Archive · Faith · Art

Saint Joseph cooking for the Mother of God and Christ in a miniature of 1450

A miniature of the Holy Family, dated 1450, shows Saint Joseph preparing a meal for the Virgin and Christ. An angel hallows the scene with the presence of the heavenly world. According to tradition, while living in Egypt with the Virgin Mary and Christ, Joseph earned their keep by working

On the tapestry an angel with a trumpet stands beside Saint John, flames burn on the ground and ships sink in the sea.

Faith · Art · Museums

Saint John's vision of fire from heaven consuming the world

The fourteenth-century "Apocalypse" tapestry. Saint John, led by an angel, sees fire descend from heaven and consume the world

A small dark figure stands on a sandy shore before a dark sea under a vast cloudy sky in Friedrich's painting.

NB! · Art · Museums · Observations

Caspar David Friedrich painted “The Monk by the Sea” between 1808 and 1810

The Monk by the Sea. Caspar David Friedrich, 1808-1810.

Art · Books · Science

Schelling on will as primordial Being, to which all predicates of Being apply

In the final and highest judgement there is no other Being but will. Will is primal Being, to which alone all the predicates of Being apply: groundlessness, eternity, independence of time, self-affirmation. All philosophy strives to find this expression Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling. Illustration: Rembrandt's etching "

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And it came to pass after that, in the second year, that Pharaoh dreamed a dream: he seemed to stand upon the bank of the river, by the river

And it came to pass after that, in the second year, that Pharaoh dreamed a dream: he seemed to stand upon the bank of the river, by the river. And behold, as it were out of the river came up seven kine, fair to look upon and fat in flesh,

Art · Books · Science · Society

Benjamin on two kinds of violence, the role of the police and the state of emergency

In 1921 Walter Benjamin wrote a short text, "Critique of Violence", which is now counted among the most uncomfortable philosophical texts of the twentieth century. Because it describes a mechanism we have grown accustomed not to notice. Benjamin distinguishes two kinds of violence. The first is law-making

Listings · Moscow · Coming Up · Art · Museums

A New Selection of Exhibitions in Moscow

📌 An exhibition of Boris Messerer's book illustrations at the Open Club gallery, until 24 March 📌 “Knight's Move. Viktor Shklovsky”, at the museum house “The First Dacha” in Peredelkino, until 26 April 📌 20 March: opening of an exhibition devoted to the descendants of Genghis Khan at the

NB! · Architecture · Faith · Art

Wrestlers

Wrestlers. Fragment of the decoration of the church at Anzy-le-Duc, department of Saône-et-Loire, and fragment of the decoration of the Cathedral of Saint Demetrius in Vladimir

Archaeology · Archive · Art · Observations · Humour

I rather feel I have failed a primary-school task from the magazine for the youngest pioneers "Yozh" (The Hedgehog), November 1933

Applied art history for children, then, disguised as a training exercise for the eye. And if the spires and towers of Piazza San Marco in Venice are more or less clear, the second question, what the little figures at the bottom are made of, has proved a genuine puzzle to

Art · Museums · Observations

While the notorious $450 million "Salvator Mundi" sits aboard a Saudi prince's yacht, another, perhaps no less authentic, appears on the art market

At TEFAF Maastricht this week, yet another version of Leonardo da Vinci's "Salvator Mundi" has been put on show. This is the so-called "de Ganay version", painted in oil on a walnut panel and dated 1505-1515. The picture is being presented by

Faith · Art · Books

I go, and I shall come to you

John 14:28 These are among the most consoling words in the whole of the New Testament. Christ speaks them to his disciples before the Passion: I go away, and I shall return. The roundel from a Bolognese evangeliary of the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century shows Christ Pantocrator,

Art · Society

EU commissioners for culture and democracy speak out against Russia's participation in the Venice Biennale: in their view, it runs counter to the EU's anti-Russian sanctions regime

Russia plans to present at the Venice Biennale a project entitled "The Tree Is Rooted in Heaven", to be staged in its national pavilion. Blackmailing the Biennale, the European Commission has threatened to strip it of a €2 million grant should Russia nonetheless go ahead with its project.