By Nina Heyn Old age is nobody’s friend but even less so in the case of a visual artist. In 1941, Matisse endured abdominal surgery followed by life-threatening sepsis. His arthritis and eye problems had also gotten worse. These health problems meant that he was often bedridden and unable to sustain the rigor of standing…
By Nina Heyn To continue with the idea of celebrating a ”Year of Vermeer” at Food for the Soul, let’s start with this master when searching for letters in art history. Images of women with letters appear throughout the body of Vermeer’s work. He searched for ways of showing people’s thoughts, so portraying his subject…
By Nina Heyn During a trial in 1913, when Vincenzo Peruggia was asked why he stole the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, he said that he wanted to return the masterpiece to its rightful owners, that is, the Italian nation. He may have been fashioning an explanation to cover his theft, but his argument matched…
By Nina Heyn Victoria & Albert Museum, a sprawling red brick pile in the middle of Kensington, is one of the most popular tourist attractions in London, to the tune of almost four million visitors per year. The museum, which holds millions of objects and archival documents, is a mecca for anyone who is interested…
By Nina Heyn Horse paintings, sculptures, paper cuttings, and prints have always been extremely popular in Chinese decorative art, and especially ubiquitous in a Year of the Horse. In Chinese astrology, each Year of the Horse denotes persistence, hard work, leadership, openness, and vitality. This year, the intertwining of the horse sign with the elemental…
By Nina Heyn Traveling throughout Europe, you can make cultural discoveries almost everywhere you go. I recently visited the eastern Polish city of Lublin to check out an exhibition devoted to my favorite subject: women in art. The show, meticulously prepared for years by the Lublin branch of the National Museum, was provocatively titled, “A…
By Nina Heyn For Christmas, we’d like to share with you some of the most inspiring and beautiful examples of fine art that were featured in Food for the Soul stories in 2025. Unfortunately, we cannot offer you the actual works of art, which reside in museums worldwide, but visually—they belong to everybody. So, we…
“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 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 – Your Culture Scout In the United States, but not so much in Europe, you can sometimes walk into a beautiful house decorated with paintings and knickknacks but with no books anywhere to be found. The advent of digital media in the form of audiobooks and Kindle readers has accelerated the disappearance…