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Forge Valley Near Scarborough -John Atkinson Grimshaw 1878

The Resilient Style

Ancient bead design reflected the human passion for individuality. It was possible, within the artistic space of bead design, to create a visual energy, which, through sublimal suggestion or charismatic power, re-conceived the human spirit.

Art and the Present Moment

“To me there is no past or future in art. If a work of art cannot live always in the present it must not be considered at all.” --Picasso. Before the ancestors were completely human they were completely natural...

The Far House of Graves

Deià is one of the oldest, remotest, and most beautiful villages in Spain, una pequeña aldea of cafés, hotels, villas, fincas, olive trees, and vineyards terraced into stony hillsides, between sea and mountains on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca.
Bavaria's fairy tale city

Bavaria's fairy tale city

"There are pointy church steeples and frosty windows adorned with jewels of stained glass, and building fronts painted in an array of candy-like pastel hues"
Ralph Vaughan Williams should be as revered as Shakespeare

Ralph Vaughan Williams should be as revered as Shakespeare

"There is the irony that, long before the nostalgia industry hijacked Vaughan Williams, he, to an extent, hijacked it. His collecting of folk-songs in the first decade of the last century was an act of massive cultural importance"
Diamond planet idea boosted by telescope find

Diamond planet idea boosted by telescope find

"You might see land masses and mountains made up of diamonds," the lead researcher Dr Nikku Madhusudhan told BBC News."
Opal: Delicate Beauty in a Watery Orb

Opal: Delicate Beauty in a Watery Orb

"In the hands of the master jewelers René Lalique and Louis Comfort Tiffany, opal enjoyed a reputation as a mystical, moody stone in line with the era’s longing for nature, fluidity and movement."
The art of the Renaissance: In the line of beauty

The art of the Renaissance: In the line of beauty

"In 1413, the great Florentine architect Filippo Brunelleschi discovered linear perspective, enabling artists not only to create a seductive illusion of a three-dimensional world on a flat, two-dimensional surface for the very first time, but also to combine real and imaginary space in a single painting. A new human-centred naturalism..."
Cezanne’s atelier remains Aix-en-Provence sanctuary

Cezanne’s atelier remains Aix-en-Provence sanctuary

"The olive tree just by the garden was supposed to be destroyed when the studio was built, but Cezanne had a builder construct a barrier around it to protect it: “It knows everything about my life and gives excellent advice,” he once said."
Wine and Earth in Provence

Wine and Earth in Provence

"I was having lunch with a friend recently at Le Caire, in the country near Aix-en-Provence. It was a warm afternoon and we were served outside on a shady veranda..."
Poetry, Tea and Tao

Poetry, Tea and Tao

In 1908, New York merchant Thomas Sullivan packaged tea samples into hand-sewn muslin bags, intending for his customers to empty the leaves into hot water. Some though, unsure what to do, submerged them in their tea pot...
'Extraordinary' art collection to go on sale

'Extraordinary' art collection to go on sale

"When boldly-coloured works completed in the coastal town of Collioure by Derain and Matisse were exhibited at the Salon d'Automne exhibition in Paris in 1905, one critic described the pair as "Les Fauves", which means "the wild beasts"."
Couleurs et Lumière

Couleurs et Lumière

"Son regard de peintre en matière de couleur et de composition, sa passion pour l’exotisme et ses innovations dans le domaine du verre font de lui, dès 1900, un chef de file du design américain dont la réputation s’étend jusque dans les grandes capitales européennes : il rivalise avec les grands verriers européens de la fin du XIXe siècle."
Elaborations of the Spirit

Elaborations of the Spirit

The Impressionist engagement of nature concurred with the primal human experience of nature, which depended on submitting life to both the measured...
Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese

Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese

These three painters were to rub shoulders for over thirty years, and after Titian’s death in 1576..
The Distant Travels of a Restless Mind .

The Distant Travels of a Restless Mind .

"La Farge painted his islanders naturalistically, according to his keen understanding of human anatomy. Less iconic and more conventionally rendered than Gauguin's figures, La Farge's nevertheless exude great human vitality and warmth."
Artifacts hint at earliest Neanderthals in Britain

Artifacts hint at earliest Neanderthals in Britain

"The dearth of evidence for human occupation in Britain between 200,000 and 65,000 years ago has perplexed researchers. The English Channel would have posed a physical barrier to humans trying to cross from the continent..."
A Polish City Feels Its Future Has Arrived

A Polish City Feels Its Future Has Arrived

"On the other side of the Odra River, the restored old central square is a mishmash of architectural styles that speaks of the varied cultural influences on a place that was at different times claimed by Bohemia, Prussia, Austria, Germany and, of course, Poland."
Sanctus Luxurri

Sanctus Luxurri

As they set about following the migration paths that had been trodden for centuries before them, setting up camps and providing for the necessities of life, ancient people managed to surround themselves with sanctus luxurii, an ensemble...
Unified by Art Nouveau

Unified by Art Nouveau

One of the highlights of the exhibition is the recreation of a 1900s room in Art Nouveau style, indicating that another key feature of the movement was the way that people began to appreciate furniture, interior and products as aspects of an environment unified through design...newly rich people wanted to decorate their home in their own, new style..."
Book Review | In Such Hard Times

Book Review | In Such Hard Times

"For Wei, poetry was a habit, a mode of autobiography and being. He lived at a time and in a place when, whatever else was going on, educated people wrote poems the way we text or tweet. Wei somewhat dolefully observes..."
Sargent and the Sea

Sargent and the Sea

In Sargent and the Sea, the Corcoran Gallery of Art brings together for the first time more than 80 paintings, watercolors, and drawings depicting seascapes and coastal scenes from the early career of John Singer Sargent."
Ancient Trade and Civilization

Ancient Trade and Civilization

Ancient trade originated in the migratory patterns of prehistoric nomadic people who ranged over long distances across the continents of Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America, for thousands of years...
Book Review | The Origins of Globalization

Book Review | The Origins of Globalization

"The Shang and Zhou eras are pictured as a golden age where everyone knew his or her place in the great harmonious hierarchy of Chinese life. Rulers ruled and everyone farmed..."
Sketches of Spain

Sketches of Spain

"Sir Thomas Lawrence and John Singer Sargent both adopted a kind of buttery, flashy paint-handling that derives from Velázquez..."
Early music discovered on carving

Early music discovered on carving

"To find out that it might be early harp music was very exciting indeed, and having the chance to hear it..."
Haymakers Resting, Camille Pissarro (1891)

Haymakers Resting, Camille Pissarro (1891)

In Camille Pissarro’s rural images of harvesting and shepherding, sensuous color is often a gradually nuanced pool of light that mirrors the movement..."