NB! · Art · Observations · People
Beauty was stolen from the people and sold back to them under the guise of luxury: golden words from Sir Roger Vernon Scruton. And yes, we miss you very much
Art · Observations
A naked youth and two horses. I am not sure that such horses exist at all, but the canvases of the Czech painter Ludvík Vacátko are full of horses of every description and naked youths of every description. The peak of this Czech's career fell in the 1930s,
Art · People
Pushkin did not know Vermeer. Nor did Gogol. Nor Lermontov. Not even Dostoevsky! For it was only in the 1860s that Vermeer's paintings were rediscovered for the public, by a French critic of socialist convictions, Étienne Joseph Théophile Thoré, who wrote under the pseudonym Willem Bürger (or, in
NB! · Art · Observations · Humour
Govert Flinck, Girl with a Child's Chair. Mid-1600s. But I would say, a girl with a golden beer bottle opener (actually, no!), forgive me. Incidentally, the little one is three years old. And, incidentally, the basket-style handbag is fire too, sending a proper hello to Ulyana
Art · Science · People
Blaise Pascal, the outstanding French inventor, mathematician, thinker and, in many respects, altogether advanced man. Sculpture by Augustin Pajou, housed at the University of Pascal in Clermont-Ferrand. Pascal is known for a number of mathematical and physical discoveries with which we become acquainted as early as school: Pascal'
Archaeology · Art · Museums · Heritage
The discovery of the Riace bronze warriors by a humble diver (or, to be precise, almost simultaneously with the discovery of the same sculptures by four boys), though reckoned among the most precious finds, remains a rather mysterious one. Even 47 years on, the circumstances in which the statues were
Archaeology · Art · Cinema · Observations
Do you remember one of the most touching scenes in the drama "Call Me by Your Name", with the bronze handshake of Elio and Oliver? André Aciman may well have drawn inspiration from the story of the discovery of the Riace Warriors on the shore of the Ionian
Coming Up · Art · Museums · Paris
For those who do not intend to crawl out of the house today, I suggest a visit to the Getty Museum's online exhibition on artsandculture.google, devoted to eighteenth-century pastel painting, namely to how pastel competed with oil, and artists began to make large pastel canvases from
Aristocracy · Art · People
Portrait of Pyotr Ivanovich Potemkin (1617-1700), who served under Alexey Mikhailovich, Feodor III, Ivan V and Peter I, by Godfrey Kneller, English painter at the court of three English kings: Charles II, William III and George I. Potemkin was, one might say, a diplomat by inheritance: his grandfather had
Architecture · Art · Moscow · Observations
A little more on the subject of podcasts: they really are universal, and can prove useful in the most varied circumstances. Here is a selection of podcasts to listen to on a walk. For example, “A Walk around Moscow with Kazimir Malevich” invites you to go round the places where
Coming Up · Art · Saint Petersburg
From 8 to 22 August, the ninth international festival "Opera for All" is being held in Saint Petersburg. On 12 August, in the Kirov Central Park of Culture and Leisure on Yelagin Island, Alexander Dargomyzhsky's "Rusalka" will be presented in a production by Ilya
NB! · Art · Observations
Salvator Mundi, Leonardo da Vinci, and Albrecht Dürer's Self-Portrait in a Fur-Trimmed Robe. Remarkably, the paintings are dated 1490-1500 and 1500, and are almost the same size, 66*45 and 67*49. Not that one could mistake the one for the other, but the Saviour