Electrum Magazine – Why The Past Matters

Literature
Lord Byron: Poet, Politician, Protector

2 days ago

Lord Byron, Portrait detail by Phillips, 1813 By Sara Olsen – Ovid: Metamorphosis XV.153 : “All Things Change; Nothing Perishes” George Gordon Byron, whom we can now call an influencer of the 19th century and beyond to the present, was born in London, England, in 1788 to Catherine Gordon Byron […]
Photo Essays
Pausing to Look and Remember

1 month ago

Cover image of Tony Hall book D-Day: Operation Overlord, 1993, Smithmark Books (Image in public domain) By Timothy J. Demy – I walked the beach alone. It was an early Sunday morning and for several hundred yards on either side of me there was no one. No sound, except for […]
Controversies
The Complexities of Art and Antiquities Repatriation and the Evolution of Collecting

2 months ago

Jan Vermeer, The Astronomer, 1668, restituted to Rothschilds after WWII, then gifted to Louvre (Photo P. Hunt 2025) By Jann Perez – Deep questions about the ethics of collecting and also about repatriation of plundered art and antiquities are far more complex than they might at first appear from shallow […]
History
Frederick the Great: An Enlightened Ruler

3 months ago

By Leah Mordehai – “A single Voltaire will do more honor to France than a thousand pedants, a thousand false wits, a thousand great men of inferior order.” Frederick the Great Why was Frederick II of Prussia an enlightened ruler? One of the most enlightened rulers of all time, Frederick […]
Art
Tamara de Lempincka and Art Deco

4 months ago

Tamara de Lempincka, Madonna, 1937 By P. F. Sommerfeldt – Tamara de Lempincka (1894-1980) was a gifted artist and an iconoclast, often considered a founding leader of the Art Deco movement from the 1920’s through the 1930’s. Art Deco was the perfect trope for an artist known for bold color, […]
Archaeologia, Artifacts of Material History
Maya Sculpture Benchmarks: Jaina Figurines

5 months ago

By Patrick Hunt – One of the features found across Maya sculpture in different media and materials – stone relief, plaster relief, wood and ceramic figures – appears to be a certain amount of heightened caricature and lack of proportionality, in the opinion of this researcher possibly to accentuate imagery […]
Controversies
Rhetorical Manipulation, Emotion, and The Fall of the Berlin Wall

5 months ago

By Alex Dortzbach – Media lies very near the heart of a culture in recording values. It can help create a cultural lexicon, build or reinforce a set of common ideals, and quicken the spread of new ideas. A hugely-insightful book, The Race Against the Stasi (2014) by journalist Herbie […]
Archaeologia
The Athenian Long Walls

6 months ago

By Jess Taylor – The defensive Athenian Long Walls were constructed over the course of the 5th Century BCE to maintain a secure corridor between the Athenian civic center, the city of Athens, and its principal port at Piraeus, located 7 km away.
Art
Philosophy and Poetry: The Partner Paintings of Salvator Rosa

8 months ago

Salvator Rosa, Philosophy, ca. 1645, image courtesy National Gallery London By Natalie Vander Pol – One of the most moving pieces to me personally in the National Gallery is undoubtedly Philosophy by Salvator Rosa (ca. 1645), which symbolizes both a love story and a bond between human thought and art. At first […]
Controversies
The Old Difference Renewed between Living In Justice and In-Justice

9 months ago

John Adams by Gilbert Stuart, 1821, courtesy of National Gallery of Art, Wash. DC By Walter Borden, M.D. – “At his best, man is the noblest of all animals: separated from law and justice he is the worst.” Aristotle, Politics 1.1253a Aristotle speaks of Law and Justice. Is there a […]

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