Coming Up · Art · Moscow · Observations

Interest in contemporary art has long proved that fairs and exhibitions are events not only for professionals and old hands of the art market, but also for a great many people with no connection to art, or only just beginning their acquaintance with…

Interest in contemporary art has long proved that fairs and exhibitions are events not only for professionals and old hands of the art market, but also for a great many people with no connection to art, or only just beginning their acquaintance with young, living artists. Among my acquaintances, many

Faith · Art

Abraham, the Lord and Two Angels

Gustave Doré, 1852

NB! · Art

The Wounded Cuirassier and the Girl

The wounded cuirassier and the girl. By the Polish battle painter Wojciech Kossak

NB! · Art · Mores · Society · Humour

Who Said That Propaganda for a Higher Birth Rate Can't Be Sweet?

Who said that propaganda for a higher birth rate can't be sweet? This touching poster of 1969 by V. Stepanov, for instance, inspires nothing but warm feelings

NB! · Art · Monarchies · Humour

Catherine II and Elizabeth II: Whose Mirror Portrait Turned Out Better?

Art · Museums · People · Ethnography

The Three Princesses of the Underground Kingdom

The Three Princesses of the Underground Kingdom. Viktor Vasnetsov, 1884. The painting was composed on a motif from the Russian folk tale of Ivan Tsarevich, who descends into the underground kingdom and meets there the Golden, Silver and Copper Princesses. Vasnetsov took up the subject while fulfilling a commission from

Art · London · Mores

English game hunt the slipper and a quotation credited to Shakespeare but written by Dryden

Hunt the slipper, or Find the Slipper: an old English game in which the “customer” must find a slipper, shoe, toy or present that the “cobblers” seated in a circle pass secretly to one another under their feet. One may not only pass the slipper along furtively but also pretend

NB! · Art · Cinema · Observations · Humour

Many years have passed, yet I still cannot fathom how it came about that in François Boucher's painting two people emerged from the sea on the back of a single fellow, while on James Cameron's enormous wooden door there was no room for two?

Architecture · Faith · Art · Rome

Andrea Pozzo's Baroque Frescoes in the Church of Sant'Ignazio in Rome, Late 17th Century

It is not the Sistine Chapel, but there are no queues here either. The Baroque frescoes in the Jesuit church of Sant'Ignazio in Rome, painted by Andrea Pozzo at the end of the 17th century, are devoted to the divine light which, through the teaching of the Church,

NB! · Art · Education · People

Young Napoleon Bonaparte studying at Brienne in a 1910 illustration by Jean Onfroy de Bréville

The young Napoleon Bonaparte studying at Brienne. Jean Onfroy de Bréville, 1910. One of the most famous images of Napoleon

Art · Observations · Mores

May the appearance of these two gentlemen of 1782, painted and gaudily dressed, help everyone who sees them to grow accustomed to the thought that notions of beauty in the past can be every bit as surprising, even shocking, as notions of beauty in the fut

May the appearance of these two gentlemen of 1782, painted and gaudily dressed, help everyone who sees them to grow accustomed to the thought that notions of beauty in the past can be every bit as surprising, even shocking, as notions of beauty in the future. Every age has its

Watercolour of black rooks walking across snow before a snowy field and bare trees, with the artist's signature below.

Art · Nature

A reminder to feed birds in winter and a watercolour by Irish artist Mildred Anne Butler

A reminder. Feed the birds in winter. The Irish artist Mildred Anne Butler