Food for the Soul: Art and Cautionary Tales
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Food for the Soul: Art and Cautionary Tales

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By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout Art serves many social purposes, such as creating a magic ritual, preserving memories, announcing praise or condemnation, revising history, and (obviously) providing esthetic enjoyment. It’s no wonder, then, that art has also been used to warn people of the potential consequences of their actions. The British Museum houses…

Food for the Soul: The Neglected Art of Pastels – Rosalba Carriera – Women & Art Series 15
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Food for the Soul: The Neglected Art of Pastels – Rosalba Carriera – Women & Art Series 15

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By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout There are some languages, like German, Polish, and Latin, that have many grammatical cases (so-called declensions) and three genders. You must know exactly what you are going to say before you say your sentence, or it will never come out right. You cannot change your mind halfway. Painting…

Protest in Art
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Protest in Art

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Poster for the Suffragette movement. Mary Lowndes (1909). Published by Brighton and Hove Women’s Franchise. Artists’ Suffrage League. Photo: Public Domain Wikimedia Commons By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout If an individual stands up to bullies or resists violence, it is called personal courage. When a group does it, it is often called a…

Food for the Soul: Isabella Stewart Gardner – Women & Art Series 14
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Food for the Soul: Isabella Stewart Gardner – Women & Art Series 14

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By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout March 18, 1990 was the St. Patrick’s Day holiday in Boston. The streets were full of revelers, and the police had their hands full with traffic control. Two mustachioed policemen who knocked on the doors of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum on Fenway Street were readily admitted by…

Food for the Soul: Academy Museum of Motion Pictures
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Food for the Soul: Academy Museum of Motion Pictures

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Aerial shot of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. ©Academy Museum Foundation By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout It took years of false starts, changes of leadership, delayed construction, and other birthing pains, but it is finally here—a museum devoted to the craft, art, and history of moviemaking. The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures…

Food for the Soul: Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney – Women & Art Series 13
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Food for the Soul: Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney – Women & Art Series 13

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Robert Henri. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, 1916. Oil on canvas. Whitney Museum of American Art. Photo: Wikimedia Commons By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout In a press release issued in 1930, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney announced that she was launching a museum of American art because “…not only can the visiting foreigner find no adequate presentation…

Food for the Soul: “The Morozov Collection: Icons of Modern Art” exhibition in Paris
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Food for the Soul: “The Morozov Collection: Icons of Modern Art” exhibition in Paris

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Valentin Serov. Portrait of the Collector of Modern Russian and French Paintings, Ivan Abramovich Morozov (1910). The State Tretiakov National Gallery, Moscow. © Tretiakov National Gallery, Moscow By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout Paris is still the art center of the world. This notion was reinforced this year by a unique and massive exhibition…

Food for the Soul – Georgia O’Keeffe: Women & Art Series 12
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Food for the Soul – Georgia O’Keeffe: Women & Art Series 12

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Georgia O’Keeffe. Pelvis with the distance, 1943. Oil on canvas. Indianapolis Museum of Art, Newfields, IN. © Indianapolis Museum of Art/Gift of Anne Marmon Greenleaf in memory of Caroline M. Fesler. Photo: Bridgeman Images © Georgia O’Keeffe Museum/Adagp, Paris, 2021, courtesy of Centre Pompidou “I’ll paint what I see – what the flower is to…

Food for the Soul: A Postcard from Paris
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Food for the Soul: A Postcard from Paris

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Damian Hirst. The Triumph of Death Blossom (2018). Private collection© Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved, DACS 2021. Photographed by Prudence Cuming Associates. Photo: Courtesy Fondation Cartier By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout September saw Parisians mostly spending their weekends out in the streets. Some of them (an estimated 17,000) were attending…

Food for the Soul – Discreet Charm of Kitchen Gardens
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Food for the Soul – Discreet Charm of Kitchen Gardens

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Gardeners (Les Jardiniers). Gustave Caillebotte. 1875-1877. Private collection. Photo: Wikimedia Commons Public Domain. By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout Until about the end of WWII, if you lived in a house or at least in a ground-floor apartment, chances were that you had some sort of kitchen garden space. If you were lucky enough…

Food for the Soul: Artists and the Moneychangers
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Food for the Soul: Artists and the Moneychangers

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Christ Driving Moneylenders from the Temple. Church of St. Aignan (1899). Chartres, France. Photo: Reinhardhauke Wikimedia Commons By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout If you need to impart important messages to people who cannot read, then your choices include talking to them directly or showing them pictures—preferably images rendered in long-lasting materials such as…

Food for the Soul: Cerca Trova in Florence
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Food for the Soul: Cerca Trova in Florence

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Florence cathedral. Photo: Nina Heyn By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout In 1504, when Leonardo da Vinci was mostly done with living in Florence, he accepted an important commission to decorate Palazzo Vecchio (which served as the meeting hall for the Florentine Grand Council) with a fresco depicting the historic Battle of Anghiari fought…

Food for the Soul: Magdalena Abakanowicz – Women & Art Series 11
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Food for the Soul: Magdalena Abakanowicz – Women & Art Series 11

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Magdalena Abakanowicz. Abakan Orange, 1971. Sisal. Jankilevitsch Collection. Photo: Marcin Koniak/Desa Unicum, Courtesy of National Museum Poznań By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout “Art does not solve problems but makes us aware of their existence. It opens our eyes to see and our brain to imagine.” ~ Magdalena Abakanowicz In 1962, a young woman…

Food for the Soul: Kraków, the City of Art
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Food for the Soul: Kraków, the City of Art

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Rembrandt. Landscape with the Good Samaritan (1638). The Princes Czartoryski Collection, National Museum, Kraków. Photo: Wikimedia Commons By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout Europe has many places that are a perfect combination of art and history. One city that possesses this ideal combination in spades, but is less visited than it deserves, is Kraków…

Food for the Soul – New York Big Five – MoMA
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Food for the Soul – New York Big Five – MoMA

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Marc Chagall. I and the Village (1911). MoMA. Photo: Wikimedia Commons By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the world’s largest contemporary and modern art assemblage, has been in the avant-garde of modern art collecting for almost a century. Founded in 1929 by three enterprising society…

Food for the Soul: New York Big Five – The Frick
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Food for the Soul: New York Big Five – The Frick

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Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres – Portrait de Comtesse D’Haussonville (1845). The Frick Collection, New York. Photo: ©The Frick Collection, Wikimedia Commons By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout So many people love the experience of visiting New York. I don’t. I’m overwhelmed by the stone jungle of office towers and the incessant noise of construction, police sirens,…

Food for the Soul: Barbara Hepworth – Women Artists Series 9
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Food for the Soul: Barbara Hepworth – Women Artists Series 9

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Barbara Hepworth. Sphere with Inner Form, 1963. Bronze. Barbara Hepworth Museum, St. Ives, UK. Photo: image (c)2003 Graham Rogers at Wikipedia Commons By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout Imagine that you are a mother of a four-year-old boy as well as newborn, underweight triplets. You are living in a damp, badly heated basement in…

Food for the Soul – Julie Mehretu – Women & Art Series 8
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Food for the Soul – Julie Mehretu – Women & Art Series 8

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Julie Mehretu. Stadia II (2004). Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburg; gift of Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn and Nicolas Rohatyn and A.W. Mellon Acquisition Endowment Fund 2004.50. Photo: Courtesy the Carnegie Museum via the Whitney. © Julie Mehretu By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout The joint exhibition of the Whitney Museum of American Art and Los…

Food for the Soul: Gustave Caillebotte – The Unappreciated Impressionist
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Food for the Soul: Gustave Caillebotte – The Unappreciated Impressionist

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Gustave Caillebotte. Paris Street, the Rainy Day (Rue de Paris, Temps du Pluie ), 1877. Oil on canvas. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL. Photo: Wikimedia Commons. Impressionism owes a huge debt to Gustave Caillebotte but hardly anyone today knows his name. By Nina Heyn- Your Culture Scout Musée D’Orsay is one of the most…

Food for the Soul: Calder-Picasso. Back to Museums Part 1
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Food for the Soul: Calder-Picasso. Back to Museums Part 1

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In the center: Alexander Calder. Untitled (mobile-1956) and Untitled (painting-1967). Calder Foundation New York. Photo: Installation view of “Calder-Picasso” at the de Young Museum, photography by Gary Sexton. © 2021 Calder Foundation New York/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Image provided courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. By Nina Heyn – Your…

Food for the Soul – Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun – Women Artists Series 7
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Food for the Soul – Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun – Women Artists Series 7

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Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun. Self-Portrait, 1791. Oil on canvas. National Trust, Ickworth House, UK. Photo: Wikimedia Commons By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout When we think of the French upper classes just before the French Revolution, what comes to mind are those impossible panniered gowns, powdered wigs, rouged cheeks, and ostrich feathers. Which is…

Food for the Soul: Olga Boznańska – Women Artists Series 6
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Food for the Soul: Olga Boznańska – Women Artists Series 6

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Olga Boznańska. Self-Portrait, 1908. Pastel, gouache on cardboard. National Museum, Warsaw. Photo: Wikimedia Commons By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout Even casual museumgoers are familiar with such female artists as Georgia O’Keeffe or Mary Cassatt—celebrated painters whose art is prominently displayed in major Western galleries. Fewer art lovers are familiar with someone like Olga…

Food for the Soul: Awards Season – Documentaries
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Food for the Soul: Awards Season – Documentaries

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Photo credit: jovaughn-stephens/Unsplash photo By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout It’s a sign of the times that documentaries now seem to be more interesting than features. While some feature movies this year focus on exceptional situations (such as the last man on Earth’s travels to a polar station, or a moment in history from…

Food for the Soul: New Movies…Not in Cinemas…
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Food for the Soul: New Movies…Not in Cinemas…

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By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout The 2021 Academy Awards have been moved two months later than usual to April 25, extending the entire awards season to eight long months. Movies are eligible for the 2021 Oscars—as well as numerous other awards (some critics’ organizations, BAFTAs, Golden Globes, etc.)—if released between January 1, 2020…

Food for the Soul: Coin Art
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Food for the Soul: Coin Art

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By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout Even though practically every major ruler in world history has issued some coinage, just a handful of currencies have gone on to become international standards—used for a long time and widely traded. These include the drachmas of ancient Greece, the Roman Empire’s denari, and a coin called the…

Food for the Soul: Hilma af Klint, the first abstractionist. Women Artists Series 5
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Food for the Soul: Hilma af Klint, the first abstractionist. Women Artists Series 5

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Hilma af Klint. Self-Portrait, date of painting unknown. Oil on canvas. Hilma af Klint Foundation. Photo: Wikimedia Commons By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout The fact that painter Hilma af Klint has been unknown in the history of modern art is not that surprising. That even now she remains unknown is a bit more…

Food for the Soul- Women at Work, Part V – Princesses and Servants
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Food for the Soul- Women at Work, Part V – Princesses and Servants

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Book of the City of Ladies. Christine de Pizan (c. 1405). Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. Photo: Wikimedia Commons By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout We do not know who illustrated the Book of the City of Ladies, but we know the author: Christine de Pizan (or de Pisan). This miniature portrays her as…

Food for the Soul: Women at Work- IV – The Toil
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Food for the Soul: Women at Work- IV – The Toil

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Jewish Woman with Oranges. Alexander Gierymski (1881). National Museum Warsaw. Photo: Wikimedia Commons By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout There is nothing attractive about toil—this mind-numbing effort of farming or doing some menial, repetitive tasks—to the person who is doing it. It can however, be appealing to artists as a subject, especially if such…

Food for the Soul: Women at Work Part III – Out in the World
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Food for the Soul: Women at Work Part III – Out in the World

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Land Girls Hoeing. Manly Edward MacDonald (1918-19). Canada War Museum. Photo: Wikimedia Commons By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout Women have not always been stuck at home just sewing and running households. They have also been out in the fields as farmers or trading in the markets as merchants. Industrialization brought women into cities,…

Food for the Soul: Women at Work Part II – At Home
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Food for the Soul: Women at Work Part II – At Home

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Part A Young Woman Sewing. Nicolaes Maes (1655). Harold Samuel Collection, © City of London Corporation, London. Photo: Wikimedia Commons By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout This is the second part in our series on women at work—this time captured in their most accessible milieu—working at home. The tasks depicted may be some of…

Food for the Soul – Women at Work Part I – Masterpieces
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Food for the Soul – Women at Work Part I – Masterpieces

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Birth of the Virgin. Domenico Ghirlandaio (1479-85). Santa Maria Novella, Florence. Photo: Wikimedia Commons Public Domain By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout The majority of figures in paintings, especially those created before the 20th century, are male. The paintings show men heroically fighting or representing religious or mythological figures, men hunting, or men suffering…

Food for the Soul: Good and Bad Government
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Food for the Soul: Good and Bad Government

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Effects of Good Government in the City. Ambrogio Lorenzetti (1339). Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, Italy. Photo: Wikimedia Commons Public Domain By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout The United States is preparing for the November 3rd presidential election amid the most polarized debate in living memory about what is right and wrong and what kind of…

Food For the Soul: Artists Gardens
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Food For the Soul: Artists Gardens

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Strange Garden (Dziwny Ogród). Józef Mehoffer (1903). National Museum, Warsaw. Photo: Public Domain Wikimedia Commons. By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout There are very few advantages of a global lockdown other than decreased pollution, but perhaps one of them is our renewed appreciation of gardens. A lot of us have favorite gardens. It might…

Food for the Soul: Lost Masterpieces. Part 1: Destroyed
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Food for the Soul: Lost Masterpieces. Part 1: Destroyed

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The Stonebreakers. Gustave Courbet (1849). Dresden Gemäldegallerie. Destroyed in 1945 during an air raid. Photo: Public Domain Wikimedia Commons By Nina Heyn – Your Culture Scout Art gets lost, stolen, or destroyed all the time. Thousands of works have been destroyed by fires and wars or simply by someone changing their mind, like Rockefeller being…