame rather than explain displays, occasional didactic materials help decipher a sculpture’s gestures or symbols, and information on the labels is kept to a minimum. This has the advantage of keeping our attention on the objects, but at times the information is frustratingly sparse. Finding the right balance is tricky, and success will depend on how plans proceed to develop the means to allow visitors to access supplemental information through tablets or other media.

Sometimes, though, the balance is just right. Text in the north gallery invites us to explore how artists negotiated the tensions between tradition and modernity. Discrete groupings then focus on women painters in 17th- to 19th-century China, prints made in postwar occupied Japan, and works by Jamini Roy, an artist in newly independent India who is prominently represented in the Harn collection. In the Korean gallery, a 17th-century Bodhisattva showcases not just its own compelling beauty, but the science that reveals some of its story. Across from the seated figure, displayed with scriptures that were once housed in the sculpture’s abdomen, CAT scans and X-rays show that the artist carved the body from a single piece of wood, using a protruding branch for the right arm. A practical choice—but also a spiritually resonant one, since the statue thereby preserves the flow of the tree’s energy. The scans also show that the artist hid more scriptures in the statue’s head.

We will probably never see these—just as the general public will never see the conservation laboratory and other hidden working areas of the new Asia wing. It will, however, benefit from the research, conservation and continuing acquisition programs taking place behind the scenes.

Ms. Lawrence is a writer based in Brooklyn, N.Y.

The David A. Cofrin Asian Art Wing

Harn Museum of Art

www.harn.ufl.edu/asianartwing

A version of this article appeared April 5, 2012, on page D4 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Asian Expansion in Florida.

By LETTIE TEAGUE

What would happen if an unattractive, middle-age man opened a wine bar in Manhattan? Probably not much—at least in terms of press coverage. But if a young woman with serious drinking credentials and a closet full of cute dresses did the same thing? If you’ve followed the buzz around Corkbuzz, you already know the answer. Laura Maniec, the 32-year-old Corkbuzz proprietor, has become the putative “It Girl” of the New York wine scene since she opened her wine bar on East 13th Street some three months ago.

Ms. Maniec first won fame at age 29 by becoming the youngest woman in the world ever to be named a Master Sommelier. She was also the wine director of BR Guest restaurant group, a position she held for 10 years before deciding to open a place of her own with a small group of investors, all family and friends.

I asked Ms. Maniec how it feels to be the “It Girl.” She took off her shoes and tucked her feet beneath her dress as she settled into one of the sofas at the front of the wine bar. “I hate making statements about myself,” replied Ms. Maniec, looking uncomfortable enough to suggest this was true. “But humbly, humbly, humbly I think it’ s because I’ve formed relationships with people over the years. For example, when Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon of Champagne Louis Roederer wanted to hold a tasting of off-vintage Cristal, he called me.” Off vintages? That didn’t sound like the sort of thing an “It Girl” of wine would be offered, I said. “We also tasted some great vintages,” Ms. Maniec conceded.

The Corkbuzz wine bar is open seven days a week and Ms. Maniec has yet to miss a single day. She’s on premises about 12 hours every day, which often includes teaching classes in the back of wine bar. The classes started in January and so far topics have ranged from introductory (Wine 101) to Pairing Wine with Takeout Food. Her most recent class, How to Choose a Wine for a Date, took place on Valentine’s Day. “Wines that are easy to find and to enjoy,” she explained.

I suggested trying a glass of wine from the list. What did Ms. Maniec like—or, in her words, what was she ‘crushing on’ these days? The 2009 Clos Cibonne Tibouren rosé from Cotes de Provence, she said decisively. “I’m surprised by how much rosé we’re selling in the dead of winter. I’ve ordered nine cases so far.” The wine was slightly oxidative, less like a classical rosé than a real cross between red and white in texture and aroma. It was a tad esoteric, like much of the wine list. “This list suggests to me that you really want the drinkers to talk with the staff,” I observed, looking over listings such as Botani Moscatel Seco and Ascheri Pelaverga Verduno.

Ms. Maniec looked alarmed. “That’s not good. That’s not what I want. I don’t want someone to have to talk to us if they don’t want to. I need to do something about that,” she said, picking up a copy of the list for further examination. “I want at least 40% of the wines to be recognizable names,” she said, pointing out Chardonnay and Muscadet. “But maybe that’s not enough. Maybe it should be 50%.”

She related a story about the recent visit by her sister, who lives in Chicago (where the next Corkbuzz may open as early as next year). “My sister loves New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, but I didn’t have any. I felt bad about that.” Her sister had to settle for an Albarino, a white wine from northern Spain. “But I could find some good wines,” mused Ms. Maniec. “It wouldn’t have to be something obvious like a Marlborough Sauvignon—maybe a wine from Nelson. I have a lot of notes somewhere on some New Zealand Sauvignons that I tasted.”

Never mind the credentials or the cute dresses: It’s the fact that she truly wants people to be happy when they’re drinking wine—whether it’s a Spanish Moscatel or a Santa Barbara Chardonnay—that makes Laura Maniec the “It Girl” of wine in New York.

A version of this article appeared February 17, 2012, on page A16 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: In the World of Wine, She’s ‘It’.

James Ransom for The Wall Street Journal, Food Styling by Brett Kurzweil, Prop Styling by DSM

LABOR OF LOVE | Lemony hollandaise sauce is entirely worth the wrist work.

Silky hollandaise sauce is the perfect cloak for sweet, crisp asparagus and briny just-cooked shrimp. A balance of tastes and textures, this plate of soft pinks, yellows and greens is a delightful celebration of spring.

Which is not to say it’s the most effortless of dishes. Hollandaise, the egg-and-butter-based sauce that serves as the crowning glory of eggs Benedict and eggs Florentine, requires serious wrist work. You should be prepared to hand whisk for about 20 minutes straight. It’s an investment of elbow grease whose value will be apparent the moment you have your first slightly lemony bite.

The Chef: Sean Brock

Neighborhood Dining Group

Chef Sean Brock

His Restaurants: Husk and McCrady’s, both in Charleston, S.C.

What He’s Known For: Being the culinary world’s Southern it-boy; bringing low-country food to new heights with fastidious sourcing and modern skills.

Sean Brock, the wunderkind chef in Charleston, S.C., who came up with this recipe, laments that most people have forgotten how to cook. It’s undertakings such as making hollandaise the old-fashioned way, he said, that reintroduce us to the pleasures of the kitchen. “Once you get the feel for it, you can do it with your eyes closed, but you need to get the feel for it first,” he said.

When shopping for shrimp, look for ones that are translucent and shiny. They should smell appetizing and almost sweet.

For the asparagus, seek out spears with tight, firm tips and stalks whose bottoms are light and watery, not dry and fibrous. A good way to gauge freshness is to take a spear and snap it in half. If it’s crisp, it’s fresh. If it’s flexible, it’s old.

When making the hollandaise, you need to be careful not to scramble the eggs even though you are whisking them in a heavy bowl set over a bain-marie, or water bath, to prevent curdling. Before holding the bowl over the water, break up the yolks with the whisk and add a splash of vinegar. Then, hold the bowl above the steaming water and start your whisk-athon. Constantly monitor the temperature, and if steam begins to rise from the bowl, Mr. Brock said, take it off the heat and whisk until the temperature comes down. Be prepared to move your bowl on and off the heat in this fashion throughout the process. Mr. Brock suggests laying a cloth over the pot with the water to provide a helpful barrier between the heat source and your bowl.

Once the yolks attain the consistency of a very heavy cream, work in the butter, beating it in little by little. The mixture will become thick and glossy. Then, all that needs doing is seasoning your hollandaise with salt and fresh lemon juice. Mr. Brock adds lemon juice at the end because it loses its vibrancy when cooked.

Next, braise your asparagus, turning each spear over in the hot butter until it’s evenly cooked, lightly browned and tender.

Since shrimp can easily overcook, add them to the pot of poaching brine only after it has been taken off the heat. Remove the shrimp the minute they turn pink and begin to curl.

This recipe generates double rewards. In addition to a scrumptious dish, you have good reason to pat yourself on the back. You just made beautiful hollandaise from scratch and took no shortcuts. Well done.

—Kitty Greenwald

Braised Asparagus with Shrimp and Hollandaise

Total Time: 35 minutes

Serves: 4

Ingredients

4 lemons

1 quart vegetable stock or water

1 fresh bay leaf

1 cup white wine

1 tablespoon whole

black peppercorns

1 tablespoon yellow mustard seeds (optional)

1 teaspoon celery seeds (optional)

2 large egg yolks

1 tablespoon tarragon or Champagne vinegar

Kosher salt, to taste

Cayenne pepper, to taste

1 stick plus 3 table-

spoons unsalted

butter, diced

1 pound asparagus, trimmed and ends peeled

1 pound large shrimp, cleaned and deveined

What To Do

1. Cut 3 lemons in half. In a medium pot, add halved lemons, stock (or water), bay leaf, wine, peppercorns and, if using, mustard seeds and/or celery seeds. Bring brine to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cook about 25 minutes.

2. Bring a shallow pot of water to a boil. Reduce heat to low, so water gently simmers. Whisk yolks and vinegar together in a medium bowl. Season with salt and cayenne. Set bowl over pot of simmering water and whisk aggressively until the mixture thickens to the consistency of heavy cream. Move bowl on and off heat whenever steam begins to rise, to avoid curdling. Regularly scrape down bowl’s sides with a rubber spatula to ensure even cooking.

3. Whisk in 1 stick diced butter, piece by piece. Add each piece only after previous one has been emulsified. When all butter is incorporated, hollandaise should be pale yellow and thick. Season with lemon juice and salt.

4. For the asparagus, set a large frying pan over medium heat. It should hold all asparagus in one even layer. Swirl in 3 tablespoons butter. Once melted and foamy, after 1-2 minutes, add asparagus. Season with salt and cook while turning spears regularly. Once asparagus is tender, 3-5 minutes, transfer spears to paper-towel-lined plate.

5. Remove boiling stock from heat. Stir in shrimp and cover pot. Let shrimp poach until cooked through, 2-3 minutes. Remove shrimp from brine and toss with a squirt of lemon juice.

6. Divide asparagus and hollandaise among plates. Arrange shrimp alongside and drizzle remaining butter from the sauté pan over top.

A version of this article appeared April 14, 2012, on page D6 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Butter-Braised Asparagus WithShrimp And LemonHollandaise.