Archive · Architecture · Faith · Art

Christ Pantocrator in the Church of St John the Baptist in Tolchkovo, Yaroslavl

Christ Pantocrator in the Church of St John the Baptist in Tolchkovo, Yaroslavl. Frescoes of the 1690s by the artel of Dmitry Plekhanov and Fyodor Ignatyev Photograph of the 1940s

NB! · Archive · Architecture · Art

Kandinsky's House in 1980

Architecture · Art · Moscow · Observations · Heritage · Society Pages

Kandinsky's apartment building on Dolgy Lane in Moscow and the creative laboratory in its tower

On Friday I breakfasted in Kandinsky's flat, in a room whose windows look out over Zubovskaya Square. Where did Rodchenko and Stepanova live in Moscow? E. L.: At first they made do in other people's flats, in tiny rooms. They lived in a house belonging to

Art · Observations · Humour

In Vancouver, a passer-by called the police to rescue a man from a contemporary sculpture

Police and firefighters broke down the door of the Access Gallery to rescue a man whose legs stuck out from behind a counter and were visible through the window. But there was no one to save: the guardians of public order found a sculpture by the artist Alyssa Pierre, Untitled

Art · New York · People

Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama died on 14 August in a Tokyo hospital at the age of 97

Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama died on 14 August in a Tokyo hospital at the age of 97. Her studio and the David Zwirner gallery announced the news only on 26 August. Kusama was born in 1929 in Matsumoto and began to draw as a child, as a way of coping

Wooden sculpture of a figure with long hair, a beard and a raised arm, displayed behind glass.

Art · Books · Moscow · Museums

Wooden sculpture from the Tretyakov Gallery collection

The Delightful Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol by Sergei Konenkov, 1917. Tretyakov Gallery collection

Art · Books · Mores · New York

Naumann's 2026 book on Duchamp, Maria Martins and the origins of Étant donnés

In Marcel Duchamp's last work, Étant donnés, made in secret between 1946 and 1966, a naked woman lies sprawled in a field. According to Francis Naumann, the leading Duchamp specialist, the figure was modelled on the Brazilian sculptor Maria Martins. In his book published in 2026, Impossible: The

Old black-and-white photograph of a stage: men in tunics and bast shoes, a woman in a headdress holding a bowl, and a kneeling man.

NB! · Archive · Art · Saint Petersburg

Karl Bulla photographed a scene from a play on Russian history in Saint Petersburg in the 1910s

A scene from a play on a theme from Russian history. The photograph was taken by Karl Bulla in Saint Petersburg in the 1910s

NB! · Faith · Art · Museums

“The Descent into Hell”, a medieval stone sculpture from the parish church of Saint-Symphorien, at an exhibition in the Fenaille Museum in Rodez, France

NB! · Archive · Art · People

Alexander Rodchenko with a Pair of Compasses, 1948

Art · Museums · Observations · Humour

“Smell” by Jan Miense Molenaer, from his series on the five senses, 1637

"Smell", Jan Miense Molenaer, 1637. Collection of the Mauritshuis I do, of course, understand that with his series of the five senses the Dutch master, with his characteristic humour and earthy realism, invites us to forget about lofty allegories and maidens with bouquets of flowers, but even so,

Art · Observations · Heritage · Ethnography

I have read two items in the official information bulletin of the Haida people, who live on the archipelago of Haida Gwaii in British Columbia, Canada, devoted to the return of totem poles

One article tells how the village of Sgaang Gwaay Llnagaay, which was emptied in the 1880s by epidemics, still has more than thirty ceremonial poles with figures of bears and killer whales, carved from cedar in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The poles marked families and served as memorials to