By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout Even though practically every major ruler in world history has issued some coinage, just a handful of currencies have gone on to become international standards—used for a long time and widely traded. These include the drachmas of ancient Greece, the Roman Empire’s denari, and a coin called the…
Hilma af Klint. Self-Portrait, date of painting unknown. Oil on canvas. Hilma af Klint Foundation. Photo: Wikimedia Commons By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout The fact that painter Hilma af Klint has been unknown in the history of modern art is not that surprising. That even now she remains unknown is a bit more…
The Adoration of the Kings. Jan Gossaert (1510-15). Photo © The National Gallery, London. By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout One of the most artistically alluring Christmas themes is the one known as the Adoration of the Kings. The exotic story of the three rulers of faraway kingdoms, led by a star to Bethlehem…
Book of the City of Ladies. Christine de Pizan (c. 1405). Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. Photo: Wikimedia Commons By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout We do not know who illustrated the Book of the City of Ladies, but we know the author: Christine de Pizan (or de Pisan). This miniature portrays her as…
Jewish Woman with Oranges. Alexander Gierymski (1881). National Museum Warsaw. Photo: Wikimedia Commons By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout There is nothing attractive about toil—this mind-numbing effort of farming or doing some menial, repetitive tasks—to the person who is doing it. It can however, be appealing to artists as a subject, especially if such…
Land Girls Hoeing. Manly Edward MacDonald (1918-19). Canada War Museum. Photo: Wikimedia Commons By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout Women have not always been stuck at home just sewing and running households. They have also been out in the fields as farmers or trading in the markets as merchants. Industrialization brought women into cities,…
Part A Young Woman Sewing. Nicolaes Maes (1655). Harold Samuel Collection, © City of London Corporation, London. Photo: Wikimedia Commons By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout This is the second part in our series on women at work—this time captured in their most accessible milieu—working at home. The tasks depicted may be some of…
Birth of the Virgin. Domenico Ghirlandaio (1479-85). Santa Maria Novella, Florence. Photo: Wikimedia Commons Public Domain By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout The majority of figures in paintings, especially those created before the 20th century, are male. The paintings show men heroically fighting or representing religious or mythological figures, men hunting, or men suffering…
“Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. This is as true of humans in the finite space of a planetary ecosystem as it is of gas molecules in a sealed flask. The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence…
Effects of Good Government in the City. Ambrogio Lorenzetti (1339). Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, Italy. Photo: Wikimedia Commons Public Domain By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout The United States is preparing for the November 3rd presidential election amid the most polarized debate in living memory about what is right and wrong and what kind of…