Does hell really exist? Jordan B. Peterson in a recent address to Hillsdale College said that “if you don’t believe in hell, then you haven’t thought about it enough!” I am reminded of that wonderful moment in Christopher Marlowe’s play “Doctor Faustus” where Faustus asks Mephistopheles why, since he is a devil, he isn’t in hell….
Epoch Booklist: Recommended Reading for June 24–30
This week’s picks feature the novel that started the “Jurassic Park” craze and a biography of possibly the two best engineers of the 19th century. Fiction The Nightmare of Bioengineering ‘Jurassic Park: A Novel’ By Michael Crichton The newest—and “wokest”—addition to the Jurassic series is in theaters, so we recommend going back to where it…
Beauty Meets Virtuosity: Baroque and Rococo Ivory Sculpture
In 1962, successful German building contractor Reiner Winkler bought his first ivory artwork, a small 15th-century Gothic panel of the Nativity that was once part of a diptych. And he fell in love with the medium. From that small French piece, only a few inches tall, Winkler began what would become the world’s largest private collection…
A Boon Granted: Meeting Agnes Repplier
“She was the Jane Austen of the essay. That she is not so recognized is a great—and, one hopes, temporary—loss.” So wrote John Lukacs, biographer and university professor, of Agnes Repplier more than 40 years ago when he compared the style and grace of Repplier’s prose to that of Austen. Alas, that loss appears to…
Something for Summer Reading: ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ by William Shakespeare
June 22, 2022
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"A Midsummer Night's Dream"Arts & CultureArts & TraditionbooksBottomBrightPerforming ArtsPuckWilliam Shakespeare
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Summer is not only a season that people love, but it is also a season where people fall in love. Warm temperatures encourage warm temperaments, and summer love is a thrill that most have some happy memory of, memories that are often like dreams. What person does not look back on the laughing, lovesick capers…
Giovanni Baglione: Art Historian and Master of Mannerism
June 20, 2022
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"St. John the Baptist in the Wilderness"Arts & CultureArts & TraditionBrightGiorgio BaglioneGiorgio VasariLife & TraditionMannerism
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In the 17th century, Roman painters constantly influenced each other’s work. Through friendly competitions or rivalries, they observed their peers’ work, recreating styles and themes of their contemporaries. It was in this environment that Giovanni Baglione (1566–1643), a Roman Mannerist painter who focused on technique and style, first started his own creative journey which culminated in…
‘An Angel in Disguise’: Strength Disguised as Weakness
June 19, 2022
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"An Angel in Disguise"Arts & CultureArts & TraditionbooksBrightG.K. ChestertonT.S. ArthurThomas Aquinas
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When we think of heroes, we think of strong, brave men like Alexander the Great or Charlemagne. Such men overcome weakness and vice and learn self-control. They face trials that test their worth and overcome the desolation and misery of evil. Yet, in his short story “An Angel in Disguise,” T.S. Arthur proves that such…
The ‘St. Vincent Panels’: Historic Process Undertaken for Historic Painting
June 18, 2022
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Arts & CultureArts & TraditionBrightNational Antique Art Museum of LisbonNuno GonçalvesSt. Vincent of SaragossaSt. Vincent Panels
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As visitors look through a glass window, restorers work diligently to preserve one of Portugal’s national treasures. Paints, microscopes, X-ray machines, trays, tools, computers, frames, and tables fill the space, all set up to do this important work. The “St. Vincent Panels” under restoration at the National Antique Art Museum of Lisbon. (Courtesy of National…
Art Worth Visiting: 3 US Summer Exhibitions
Across the country, there are some great summer exhibitions that highlight fine European art and craftsmanship, from rare French medieval architecture and stained glass in Philadelphia, to remarkably colorful ancient Greek and Roman sculpture in New York, to Renaissance prints from Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands at the advent of printing, in Washington, D.C. Bringing…
What Good Is Poetry? Wordsworth’s Lament in ‘The World Is Too Much with Us
One way or another, people must make sense of the world, but how they come to that understanding begs the question of what it means to understand something. Does understanding hang on things like structure or significance or something else altogether? Poetry is one way to come to an understanding of things on several levels….
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