Leonardo da Vinci. Ca.1491. Study for the Sforza monument. Image source: Wikimedia Commons, public domain By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout It was a classic moment of serendipity. Catherine, Robert and I have been filming stories about da Vinci in Milan when we met at a book fair an Italian author, Marco Malvaldi, who…
Leonardo da Vinci – the Louvre Exhibit with Nina Heyn and Ulrike Granögger. By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout To conclude our series on da Vinci – Solari’s “Hero of the Year” – we bring you a podcast. In late 2019 the Louvre opened a historic exhibition of Leonardo da Vinci. Catherine, Ulrike Granögger…
By Nina Heyn- Your Culture Scout For holidays, we bring our 12 Christmas Movie Gifts – as diverse as a partridge in a pear tree and maids a milking would be. The only criteria for a recommendation were that movies had to be entertaining (a value much neglected in a majority of films) and a…
“Lawyer: Ready to go to war?” Gretchen Carlson: Oh, yeah” – lines from the movie Bombshell By Nina Heyn- Your Culture Scout Charlize Theron is not only a film star (Oscar for her portrayal of a serial killer in The Monster, accolades for her role as Imperator Furiosa from Mad Max: Fury Road) – she…
“Ransom Drysdale: What is this? CSI: KFC?” A line from Knives Out! By Nina Heyn- Your Culture Scout Our streaming devices are groaning under the weight of choices – movies, seasons of shows, mini-series, documentaries and so on. So many movies, so little time. This is one of the reasons many good dramas or even…
Sofonisba Anguissola. Self-Portrait at the Easel, 1556-57. Oil on canvas. Muzeum-Zamek. Łańcut, Poland. Photo credit: Courtesy of the © Prado National Museum, Madrid, Spain. “Her paintings were celebrated for their calm and gentle style, and for the particularity that she was a woman, and had risen above the usual course of those of her sex,…
“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need”. Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) By Nina Heyn, Your Culture Scout A typical museum of fine art is a depository of paintings, drawings and sculptures, sometimes objects of historical value, writings or artifacts (think the MET or the Tate). They fulfill the…
A good painter has two things to represent: the man and the intention of his soul. The former is easy, the latter hard.” — Leonardo da Vinci By Nina Heyn- Your Culture Scout It is amazing that 500 years on, we still see news stories about da Vinci in daily press. There was one recently…
“Think of this as a fairytale that actually happened.” A line from the movie The Laundromat By Nina Heyn- Your Culture Scout How do you turn a dense literary account of financial (mal)practices into a mainstream movie? Director Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Erin Brockovich and Ocean’s Eleven series) and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns (The Informant!, Contagion)…
King George V: “Were you effected by the strikes?” The Dowager Countess: “My maid was rather curt with me. She’s a communist at heart.” From the movie Downton Abbey By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout Fall is good for fans of enjoyable dramas – summer superhero blockbusters have had their run, everyone is back…