By Nina Heyn This is the time of year when spring is in full force in Paris—trees are green (after months of gray emptiness), people sit outside in cafés (after months of bundling up), and museums are brimming with new art shows. Here is a sampling of the latest offerings at principal museums in the…
“No work from classical antiquity, either Greek or Roman, has exerted such a continuing and decisive influence on European literature as Ovid’s Metamorphoses.” ~ Ian Johnston By Nina Heyn Sometimes it is good when an art exhibition is not reduced to a predictable subject like “masterpieces of xx artist” or “the art of xx period.”…
By Nina Heyn Rapid changes in social and material status can create a social group called the nouveau riche—people who suddenly gain wealth and influence but lack the refinement that comes with generations of elevated social position. Even though the term itself is from the 20th century, the phenomenon has existed for much longer. In…
By Nina Heyn If you want to learn about fine art, sometimes it is best to start with the basics. Getting familiar with Raphael (Raffaello di Giovanni Santi, 1483-1520) constitutes just such a “basic” because, alongside a dozen other artists throughout history, his works are not only some of the most alluring but also seeded…
By Nina Heyn Similar to last year, I’d like to start my Food for the Soul postings in 2026 with a list of some interesting art exhibitions that will take place throughout the year. I describe a few highlights below and also provide a calendar list of selected exhibitions. Raphael: Sublime Poetry March 29-June 28 …
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 – 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…
“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…
By Nina Heyn If it is spring in Paris, fashion is an obvious theme, but in the world of art, this means something more sophisticated than a runway at a designer house. Three major Paris museums have riffed on the theme of fashion in a manner reflecting these museums’ style and collections. House of Worth…
By Nina Heyn When I wrote a chapter about Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi (1593 – c. 1656) in my book, Women in Art: Artists, Models and Those Who Made It Happen, I wanted to separate the sensationalism of her biography from her art, which was original and high-quality, regardless of the unusual circumstances of her…