I do like the music of Christmas. Christmas carols and songs can be beautiful, funny, catchy and an enjoyable soundtrack to the season. (There are exceptions to this, of course – Rudolph and Frosty, I’m looking at you.) It can be interesting to know just how far back some Christmas carols go. So, I have…
Michelangelo Merisi de Caravaggio was an artist of the Baroque period. He was a revolutionary painter and is considered to be a pioneer of the Baroque style. His realistic style created a name for him in the art world, using ‘tenebrism’ (extreme contrast between light and dark) to highlight in his paintings where he wanted…
Claude Monet (1840-1926) was one of the founders of Impressionism, a type of painting founded on the idea of painting nature as it was perceived, especially outdoor painting (en plein air). He would often paint multiple pictures of the same scene, at different times of the day and at different seasons, in order to capture…
Van Gogh was a Dutch painter. His parents were very disapproving of his becoming an artist and he survived by the financial support given him by his brother Theo. He studied art, firstly in Netherlands and later in Belgium, before he finally headed to France. He met many of the Impressionist painters in France, and…
MC Escher (1898-1972) was a Dutch artist, who made mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints. Many traditional art critics find his work ‘too intellectual’. I love his work because it’s endlessly interesting, and I sometimes think that critics have a somewhat narrow view of what can define art. He makes use of mathematical constructs, geometrical…
It would be hard, I think, to find someone who doesn’t enjoy music. It does seem to be a universal human pastime. Tastes in music, of course, can vary widely, and people will often enjoy the sound of some instruments more than others. For me, it’s the cello. Also known as the violoncello, it has…
Even if you’re not a person of faith, there is nothing like attending a church and looking at stained glass windows. While they do vary in artistry, at their best they can be truly breathtaking. I was curious to look into the history of this art form. It’s believed that the technique of staining glass…
‘Memento mori’ is Latin for ‘Remember death’ (or ‘remember that you will die’), and refers to a medieval Christian practice of contemplating one’s own mortality. Cheerful, indeed. The idea was that you were supposed to remember that earthly riches and pleasures were fleeting and time on earth was short, so the pious person should devote…
My local art gallery is currently hosting the most wonderful exhibition, of Impressionist art on loan from the Musee d’Orsay in Paris. Last week I went to see it, and i spent a couple of hours lost in appreciation of over 65 works of exquisite beauty. Impressionism is a 19th-century art movement characterised by…
Eclectic Assemblage 