Tag: Arts & Tradition

O’ Henry’s ‘A Newspaper Story’: The Power of the Press

The press connects us to a community we don’t often acknowledge. It enables us to look beyond our own individual lives to notice the lives and actions of those around us. O’ Henry’s short story, “A Newspaper Story,” shows how a newspaper on a certain day has a power beyond its printed pages to do…


The Las Lajas Sanctuary: Gothic Revival Meets Local Legend

Inside the canyon of the Guáitara River in Colombia, South America, rests a breathtaking example of Gothic revival architecture: the Las Lajas Sanctuary. This popular spiritual destination celebrates the reputed appearance of the Virgin Mary at the site. In 1754, a woman named Maria Muneses de Quiñones and her mute-deaf daughter Rosa were caught in…


Ancient Queens in French Academic Paintings

French Academic art encompasses numerous traditional genres, from portraiture to still-life, but Grand Histories may be among the most noteworthy of the period. These paintings take inspiration from the past, as the name implies, but artists elaborated on source materials to create nobler, more compelling narratives. Ancient, legendary queens, along with the captivating stories surrounding…


Prairie Rose: A Bold Defender of American Liberty

Today, Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968) is best remembered, if she is remembered at all, as the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the beloved “Little House” books, children’s stories that Rose helped shape and edit before they appeared in public. Rose Wilder Lane, circa 1905–1910. National Archives. (Public Domain) Yet Rose was a woman…


In Awe of Raphael’s Drawings

LONDON—Anyone who has played charades knows how hard it is to convey an idea without words. An artist’s challenge is to convey a moving narrative without words on a two-dimensional surface. Masters such as Italian Renaissance artist Raphael appeared to achieve this effortlessly. The foundation of these artists’ skills lies hidden behind the scenes in…


The Villa Medici and the French Art Academy

Under the soaring ceilings of his room and studio at the Villa Medici in Rome, Léon Pallière rested casually. He was a student of fine art, who had studied painting at the Parisian Academy before arriving in Rome for his education—as a “pensioner” of the French Academy. By 1817, when the intimate portrait was painted,…


Raphael’s Cartoons: Beautiful Designs for Beautiful Tapestries

While cartoons in the United States generally refer to humorous or satirical drawings, during the Renaissance era cartoons meant something entirely different: preliminary sketches that served as studies for future work, or perhaps work to be transferred to another medium. The Raphael cartoons, in this case, preparatory sketches for tapestries, are some of the greatest…


Bed Time: Mats, Four-Posters, Sleep, and Culture

Most of us were created in one, many were born in one, and many have died in one. Most of us spend a third of our lifetime in one, where we read, converse, make love, sip a glass of evening wine or a cup of morning coffee. It is a hospice of health and restoration,…


Classicism in French Art: Nicolas Poussin and Jacques-Louis David

The spring of 2022 was an extraordinary season for French art in the United States. At the Getty Center in Los Angeles, the exhibition “Poussin and the Dance” delved into the Baroque master Nicolas Poussin’s pictorial choreography and showcased a number of paintings executed in Rome during the 1630s. Meanwhile, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in…


For the Love of Naples: Opening a Rare Ancient Greek Art Treasure

Italian hotel owner Alessandra Calise Martuscelli is fulfilling her dream to help improve her city of birth, Naples, by restoring a rare part of the city’s ancient Greek heritage. Around 600 B.C., the Greeks founded Naples as Neapolis (New City).    Alessandra Calise Martuscelli and her family have recently opened the rare, ancient Greek Ipogeo dei…