NB! · Art

A Peasant Woman Hauling Firewood in Winter

A Peasant Woman Hauling Firewood in Winter. Giovanni Segantini. 1890

NB! · Art · Observations

Goya's etching "There Is No Time Now"

Goya's etching "There Is No Time Now". How did life become so terrible?

Art

Don't Panic!

German Surrealist Edgar Ende, painting The Burning Flag, 1934

Close-up of a bronze head of a bearded god with a close-fitting cap, rows of curled hair and hollow eye sockets.

NB! · Archaeology · Art · Museums · Humour

Bronze Poseidon of 480 BC found in the Bay of Livadostra in Boeotia, Greece

Bronze Poseidon, 480 BC. Found in the Bay of Livadostra in Boeotia, Greece. Not the handsomest of the gods.

A small white and tan dog in a collar with bells lies on a pink tablecloth beside a porcelain cup and pieces of bread.

Art · Observations

Giovanna Garzoni, an Italian Baroque artist, and her still life with a dog

Can you believe this is a work of 1648? Still life with a dog by the celebrated Italian Baroque artist Giovanna Garzoni

Five figures around an open music book: a man in a dark cloak points at the notes, and a youth in a green hat holds a stringed instrument.

NB! · Art · Observations · Humour

Painting of a music lesson recognised as a work by Titian

Lad, how I understand you. Not long ago this picture, which depicts a music lesson, was at last recognised as the work of Titian.

Art · Observations · Paris · Pop Culture

Anniversary Smiley by André Saraiva in the atrium of Galeries Lafayette in Paris

For a month now, a giant smiley has hung in the atrium of Galeries Lafayette to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the yellow grinning mug. Not only in Paris, by the way, but in Beijing and Shanghai too. Though one must admit that a half-century slapped across the eyes

Archive · Art · Observations

A series of portraits of professionals, presented through the tools of their trade in the manner of Giuseppe Arcimboldo's portraits made of vegetables, fruit and sundry objects, created two centuries earlier

The series of engravings of 1800 is called “Hieroglyphs”, a reference to the general excitement that followed the discovery of the Rosetta Stone by Napoleon's troops in 1799. True, the reference betrays a naive understanding of hieroglyphs as the mere reproduction of certain concepts and phenomena by means

NB! · Art · Cinema · People

Jean Marais (the handsome one) and Jean Cocteau (the clever one)

Faith · The East · Art · Society

Metropolitan Germanos Blesses the Banner of the Insurgents at the Monastery of Agia Lavra

Today is Greek Independence Day. Every Hellene remembers 25 March 1821, when the Greek revolution against the Ottoman occupation began

A vaulted frescoed hall with a woman in a pale gown on a throne at the centre, surrounded by people in red robes.

Aristocracy · Faith · Art · London · Museums · Mores · People · Rome

Painting by Frank Cadogan Cowper, 1910, from the Tate collection

Lucrezia Borgia Reigns in the Vatican in the Absence of Pope Alexander VI. Frank Cadogan Cowper, 1910. Tate Museum

Painted sculpture of a nude curly-haired child holding an apple in a raised hand, on a green base, in front of a multi-tiered altarpiece.

Faith · Art · Museums · New York

Sculpture of the Infant Jesus with an apple dated 1470 at the Metropolitan Museum

The Infant Jesus with an Apple. 1470. Metropolitan Museum