Coming Up · Art · London · Museums
Titian, Allegory of Prudence. The painting is usually read as a depiction of the three ages of man and the three tenses: past, present and future, a sign that prudence is acquired with the years. But who, in that case, are the dog, the lion and the wolf in this
Architecture · In the Press · Art · Moscow · Museums · Observations · Heritage
Eeckhout's “Musical Party” under flies, the blistered “David and Abigail” of van Diepenbeeck, a hole in Bialynitsky-Birulya's canvas and other sad facts about the collection of the Moscow sanatorium Uzkoye, in the Bitsa Forest, are described in a caustic article in Komsomolskaya Pravda, which for
Coming Up · Architecture · Art · Moscow · Museums
Francisco Infante's plan for the illumination of Red Square. Among much else, it contains a most intriguing proposal: a dynamic lighting scheme for the Kremlin wall, in which a white light would "march" along the wall itself in step with the honour guard. Regrettably, the idea
Books · Moscow · Museums · Mores
They call the neighbour to the samovar, And Dunya pours the tea; They whisper to her: "Dunya, mind your manners!" Then they bring in the guitar too: And she starts to squeak (good God!): Come to my golden palace! Literal translation Here the guitar is a sign of
Faith · Museums · Science · Education · Palaeontology · Nature
The previous video records the welcoming ceremony for the installation of Dippy the Diplodocus skeleton from the Natural History Museum in Norwich Cathedral. Dippy is one of the most famous dinosaurs in the world. Since 1979, tens of millions of people have seen him every year on visiting Britain'
Archive · London · Museums · Heritage · Nature · Humour
If they call you a paper-pusher (literally, an "office rat"), don't be upset. After all, there was once a rat with a fondness for paperwork who became a co-founder of the National Archives of the United Kingdom. When the public figure, inventor and all-
NB! · Archive · Museums · Science
Art · Moscow · Museums · Observations
The Darwin Museum is a most interesting place in its own right, but quite another story is the way objects of contemporary art have been so carefully and organically integrated into its display, overturning epistemological foundations and focusing attention on unnatural history, turning the space into a modern alchemical showcase
Art · Moscow · Museums · Observations · Science · Humour
Good Lord, What Are You? The Darwin Museum has acquired the skeleton of some unimaginable monster. According to the legend, the artefact was discovered by Darwin in the Galápagos Islands and then brought to the American Museum of Natural History, where it was unearthed by a Russian scholar, Vladimir Bogoraz,
Archaeology · The East · Museums · Heritage · Paris · Humour
The sarcophagus discovered in a Franco-Lebanese house is a cast of the original kept in the National Museum of Beirut, incidentally one of its chief treasures. The magnificent sarcophagus of Ahiram, found by the French archaeologist Pierre Montet in 1923, is considered a symbol of Franco-Lebanese friendship: that,
Museums · Observations · Society
Well, today on his annual phone-in Putin announced a "Pushkin Card" for young people aged 14 to 22, due to come into operation as early as the autumn. The card is promised a balance of 3,000 roubles. For some period, until next year or thereabouts, it
Monarchies · Museums · Observations · Science · Paris
An ominous sign? At Versailles, the Passemant perpetual clock has stopped. This famous astronomical clock, acquired by Louis XV on the recommendation of the French Academy of Sciences, is supposed to display dates up to the last day of the year 9999, but something has gone wrong.. The clockmakers of