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 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 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 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 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 We all face choices—large and small. For some types of choices that would be very painful to experience in real life, we are fine seeing them on screen. They can help to clarify our ideas or at least make for a good conversation piece. Here are a few viewing recommendations of stories…
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…