Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
There is something exhilarating about a truly hostile review, whether deserved or not. This one begins: "The last time I saw paintings as deluded as Damien Hirst's latest works, the artist's name was Saif al-Islam Gaddafi"
Enjoyable blogpost on how people interact with museum exhibits. Suggests we often look at paintings for just three seconds, and very rarely for more than 45. Fine art encourages us to walk in orderly fashion, but not so modern art
Revolt against Assad is also being fought through satire and cultural resistance. River running through Damascus was dyed red. Sound systems get hidden in ministries and municipal buildings to play revolutionary songs
A painting from the Hermitage called "The Flight into Egypt" is the centrepiece of a Titian exhibition in London. The piece has just been restored and hasn't been seen outside Russia in well over a century. Is it really a Titian?
Superb short essay in favour of boat-rocking. "Originality is dangerous. It challenges, questions, overturns assumptions, unsettles moral codes." This is where great art comes from. If we believe in liberty, we must celebrate it
"Sendak recognized that life is fraught, but that you’re resilient and that you’ll get through it somehow, and he told you so without becoming in any way moralistic. It was just really reporting on his own life experience"
Deft, admiring review of new volume of essays by Charles Rosen—musician, critic, polymath. He shows his age, but "no other living critic has produced a corpus that so fully exemplifies the virtues and achievements of civilisation"
Harvard biologist tackles evolution of culture in a monumental essay. Captivating throughout. "Rich and seemingly boundless as the creative arts seem to be, each is filtered through the narrow biological channels of human cognition"
On the trail of the lost Leonardo mural. Was it, as was assumed for centuries, demolished and irrevocably lost? Or was it perhaps merely hidden from view, covered over, preserved by Vasari behind the surface of his own fresco?
"The afterlife of the artist is a tricky thing. Some bestselling writers seem to be forgotten mere seconds after their deaths; others aren’t truly appreciated until decades into their posthumous career." Why? It comes down to family
Interview with Eric Kandel, giant of modern neuroscience. Discussion centres on the science of aesthetics (how the brain responds to art), and the rise of Modernists in 19th century Vienna
"The pilgrimage to Mecca, the Hajj, is the supreme expression of global Islam. This year more than 2.5 million Muslims will undertake the journey." By 2030, that number is expected to have grown to 20 million. Here's what it means
edenandjosh on Flickr
"You confuse two things: solving a problem, and stating a problem correctly. It is only the second that is obligatory for the artist"
