Giovanni Segantini, La Natura detail, 1897-8, Segantini Museum, St. Moritz (image public domain) By P. F. Sommerfeldt – Giovanni Segantini (1858-99) was not only a pastoral artist who loved mountains, especially the Alps around the Engadine above St. Moritz, but one who captured their majestic beauty in a landscape shared […]
Proto-Elamite Reclining Gilded Silver Mountain Goat, 3100-2900 BCE, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 7 cm length (image public domain) By Patrick Hunt – How early in ancient art does realism appear? While many ancient cultures transitioning from the Copper Age to Bronze Age in the Ancient Near East and elsewhere […]
Marriage of Eleanor and Louis VII and Louis Leaving for Crusade, 15th c., Chroniques de St. Denis (image public domain) By Emmanuel Zilber – Defying so many male imposed status quo “rules”, Eleanor of Aquitaine (ca. 1124-1204) was remarkable, but not only for […]
Hatchards 1801 facade at 189-90 Piccadilly, London By P. F. Sommerfeldt – Not many booksellers can claim to have been around since 1797. Fewer have hosted so many famous authors for signings and how many have three royal patents? Hatchards was founded in Piccadilly in 1797 and has moved only […]
Domenico Ghirlandaio, Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints, 1483, Uffizi Gallery, Florence (image pubic domain) By Andrea M. Gáldy – It’s the Globalisation … Kathleen Christian and Leah Clark, eds. European Art and the Wider World 1350-1550. Published by Manchester University Press, Manchester 2017 (Art and its Global Histories Series), […]
Eagle and Snake, Imperial Palace Mosaic Museum, Istanbul, circa 6th c. (image in common domain) By Patrick Hunt – Courtesy of the Nikia and Hippodrome revolts of 532 that destroyed part of the Imperial Palace of Constantine in Constantinople, subsequent rebuilding by Justinian (reigning 527-65) and possibly added to by […]
A. Van Dyck, Charles I (triple portrait) Royal Collection ca. 1635 By Andrea M. Gáldy – Charles I, the second Stuart king of England, is for most of us the unlucky monarch who lost his head and his throne on […]
How Conservative Britain saw the New America in 1776: “Rebellious Slut” By P. F. Sommerfeldt – Morality is often such a morass of competing and even conflicting values that few scientists wade into its murky waters. Thus despite reluctance to define morality and teach values and whatever might be defined […]
Bison painting, Chauvet Cave, Ardeche France, ca 32,000 BP (Image public domain) By Patrick Hunt – How much human behavior can be quantitatively attributed to instinct is largely arguable and untested, especially since we are usually inclined to believe we are rationally able to rise above any such deeper-than-cognitive triggers […]
Hermitage – Winter Palace, St. Petersburg (photo P. Hunt 2017) By P. F. Sommerfeldt – It has been variously said that even if you stood in front of each Hermitage Museum object a few seconds less than a minute you’d need a total of eleven continuous years, day and night, […]