By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout Comprehensive and large-scope art museums tend to be those created in centuries past, such as the Louvre in the 18th century and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the “Met”) in the 19th century. Their function was to provide the inhabitants of big cities with collections that were educational,…
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 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 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….
By Nina Heyn — Your Culture Scout We celebrated the year 2019 as “The Year of da Vinci,” reporting all year long from the groundbreaking exhibition at the Louvre as well as anniversary exhibitions in Italy, Poland, and the Netherlands. We would like to celebrate 2023 as “The Year of Vermeer,” inspired by the upcoming,…
Józef Mehoffer. Allegory of Saving (1933). Stained glass window, KOMK Bank, Kraków. Photo: Zygmunt Put/Wikimedia Commons By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout “All these pieces of paper are issued with as much solemnity and authority as if they were of pure gold or silver…and indeed everybody takes them readily, for wheresoever a person may…
James Tissot. Ball on Shipboard (1874). Tate Britain. Photo: Wikimedia Commons “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.” ~ St. Augustine By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout While we may be upset by the various pandemic travel restrictions the world is now experiencing, it is worth…
Wu Youru. Regaining the Provincial Capital of Ruizhou (1886). Private collection. Photo: Wikimedia Commons By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout The conventional wisdom that “law” and “justice” are not the same thing can be illustrated by works of art from any historical period. The painting above represents a battle between the Chinese Imperial army…
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout No one has ever rendered fruits more juicy or seafood more fresh than 17th-century painters in the Low Countries. Starting with late-Renaissance artists such as Pieter Aertsen and continuing for a century and half afterwards in the works of Dutch painters from Frans Snyders to Vermeer, this decorative tradition…