Jews & Muslims on Pilgrimage Together in the 1300s
From Mark Cohen’s Under Crescent & Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages: An aspect of Jewish-gentile sociability under Islam … Continue Reading Jews & Muslims on Pilgrimage Together in the 1300s
20th Century Poetry #10: Walter de la Mare
One way to understand where poetry is now is to see where it was a hundred years ago. Every Saturday … Continue Reading 20th Century Poetry #10: Walter de la Mare
What the Earliest Forms of Literacy Looked Like
from David Carr’s book on literacy and the creation of literature in the ancient world: … many ancient texts were … Continue Reading What the Earliest Forms of Literacy Looked Like
Vermeer’s Window on the Left, Vermeer’s Late Afternoon Light
As I’ve written elsewhere: “Except for his earliest work, there were no grand subjects in Vermeer, and very little else … Continue Reading Vermeer’s Window on the Left, Vermeer’s Late Afternoon Light
The Mind as a Mountain & Creativity its Tree
A drawing from 2015 that I suddenly found again today:
The Mysteries of Mérode
For some reason the Mérode Altarpiece, painted in the late 1420s by Robert Campin, has become an obsession of mine. … Continue Reading The Mysteries of Mérode
Voices from 1900-1914
Below are a few dozen voices from the early twentieth century, culled from Philipp Blom’s The Vertigo Years: Europe, 1900-1914. … Continue Reading Voices from 1900-1914
The Melancholy of William Blake
No matter how poor he got, and no matter what of his belongings he had to sell to get by, … Continue Reading The Melancholy of William Blake
Martin Luther Reinvents the German Language
When, in 1522, Martin Luther agreed to a staged kidnapping that would keep him safe from Catholic and other authorities, … Continue Reading Martin Luther Reinvents the German Language
20th Century Poetry #9: Susan Miles
One way to understand where poetry is now is to see where it was a hundred years ago. Every Saturday … Continue Reading 20th Century Poetry #9: Susan Miles
The Brutal Paintings that Predicted the 20th Century
The Austrian artist Egon Schiele’s brutal self-portraits, many dating from before World War One, seem to presage all the carnage … Continue Reading The Brutal Paintings that Predicted the 20th Century
The Earliest Photographs of Paris
Among the earliest photos taken of Paris were those of Eugène Atget, beginning in the late 1800s. Here is only … Continue Reading The Earliest Photographs of Paris
Claude Lorrain’s Nostalgia for What Never Was
I first came across Claude Lorrain’s fantasies of classical Greece and Rome on the cover of an old paperback of … Continue Reading Claude Lorrain’s Nostalgia for What Never Was
The Painting that Lit a Million Conspiracy Theories
It’s too bad Nicholas Poussin’s Shepherds of Arcady/Et in Arcadia (Even in Arcadia, there am I) can’t get much attention … Continue Reading The Painting that Lit a Million Conspiracy Theories
Aldous Huxley Saves the Day
from Thomas Cahill’s Heretics and Heroes: In a collection of travel essays published in 1925, Aldous Huxley had called Piero … Continue Reading Aldous Huxley Saves the Day
Primo Levi’s Hardest Thoughts on the Holocaust
From Primo Levi’s 1986 book, The Drowned and the Saved, remembering the concentration camps: On Levi’s own—and others’—guilt at having … Continue Reading Primo Levi’s Hardest Thoughts on the Holocaust
