I do not know about you, but I prefer spy and political shows to typical crime shows because they are a little more mentally challenging. A case in point is the first season of the latest, very popular Netflix show The Diplomat (the second season is in production). If you have not had a chance…
Like all of Italy, except a bit more so, Florence is all about stone. Green and white marble bricks cover the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (popularly called the Duomo) to breathtaking effect. Carved lions guard steps of palazzos and gardens, statues of saints decorate outside walls of churches, and stone lintels, bricks, and…
Paris is not very user-friendly this spring because ongoing strikes are affecting daily life to a great degree. I was planning to see Vermeer’s The Astronomer—a painting that was not included in the loan exhibition at the Rijksmuseum—which is often described as a “companion” to The Geographer, featuring the same model and a similar scientific…
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout The new and wonderful loan exhibition of Vermeer at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is an occasion to reflect on how the life and works of this 17th-century artist can be relevant to us today. Here are half a dozen “lessons” that I draw from the story of his…
By Nina Heyn — Your Culture Scout While many art fans might not be able to get tickets to the sold-out Vermeer show at the Rijksmuseum, there is another exhibition of exquisite Dutch Baroque art in Amsterdam that is ongoing at the same time at the nearby museum called Hermitage Amsterdam. The star of this…
By Nina Heyn — Your Culture Scout The sold-out, long-touted, once-in-a-lifetime Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is in full swing—crowds of lucky ticket-holders are thronging through a few small rooms. But perhaps this is the right space to exhibit these intimate, delicate pictures that hung forgotten for 200 years until they became the…
By Nina Heyn — Your Culture Scout Probably one of the most celebrated paintings that features pearls is one where these jewels are the least visible. It is the painting called Woman with a Pearl Necklace, and it was painted around 1663 by Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675). Over two years, he painted five pictures that featured…
By Nina Heyn — Your Culture Scout Even though most of the artists I admire are from the 20th century—from David Hockney to Leonora Carrington, and from Gerhard Richter to Francis Bacon—I’m usually not able to post about them here because images of their art are still under copyright. It is, therefore, a rare treat…
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout Unless you are writing a script for a TV show, writing is a decidedly solitary occupation (you can hardly write a novel “together”). Painting is a bit more conducive to communal activity and many artist communities sprung up throughout the 19th century. Once some artists discovered a particularly…
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout Even before Roman soldiers started building and then marching on the roads of the empire, expanding the imperial trade across all the outposts, there were well-worn trading paths that led to Rome. Etruscans, who preceded the Romans on the Italian peninsula, had been trading extensively with northern lands….