The Wild Hunt, 1890. For me, this is the favourite work of the remarkable Bavarian artist Franz von Stuck, incidentally the teacher of Kandinsky. The elongated horizontal canvas, the arrangement of the figures and the dark colours make the painting resemble cave art. Mystery, tragedy, magic, fate and beauty. I adore this work
Researchers of the Catalan Institute of Human Palaeoecology and Social Evolution have published the first full analysis of the wooden finds from the Neanderthal site of Abric Romaní. The site lies beneath a rock shelter in the town of Capellades, not far from Barcelona. Neanderthals lived here from roughly 62,
The first department store in Perovsk, also known as Ak-Mechet and Kyzylorda
Emperor Nicholas II with Alexandra Feodorovna in the Alexander Park. Tsarskoye Selo. May 1917. Not the most flattering angle for the Empress: this photograph, of course, shows that she looked somewhat older than her 45 years, especially next to such a handsome man.
Allegory of Avarice. Albrecht Dürer. 1507. This remarkable double-sided picture obliges us, quite literally, to turn our view of Dürer's art upside down. The front of the panel shows a grim Allegory of Avarice in the form of a hideous old woman with a bag of gold,