Art · Moscow · Observations · Reportage

At the Blazar fair, the independent artists section and regional stands have grown

A quick look round Blazar: this year there is a large section of independent artists, with a great many young people and new names. The number of regional stands has noticeably grown, so this is no longer a purely Moscow fair. Among the Moscow galleries I would single out the

NB! · Art · Observations · Reportage · Humour

Penny-pinching, 2024 edition: the Blazar contemporary art fair now charges for carrier bags, though we must be grateful that Sellotape and bubble wrap are still provided free of charge

Art

The Painter and the Connoisseur

The Painter and the Connoisseur. Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1566 Albertina Gallery, Vienna

Art · Observations · Science · Palaeontology

Léon Becker's 1884 painting and the discovery of 30 iguanodon skeletons at Bernissart

How touching that a man was found, namely the nineteenth-century Belgian painter Léon Becker, who wished to record "The Mounting of the First Iguanodon from Bernissart in the Chapel of Saint George in Brussels", for that is what the picture is called. 1884. At that time, 30

Figurine of a coachman in a green coat driving three horses, with two men in bicorn hats seated in the sleigh under a fur rug.

Art · People · Humour

Napoleon and his general in a Russian troika on a 20th-century Thuringian figurine group

Napoleon's Flight from Russia. It is curious that, according to the artist's conception, Napoleon and his general are speeding along in a Russian troika driven by a Russian coachman. Thuringia, 20th century

NB! · Art

Florist Petra Radnai and photographer Orsolya Karancs take inspiration from Fra Angelico and Michelangelo

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Frédéric Bazille's Portrait of Renoir as a Reminder That All Our Beloved Old Men Were Once Young, and Perhaps Sat in an Armchair With Their Feet Up

Archive · Faith · Art · Books

A Year with the Sun and Moon in Its Hands, and Light and Darkness Beneath Them

Around the symbolic image of the year are the signs of the zodiac, natural phenomena, details of the weather and the four winds. From the illustrated book Scivias by Hildegard of Bingen, completed in 1151-1152 and devoted to her religious visions

Watercolour drawing of men in early 17th century dress playing ball with bats in a courtyard, with a red tiled roof at the bottom.

NB! · Archive · Faith · Art · Education

Ball game in the courtyard of the Fulda seminary in an early 17th century album amicorum drawing

Men playing ball in the courtyard of the Fulda seminary, the oldest school in Germany, founded in the monastery of Fulda in the 8th century, that is, more than 1,200 years ago. Drawing from an album amicorum of the early 17th century

Ancient marble head of a youth with wavy hair on a round base, displayed against a dark museum backdrop.

NB! · The East · Art · Museums · Observations

Exhibition of Ancient Sculpture at the Istanbul Airport Museum

A magnificent display of antique sculpture in the Istanbul Airport Museum. Frankly, the material is handled here far better than in most of Istanbul's city museums, which by no means always leave an impression of a high museum culture

Painting of several men asleep among olive trees, with a grey-bearded man sitting and resting his head on his hand.

Art · People

Felice Carena, Italian painter who lived from 1879 to 1966

Apostles, 1924. The Italian painter Felice Carena (1879-1966)

Art · Mores · Paris · People · Pop Culture · Humour

In 1980 Dalí sent Yoko Ono a dry blade of grass for 10,000 dollars instead of a hair

How Salvador Dalí Sold Yoko Ono a Blade of Grass for $10,000. Some episodes from the life of Salvador Dalí, for all their plausibility, may seem entirely apocryphal: a kind of definition of Surrealism itself. Yoko Ono and Salvador Dalí first met in 1969, when Ono and John Lennon