NB! · Art · Observations · Humour
Just look at this centaur! Isn't it the very image of the slaying of the sacred stag? Though here the deed is done by another mythical creature
Art · Observations
The Wild Hunt, 1890. For me, this is the favourite work of the remarkable Bavarian artist Franz von Stuck, incidentally the teacher of Kandinsky. The elongated horizontal canvas, the arrangement of the figures and the dark colours make the painting resemble cave art. Mystery, tragedy, magic, fate and beauty. I
Moscow · Museums · Observations · Education
I am greatly impressed that the main building of RSUH on Miusskaya Square has opened a museum-workshop of Leonardo da Vinci, with models of his inventions that one may not merely touch but test: every mechanism is in working order, except, of course, the bombard on a worm gear
Archaeology · Books · Observations · Science · Education
Friends! My book is out! It is a course of study on the peopling of the Americas, on which I worked for two years and which sets out exhaustive information on where the first people to reach the American continent came from, by what route, what drove them and what
Archaeology · The East · Observations · Humour
Remember the episode of Family Guy in which Peter Griffin recalled his grandfather's sister, whose legs went all the way up to her ears? I have recently found the archaeological prototype of this character. At first glance, these terracotta statuettes look like figures of Apollo: the lyre of
NB! · Archaeology · Art · Observations
The furnishings from Tutankhamun's tomb are, for me, among the most powerful aesthetic experiences. It is scarcely credible that this dates from the 1300s BC. I can quite easily picture the golden couches in the form of lions and bulls, the heads of the celestial cow, the chests,
NB! · Art · Observations · Humour
Spotted a table by a Dutch master, rather like something from Tutankhamun's storeroom. But it also costs 30 thousand euros 😭
NB! · Art · Moscow · Observations · Society Pages · Humour
Well, the Cosmoscow opening was a success. There are plenty of splendid things, but their prices are more splendid still
NB! · London · Museums · Observations · Palaeontology · Humour
Good heavens, I am in love! Just look at this tiny mammoth from the Natural History Museum in London 😍😍
Moscow · Museums · Observations
GUM is hosting a rather curious exhibition devoted to archery. What struck me was that many of the instruments on display, Soviet ones at any rate, are handmade. Native archers were left to fashion by cottage-industry methods the holders they needed, rulers for the brace height and the tiller,
Art · London · Observations · Nature · Humour
Trump the pug, dog of William Hogarth. The finest Trump I have ever had occasion to see. Incidentally, how different the pugs of the eighteenth century were from their modern descendants: their legs were longer and their bodies slimmer. And wigs suited them far better, too.
Books · Observations · Humour
A Contraption for When You Have Been Set Far Too Much Homework. Friends are busily sharing a photograph of a device for working with documents dating from as far back as 1580. Something similar can be found in many libraries, and not only in antique versions either: it is a