“I’m the busiest man in the world, and the most under pressure!“~ Peter Paul Rubens in a letter to Palamède Fabri de Valavez, January 1625 By Nina Heyn The image of a struggling, unappreciated artist doesn’t apply to Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640). As a child, he was accepted as a page at a noble house…
By Nina Heyn There is nothing like an adventure/mystery show to alleviate the blues of the long dark evenings of autumn. Here are a few shows that might do the job. ART DETECTIVES (1 season, 2025- ) This new series is about a London detective (Stephen Moyer, True Blood) whose two-person unit is assigned to…
By Nina Heyn Georges de La Tour (c. 1593 -1652) was forgotten almost immediately after his death until the early 20th century, and nowadays, he is very popular. The reasons for both the forgetting and the renewed popularity are eerily similar. He painted flat surfaces and intimate settings, and his religious-themed paintings portray saints and the…
By Nina Heyn Frédéric Chopin was born in 1810 in Żelazowa Wola (near Warsaw). A musical prodigy, he was already performing at the age of seven at aristocratic salons, and his first polonaise was published when he was eight years old. His most famous “Heroic” Polonaise in A Flat major (op. 53) is probably one of…
By Nina Heyn Anyone who has been in Paris for more than a few days can’t help but notice the dichotomy of modernity and historical heritage, evident at every turn. For example, you access an ultra-modern Fondation Louis Vuitton building designed by Frank Gehry by walking past the old fence ironwork of the Jardin d’Acclimatation…
By Nina Heyn The Adriatic coast city of Ravenna is an absolute delight—a small, clean, northern-style town that is very walkable. There are several Romanesque basilicas decorated with mosaics that would floor even the most jaded tourist, and there are no crowds to see those jewels, especially when compared with the anxiety-inducing throngs of Florence…
By Nina Heyn We all face choices—large and small. For some types of choices that would be very painful to experience in real life, we are fine seeing them on screen. They can help to clarify our ideas or at least make for a good conversation piece. Here are a few viewing recommendations of stories…
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout “I am not one of those talking painters of whom there are so many now, who can tell you twenty-four times in one breath what art is but who have never once in twenty-four years of painting managed to show you what art is.”~ Caspar David Friedrich A…
By Nina Heyn A “must-see” list for Florence usually includes checking out Renaissance art at the Uffizi Gallery, having a quick look at Michelangelo’s David, and taking a walk to admire the incredible feat of architecture of the Florentine Duomo. However, there are many other less obvious art history treats in Florence. One of them,…
“My world is one of crime. I steal from every artist around the world.”~ Wayne Thiebaud By Nina Heyn There are curiously few cityscapes in 20th- and 21st-century art. Impressionists documented the Paris of the last decade of the 19th century, but from about the 1900s until today, artists have been more interested in painting…