Jacob van Ruisdael. Landscape with Windmills near Haarlem, mid-1650s. Oil on canvas. Dulwich Picture Gallery, UK. Photo: Dulwich Picture Gallery
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout
At the origi…
Józef Chełmoński. Storks, 1900. Oil on canvas. National Museum in Warsaw. Photo: National Museum in Warsaw
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout
Jozef Chełmoński (1874-1914; his last name is…
Vincent van Gogh. Starry Night over the Rhône, 1888. Oil on canvas. Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Gift of M. et Mme Robert Kahn-Sriber, in memory of M. et Mme Fernand Moch, 1975. Photo: © Musée d’Ors…
Kano Sanetsu. The Old Plum, 1646. Ink, color, gold, and gold leaf on paper of a four-panel screen. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Photo: Open Access, The MET
By Nina Heyn – Your Cultu…
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout Unique, beautifully designed and crafted, and visually arresting, gold objects are always stars of any museum display, regardless of the symbolism or cultural context that may have been lost over time. From the earliest civilizations of the Fertile Crescent, through ancient Egypt, and in all African and South…
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout
As the end of hot summer days approaches, it is the perfect time to binge a little on some shows, perhaps during a lazy weekend by the water. Lolling about on a…
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout As the end of hot summer days approaches, it is the perfect time to binge a little on some shows, perhaps during a lazy weekend by the water. Lolling about on a hot afternoon does not mean we have to give up on intellectual prowess, however, so I…
Franz Marc. Cows, Red, Green, Yellow, 1911. Oil on canvas. Lenbachhaus, Munich. Photo: Tate Modern
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout
When we think of German Expressionism, the images that mos…
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout When we think of German Expressionism, the images that most readily come to mind are often the black and white lithographs of Berlin artists like Käthe Kollwitz or Erich Heckel, but in fact this art movement also encompassed paintings brimming with color brighter than anything that German art…
John Singer Sargent. Lady Agnew of Lochnaw, 1892. Oil on canvas. National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout
After John Singer Sargen…
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout After John Singer Sargent died in 1925, his formal paintings of English and American socialites went out of fashion. Throughout the 20th century, the art world was giddy about other things—abstracts, installation art, pop—visual ideas very much removed from the realistic portraiture that was Sargent’s specialty. In that…
Ethel Walker. Decoration The Excursion of Nausicaa, 1920. Oil on canvas. Private collection. Photo: Courtesy of Tate
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout
This summer, the Tate Gallery in London …
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout This summer, the Tate Gallery in London is presenting an exhibition entitled “Now You See Us: Women Artists in Britain 1520-1920,” showcasing 400 years of women creating art in Great Britain. Some of them, like Artemisia Gentileschi and Angelika Kauffmann, came from other countries in search of clients…
“Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.”~ A.A. Milne, Winnie The Pooh By Nina Heyn — Your Culture Scout A.A. Milne was talking about an experience most of us…
Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Bal du Moulin de la Galette, 1870. Oil on canvas. Musée d’Orsay. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
By Nina Heyn — Your Culture Scout
No matter how much or how little we know a…
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout No matter how much or how little we know about fine art, we can all spot the difference between paintings by old masters and the art that was launched by post-Classical artists—Impressionists, Modernists, and representatives of all subsequent movements, from Surrealism to Abstractionism. There are various reasons for…
Anselm Kiefer. Fallen Angels, 2022-2023. Emulsion, oil, acrylic, shellac, gold leaf, fabric, sediment of electrolysis and charcoal on canvas. Work displayed in 2024 at Palazzo Strozzi, Florence. Phot…
By Nina Heyn- Your Culture Scout The Venice Biennale is an international art show that alternates between architecture and fine art every other year. 2024 is the year for artworks, and Venice, the city already crowded with thousands of tourists, is now also home to artists, critics, and viewers who have been flocking to the…
Self-portrait gallery at the Uffizi, 2024. Florence. Photo: Nina Heyn
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout
Florence’s Uffizi Galleries—which contain the most famous Renaissance art on the plan…
Florence’s Uffizi Galleries—which contain the most famous Renaissance art on the planet—are, unfortunately, best avoided this spring. The size of the crowds is staggering, including huge field-trip groups of high-schoolers and tour groups with guides who block the view of every painting in sight. Right now, those elegant Uffizi halls could be the set for…
A Short Preview:
“Living with and studying good paintings offers greater interest, variety and satisfaction than any other pleasure known to man.”~ Albert C. Barnes
By Catherine Austin…
A Short Preview:
“When I talk about [women artists’] life stories, it is with the aim of giving their paintings a context and facilitating deeper understanding. At the end of the day, howev…
Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Reading (La Lecture), c. 1891. Oil on canvas. The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
“Appreciation of works of art requires organized effort and sys…
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout “Appreciation of works of art requires organized effort and systematic study. Art appreciation can no more be absorbed by aimless wandering in galleries than can surgery be learned by casual visits to a hospital.” ~ Albert C. Barnes When Dr. Albert C. Barnes—physician, inventor, chemist, entrepreneur, and one…
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout Philadelphia’s main art museum was established in 1876 as part of the centennial celebration of the Declaration of Independence. Since then, the Philadelphia Museum of Art (we’ll call it PMA for short) has been expanding its catalog to its current grand total of almost a quarter of a…
Frederic Leighton. Portrait of a Roman Lady (La Nanna), 1859. Oil on canvas. Purchased with the Henry Clifford Memorial Fund, 1976, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia. Photo: Philadelphia Museu…
Ai Weiwei. Dragon. Circle of Animal/ Zodiac Heads (detail), 2012. Bronze. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles. Photo: © Nina Heyn, 2024
By Nina Heyn
In Asia, being born in a Year of …
By Nina Heyn- Your Culture Scout In Asia, being born in a Year of the Dragon means to arrive in an auspicious year; dragons, in Chinese astrology, are symbols of power, good luck, and success. Western culture—the modern take from Game of Thrones notwithstanding—treats dragons as monsters to be vanquished. These two radically different views…
By Nina Heyn
Canadian director Denis Villeneuve has always made interesting films. After his intriguing sci-fi tale Arrival, he was brave and talented enough to make Blade Runner 2049, which i…
Canadian director Denis Villeneuve has always made interesting films. After his intriguing sci-fi tale Arrival, he was brave and talented enough to make Blade Runner 2049, which is a sequel to the iconic Ridley Scott’s dark vision of an AI-populated future. If you have not seen Dune: Part One directed by Villeneuve in 2021, it…
Junya Watanabe (Japanese, 1961) (Designer) Comme des Garçons (Japanese, 1973) (House of). Jacket, Look 44 from Fall 2015 Collection. Polyester knit (jersey). Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Gift…
The theme of the rarefied world of New York socialites in the 1970s is being explored in the second season of the ongoing TV series Feud. This season’s story, Capote vs. The Swans, portrays the rise and fall of a gossipy relationship between Truman Capote and some of Manhattan’s most prominent rich and famous, who…
John Singer Sargent. Carnation, Lily, Lily Rose, 1885-1886. Oil on canvas. Tate Britain, London. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
By Nina Heyn
For its Color of the Year 2024, Pantone elected the color …
For its Color of the Year 2024, Pantone elected the color named “peach fuzz”—a pink color moderated by some orange or yellow to achieve a shade that in clothing can indeed be called “peach,” while in art it is often used to render skin tones, the light at dusk, or morning clouds in southern latitudes….
Caspar David Friedrich. Moonrise Over the Sea, 1822. Oil on canvas. Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin. Photo: Jörg P. Anders; courtesy National Museum Berlin
By Nina Heyn
January being a good month…
January being a good month to look forward to events in the coming year, here is a list of selected art exhibitions in Europe. If you are planning any travel there, it’s good to keep these “coming attractions” in mind. I hope to report on some of them in my Euro blog. Paris: Fondation Louis…
By Nina Heyn
Long dark evenings are perfect for cozying up with a hot mug in front of a screen, so in winter I went on the lookout for some intelligent mystery and action tales. After trawling thr…
Long dark evenings are perfect for cozying up with a hot mug in front of a screen, so in winter I went on the lookout for some intelligent mystery and action tales. After trawling through dozens of TV series on half a dozen platforms, I found a few that are a bit more challenging than…
Frans Hals. The Laughing Cavalier, 1624. Oil on canvas. The Wallace Collection, London. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
By Nina Heyn
Daily life in London is a bit harder than before Brexit. Stores run…
Jacques-Louis David. Napoleon Crossing the Alps, 1805. Oil on canvas. Château de Malmaison, France. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
By Nina Heyn
Ridley Scott, the man who over half a century has…
Ridley Scott, the man who over half a century has given us Gladiator, Alien, Blade Runner, and The Martian, has not stopped making big movies. His latest is Napoleon—you do not get any grander than that in terms of subject matter. It is an ambitious biography of the emperor’s rise to power, his many battles,…
Gustav Klimt. The Kiss, 1907. Oil and gold leaf on canvas. The Belvedere, Vienna. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
By Nina Heyn
Artworks by Gustav Klimt (1862-1918), the most popular representative of…
Artworks by Gustav Klimt (1862-1918), the most popular representative of Viennese Art Nouveau, grace collections all over the world. After a protracted restitution battle, one of the most famous of his gold paintings, the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, is now in New York; galleries in cities like Tokyo, London, Tel Aviv, Venice, and many others…
Johannes Vermeer. The Art of Painting, c. 1666-1668. Oil on canvas. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
By Nina Heyn
We conclude “The Year of Vermeer” at Food for the…
We conclude “The Year of Vermeer” at Food for the Soul with a visit to The Art of Painting , which can be found at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Vermeer painted it around 1666, at the height of his artistic power, and the title assigned to this canvas by historians seems to reflect the…
Daily life in London is a bit harder than before Brexit. Stores run out of eggs and fresh bread by lunchtime, metro trains sometimes shorten their runs due to lack of staff, and the prices of food are staggering. Culture, however, is not hurting. Any day in London, you can check out dozens of art…
Johannes Vermeer. The Music Lesson / A Woman at a Virginal with a Gentleman, c. 1662-1664. Oil on canvas. Royal Collection, His Majesty King Charles III, Buckingham Palace, London
By Nina Heyn
…
It so happens that all four Vermeers that can be found in collections in London are about making music. The most elaborate of them is actually called The Music Lesson, acquired by King George III in 1762. This canvas spent about a hundred years misattributed to other Flemish artists (either Frans or Willem van Mieris),…
There are so many artworks in London museums that you can always find a substantial exhibition taking place, no matter when you visit. Such is the case now at Tate Britain—part of the national galleries of British art. The Rossettis is a show devoted principally to Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) and his family, fellow artists, and…
Rossetti, Monna Vanna, N03054
By Nina Heyn
There are so many artworks in London museums that you can always find a substantial exhibition taking place, no matter when you visit. Such is the cas…
By Nina Heyn
I went to Prague to look at paintings in museums, but I found out that the best art there is not necessarily on the walls inside but on the ones outside. In other words, there is …
I went to Prague to look at paintings in museums, but I found out that the best art there is not necessarily on the walls inside but on the ones outside. In other words, there is so much architectural beauty to be found in the city’s buildings, streets, and views that it surpasses the art…
Within one month of its global release, the movie Oppenheimer has grossed $700M in cumulative worldwide box office, making it more successful than Interstellar, the 2014 space movie by the same director, Christopher Nolan. The movie benefited from the social media trend of viewing both Oppenheimer and Barbie on the same day, and word of…
By Nina Heyn
Within one month of its global release, the movie Oppenheimer has grossed $700M in cumulative worldwide box office, making it more successful than Interstellar, the 2014 space mov…
By Nina Heyn
It used to be called counter-programming. Studios would, for example, plan to release a comedy skewed to female audiences on a Super Bowl weekend, reasoning that women who would n…
It used to be called counter-programming. Studios would, for example, plan to release a comedy skewed to female audiences on a Super Bowl weekend, reasoning that women who would not want to watch football games all day might want to go with their girlfriends to the movies. No longer. Oppenheimer and Barbie were scheduled to…
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout If you, like me, are heading to movie theaters to cool off and to check out the latest blockbusters, you may want to keep in mind that next summer, big-budget movies might be hard to find. On July 13, SAG-AFTRA, the guild of Hollywood actors, announced a strike….
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout
If you, like me, are heading to movie theaters to cool off and to check out the latest blockbusters, you may want to keep in mind that next summer, big-budg…
Rome is so full of Art with capital “A,” from frescoes at the Vatican to sculptures at the Capitoline museums, that it is easy to miss some other art treasures that are tucked away and not on the typical tourist itineraries. I was trying to check out the collection of the Palazzo Barberini, but thanks…
Edward Kemeys. Lion at the front of Art Institute of Chicago, 1893. Bronze. Photo: Nina Heyn
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout
Comprehensive and large-scope art museums tend to be those creat…
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout Comprehensive and large-scope art museums tend to be those created in centuries past, such as the Louvre in the 18th century and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the “Met”) in the 19th century. Their function was to provide the inhabitants of big cities with collections that were educational,…
Commesso mosaic from the workshop of Scarpelli Mosaici, Florence. Photo: Nina Heyn
June 10, 2023
By Nina Heyn,
Like all of Italy, except a bit more so, Florence is all about stone. Green and…
I do not know about you, but I prefer spy and political shows to typical crime shows because they are a little more mentally challenging. A case in point is the first season of the latest, very popular Netflix show The Diplomat (the second season is in production). If you have not had a chance…
Like all of Italy, except a bit more so, Florence is all about stone. Green and white marble bricks cover the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (popularly called the Duomo) to breathtaking effect. Carved lions guard steps of palazzos and gardens, statues of saints decorate outside walls of churches, and stone lintels, bricks, and…
Johannes Vermeer. The Milkmaid, 1658-1659. Oil on canvas. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt. Photo: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
“I love that he (Verme…
Paris is not very user-friendly this spring because ongoing strikes are affecting daily life to a great degree. I was planning to see Vermeer’s The Astronomer—a painting that was not included in the loan exhibition at the Rijksmuseum—which is often described as a “companion” to The Geographer, featuring the same model and a similar scientific…
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout The new and wonderful loan exhibition of Vermeer at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is an occasion to reflect on how the life and works of this 17th-century artist can be relevant to us today. Here are half a dozen “lessons” that I draw from the story of his…
Johannes Vermeer. The Milkmaid, 1658-1659. Oil on canvas. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt. Photo: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
“As his paintin…
Rembrandt. Minerva in Her Study, 1635. Oil on canvas. The Leiden Collection. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
By Nina Heyn — Your Culture Scout
While many art fans might not be able to get ticket…
By Nina Heyn — Your Culture Scout While many art fans might not be able to get tickets to the sold-out Vermeer show at the Rijksmuseum, there is another exhibition of exquisite Dutch Baroque art in Amsterdam that is ongoing at the same time at the nearby museum called Hermitage Amsterdam. The star of this…
By Nina Heyn — Your Culture Scout The sold-out, long-touted, once-in-a-lifetime Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is in full swing—crowds of lucky ticket-holders are thronging through a few small rooms. But perhaps this is the right space to exhibit these intimate, delicate pictures that hung forgotten for 200 years until they became the…
Johannes Vermeer. The Milkmaid, 1658-1659. Oil on canvas. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt. Photo: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
By Nina Heyn — Your…
Johannes Vermeer. Woman with a Pearl Necklace, c. 1663-1664. Oil on canvas. Gemäldegalerie State Museum, Berlin. Photo: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons
By Nina Heyn — Your Culture Scout
…
By Nina Heyn — Your Culture Scout Probably one of the most celebrated paintings that features pearls is one where these jewels are the least visible. It is the painting called Woman with a Pearl Necklace, and it was painted around 1663 by Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675). Over two years, he painted five pictures that featured…
Henryk Waniek. Beginning of Paradise/Początek Raju, 2020. Oil on canvas and panel. Private collection. Photo: Courtesy Henryk Waniek
By Nina Heyn — Your Culture Scout
Even though most of …
By Nina Heyn — Your Culture Scout Even though most of the artists I admire are from the 20th century—from David Hockney to Leonora Carrington, and from Gerhard Richter to Francis Bacon—I’m usually not able to post about them here because images of their art are still under copyright. It is, therefore, a rare treat…
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout Unless you are writing a script for a TV show, writing is a decidedly solitary occupation (you can hardly write a novel “together”). Painting is a bit more conducive to communal activity and many artist communities sprung up throughout the 19th century. Once some artists discovered a particularly…
Murano glass, Venice, 2022. Photo: Nina Heyn
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout
Even before Roman soldiers started building and then marching on the roads of the empire, expanding the imperial…
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout Even before Roman soldiers started building and then marching on the roads of the empire, expanding the imperial trade across all the outposts, there were well-worn trading paths that led to Rome. Etruscans, who preceded the Romans on the Italian peninsula, had been trading extensively with northern lands….
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout
A few weeks ago, we highlighted a few early and interesting contenders for the Best Picture crown at the upcoming Academy Awards. Here we present the remain…
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout A few weeks ago, we highlighted a few early and interesting contenders for the Best Picture crown at the upcoming Academy Awards. Here we present the remaining candidates following the announcement of the nominations on Jan. 24. EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE This movie is an outlier in…
By Nina Heyn — Your Culture Scout
A few weeks ago, we introduced some new international espionage shows. Two new American spy shows recently got dropped at the streamers, so it’s worth tak…
By Nina Heyn — Your Culture Scout A few weeks ago, we introduced some new international espionage shows. Two new American spy shows recently got dropped at the streamers, so it’s worth taking a look at those as well. TOM CLANCY’S JACK RYAN, SEASON 3 (Amazon, 2018-) Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan has just premiered its…
Johannes Vermeer. The Concert, 1663-1666. Oil on canvas. Stolen from Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston. Photo: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons
By Nina Heyn — Your Culture Scout
We c…
By Nina Heyn — Your Culture Scout We celebrated the year 2019 as “The Year of da Vinci,” reporting all year long from the groundbreaking exhibition at the Louvre as well as anniversary exhibitions in Italy, Poland, and the Netherlands. We would like to celebrate 2023 as “The Year of Vermeer,” inspired by the upcoming,…
Józef Mehoffer. Allegory of Saving (1933). Stained glass window, KOMK Bank, Kraków. Photo: Zygmunt Put/Wikimedia Commons By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout “All these pieces of paper are issued with as much solemnity and authority as if they were of pure gold or silver…and indeed everybody takes them readily, for wheresoever a person may…
James Tissot. Ball on Shipboard (1874). Tate Britain. Photo: Wikimedia Commons “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.” ~ St. Augustine By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout While we may be upset by the various pandemic travel restrictions the world is now experiencing, it is worth…
Wu Youru. Regaining the Provincial Capital of Ruizhou (1886). Private collection. Photo: Wikimedia Commons By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout The conventional wisdom that “law” and “justice” are not the same thing can be illustrated by works of art from any historical period. The painting above represents a battle between the Chinese Imperial army…
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout No one has ever rendered fruits more juicy or seafood more fresh than 17th-century painters in the Low Countries. Starting with late-Renaissance artists such as Pieter Aertsen and continuing for a century and half afterwards in the works of Dutch painters from Frans Snyders to Vermeer, this decorative tradition…
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout
This year, there are hardly any choices of theatrical films to qualify for Best Picture nominations. Current leading contenders in this year’s Oscar race …
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout This year, there are hardly any choices of theatrical films to qualify for Best Picture nominations. Current leading contenders in this year’s Oscar race are All Quiet on the Western Front, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever as well as Top Gun: Maverick. The last one, already predicted to win,…
By Nina Heyn — Your Culture Scout
For a cerebrally inclined viewer, spy shows have advantages over regular crime series. There is less gore (all those chopped-up bodies and morgue scenes get…
By Nina Heyn — Your Culture Scout For a cerebrally inclined viewer, spy shows have advantages over regular crime series. There is less gore (all those chopped-up bodies and morgue scenes get tiresome after a while), and there are more smart ideas. In celebration of the second season of one of the best spy shows…
By Nina Heyn — Your Culture Scout HILMA (2022; dir. Lasse Hallström) Hilma af Klint (1862–1944) was a Swedish abstractionist painter who was largely ignored and certainly misunderstood by her contemporaries—family, art critics, friends, the public. It took decades after her death in 1944 for her paintings to be rediscovered in an attic by her…
Eric Ravilious. HMS Glorious in the Arctic, 1940. Watercolor on paper. Imperial War Museum, UK. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
By Nina Heyn — Your Culture Scout
Continue reading. . . .
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout Full-length documentaries require what our consumption of entertainment media totally lacks these days—lots of time and patience. We watch short videos on social media and episodes of TV shows, or we check out news videos on our phones. A long, slow art documentary requires an investment of both…
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout Colder autumn evenings are a perfect excuse for sitting in front of a smaller screen. There are hundreds of choices, from huge fantasy series like House of the Dragon (viewership for each episode numbers in the millions) to popular sci-fi or crime shows on major streaming services. Here…
By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout
Colder autumn evenings are a perfect excuse for sitting in front of a smaller screen. There are hundreds of choices, from huge fantasy series like House of …
Anthony van Dyck. Charles I in Three Positions, 1635-6. Oil on canvas. National Portrait Gallery, UK. 84.4 x 99.4 cm. RCIN 404420. Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2017. Pho…
“Ars longa, vita brevis.” ~ Hippocrates, Aphorismi By Nina Heyn — Your Culture Scout As the world witnesses a historic change in Great Britain, which welcomes Charles III as the new king (the coronation ceremony has been scheduled for May 6, 2023), it is perhaps worth remembering the first English monarch of this name—Charles I…