Coming Up · Moscow · Pop Culture
In March the Mariinsky Theatre will give its most ambitious tour in recent years on the Historic Stage of the Bolshoi Theatre. As part of a festival of the operas of Richard Wagner, Valery Gergiev and the company will twice present updated productions of the tetralogy The Ring of the
Observations · Science · Pop Culture · Humour
Kate Bush, photographed by the Dutch photographer Claude Vanheye in a car park in Amsterdam in 1979. The crocodile is not real. I know nothing about Kate Bush, except that she is a singer and in her day made, together with Terry Gilliam and some celebrated actors, a video for
Archaeology · Architecture · Heritage
In Trento, Italy, a large Iron Age burial ground with some 200 tombs has been found during the restoration of a historic building. The burials survived thanks to ancient floods, which "sealed" the site for 2,500 years. The tombs contained cremated remains, as well as objects such
Archaeology · The East · Museums · Heritage
A bronze statue of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, held by the Cleveland Museum of Art (USA), is to be returned to Turkey after years of scholarly and legal inquiry. The statue, dated to the 2nd–3rd centuries AD, was illegally removed from the ancient city of Bubon in the
Coming Up · Faith · Art · Museums · Observations
Near Oryol, at the Turgenev Museum-Reserve Spasskoye-Lutovinovo, the exhibition "Invisible Threads. Christian and Historical Subjects in the Work of Russian Artists" is open until 30 March. A rare opportunity to see masterpieces of Russian art in regional museum halls. The exhibition presents works by Repin, Vasnetsov,
NB! · Archive · Architecture · Moscow · Heritage
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Coming Up · Art · Books · Moscow · Museums
The Moscow Museum of Modern Art, together with The Art Newspaper Russia, has presented the project "This Is the Best We Have". The Art Newspaper Russia's Choice. The exhibition is a retrospective of Russian contemporary art over more than half a century. The display includes selected
Archaeology · Architecture · The East · Geography · Science
Herodotus describes Babylon as a square city with sides of 120 stadia. One stadium is about 175 metres, so the area of Babylon, according to Herodotus, was 441 square kilometres, the size of 4 modern Parises or half of New York. Quite an enormous city to have in the desert.
Coming Up · Art · Books · Monarchies · Museums
In 2003 the Getty Museum acquired three miniatures from the fifteenth-century manuscript "The Hours of Louis XII", created by the court artist and painter of the French Renaissance Jean Bourdichon. One of the miniatures, depicting King Louis XII surrounded by four saints, seemed incomplete: the saints were
Monarchies · Observations · Mores · People
Diane de Poitiers, favourite of the French King Henry II, was twenty years his senior. Just imagine how conspicuous such a difference was by the standards of the sixteenth century! She also outlived him by seven years. By all accounts, the delightful wife of the French President Macron, Brigitte, is
NB! · Archaeology · Art · Museums