Faith · Art · Books

The trials of Job, shown naked and crowned beside a ruined house

At first glance one might think that the wall of the ruined house, beneath whose shelter a naked Old Testament elder reposes, bears the word LOVE. But no, it is IOBBO, that is, Job, upon whom the Lord permitted a trial of many sorrows to be sent: the loss of

NB! · Art · Observations · Pop Culture

Thanks to Yandex Go Ultima, I now have a whole collection of works by Pepperstein 💙

Art

Truth, Repentance, Calumny and King Midas in an allegorical painting by Botticelli

The Calumny (The Calumny of Apelles) by Sandro Botticelli, painted in 1495 after the description of a picture by the most celebrated painter of ancient Greece, Apelles. Naked Truth recalls Botticelli's most famous picture, the Venus. She appears before us in all her primordial purity, covered by nothing

In the painting, a nude Adam and Eve recline under a tree, a cat lies at their feet, and goats stand to the right against a landscape.

Art · Observations · Humour

The cat, the goat and the serpent among the details of a painting of Adam and Eve

The Fall of Man, Hendrick Goltzius, 1616. I cannot decide which detail is my favourite: the cat who would rather not witness this disgrace, the peeping goat, or the rosy-cheeked serpent-tempter with the face of Jennifer Coolidge. But it is certainly not Adam and Eve, straight off the

Drone lights outline a spire and roof above the ruins of a Gothic building under a dark cloudy sky.

Architecture · Art · Observations

The author is sceptical of drones but respects a light display over Gothic ruins

Light installations by the Dutch creative duo Drift that complete ruined or unfinished historic buildings. I am sceptical of the general infatuation with drones, unless they are used to put out fires. To my mind it is an amusement for people who were in raptures over selfie sticks, only slightly

NB! · Art · Ethnography

Baba Yaga, Viktor Vasnetsov

Art · Monarchies · Society · Humour

A Nazi Vampire in the Guise of a Bat Visits King Carol II of Romania in His Bedchamber by Night

The illustration evidently alludes to the antisemitic laws adopted by Carol II in 1940

NB! · Art · Cinema · Monarchies

The Crown, and Bertel Thorvaldsen's Mercury as an Interior Decoration

NB! · Art · Cinema · Pop Culture

Star Wars Characters in the Style of the Napoleonic Era

NB! · Archive · Art

Father Time, Pieter Christoffel Wonder, 1810

NB! · Art · Observations · People

Caspar David Friedrich's Wanderer above the Sea of Fog is every one of us, facing not only the new year but each new day

Archive · Art · Society · Humour

The New Years weep as they read their 1940 travel vouchers to the countries of Europe

The New Years weep as they read their 1940 travel vouchers to the countries of Europe. The only happy New Year is the one bound for the USSR. The author of this New Year cover of Krokodil for 1939/1940, Konstantin Rotov, was sent to the camps for 8 years