Clik here to view.
John Ruskin: artist, critic, author and awful husband
The Victorian critic, social commentator and artist John Ruskin was born 1819. In 1848 Ruskin married the gorgeous, young, energetic Effie Gray (1828-97), a marriage that was annulled after six years...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Josephine Baker - sexy dancer, WW2 heroine and campaigner against racism
Josephine Baker (1906-1975) was born in a poor, black slum in St Louis Illinois in 1906. Her young mother Carrie had hoped to be a music hall dancer but she was forced to take in laundry instead. She...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Scotland's architecture, whiskey distilleries and kosher tours
Eddie's Kosher Travel is offering a tour that combines my great loves – early modern architecture, British history, synagogues and Scottish whisky (not necessarily in that order). There will be two...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Anna Ticho's house museum and art exhibition in Jerusalem
I have always liked the idea of an artist’s work being shown in the family home that the artist once lived in. Consider, for example, Rembrandt’s home in Amsterdam, Durer’s home in Nuremberg or Ruben’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The most famous artists' colony in Paris - La Ruche
In art, literature and music, Paris had long been the home of the avant-garde and by 1900, the city was still dominant. The ambitious 1900 International Exhibition only reinforced Paris’ importance....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lord Horatio Nelson, William Wilberforce and slavery in the Caribbean
Horatio Nelson (1758–1805)’s first long sea-voyage as an adolescent boy was to the Jamaican sugar colonies of the West Indies in 1771-2. He served in the region as a Naval officer during the War of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Caravaggio and Giorgione, lost and found
Judith beheading Holofernes(c1607) was accidentally found in a manky Toulouse attic in 2014. Burglars had broke into the house, but they left the painting, believing it worthless! It remained a secret...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Which nation owns falafel as its national dish?
The first part of his post comes from Alexander Lee. The second part reflects my own experiences. Falafel is an archetypical Middle Eastern dish. Made from ground fava beans, chickpeas or both, these...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Tiny House Festival Australia .. this weekend!!! Thanks, USA
The Tiny House Festival Australia is being held this weekend (March 23-24th 2019) at Bendigo Racecourse in Central Victoria. The event is showcasing vendors and suppliers, workshops, guest speakers...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Beatles - communism, sex and mental disease, by David Noebel
David Noebel (b1936) is an evangelical Christian leader and the founder of Summit Ministries. Ordained in 1961, he saw the rise of Beatlemania as the result of Communist indoctrination via hypnosis,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Vincent van Gogh is dominating the art history news
In 1997 the Art Newspaper announced 45 or more Vincent van Goghs may well be fakes; eminent van Gogh scholar Jan Hulsker had questioned the authenticity of some of the art works. Since then, experts...
View ArticleClik here to view.
First organised Australian team to go to England: Aboriginal cricketers
Many thanks to the National Museum of Australia for opening this amazing story to analysis. Friendly cricket games were an important aspect of early colonial society in Australia. Then by the 1850s,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Early modern medicine in Naples - Incurables Hospital c1520
Thank you to The 18th-century Apothecary in Hampshire for reminding us that they delivered most of what we would now term primary health care. Now to Naples.Religious duty did not clash with medical...
View ArticleClik here to view.
History of the best game in the world - Scrabble
Australia didn’t have television until Nov 1956, and computers came even later. So our family entertainment back then consisted of radio programmes, swimming, card games, Monopoly and Scrabble. In that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Pope Pius XII and Benito Mussolini - opening the papal files
Beginning in 1965, 12 volumes containing thousands of Papal documents were published. Many suspected that the Jesuit editors selected out documents unflattering to the Church, but the volumes did show...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The desires of both body and soul – Leonard Cohen
The Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal curator, John Zeppetelli and the show’s co-curator Victor Schiffman were deciding how to celebrate Montreal’s 375th anniversary, and how to draw in visitors who...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Marc Chagall, Arthur Boyd and bridal couples
The Antipodeans Group consisted of 7 painters plus art historian Bernard Smith. They compiled The Antipodean Manifesto, a declaration fashioned from their commitment to modern, figurative art. The...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Hays Code in Hollywood: sex and violence (1930-1967)
Tim Stanley’s article was wonderful. Seeing a film in the early 1900s could be shocking, not just for the content, but for the darkness of those early films. Birth of a Nation (1915) depicted suicide,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A chip off the old block - my men and King Edward VI
Prompted by theFifty Shades of Fire exhibit of redheads in Israel, I was very interested in fathers, sons and grandsons looking like each other and sharing behavioural tendencies. These are the photos...
View ArticleClik here to view.
John Birch Society - the USA's extreme right wing
The New Deal (1933-6) was Democratic Pres. Franklin D Roosevelt (ruled 1933-45)’s progressive and inspired response to the community’s desperate need for relief and reform after the Great Depression....
View Article