sutton040

By the time you read this, the exhibition Rodin and the Art of Ancient Greece, at the British Museum, will be over but I caught it in its last week. What three sculptures of Rodin would you expect to see in such an exhibition? The Kiss? The Thinker? The Burghers of Calais? Well, you would have been right. They were all there in some form or another. The Kiss was a plaster copy of the marble sculpture in Paris. What is - or isn't - Greek, or classical about this? Well, for a start, it is much more intimate and personal than anything from the ancient world. It is Romantic in the History of Art sense but not the popular one. It scandalised its first viewers as a work of erotica, because the female figure is as involved in the embrace as the male. Also in the original, the male is aroused. It was intended as a portrait of Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Maltesta, her brother-in-law, immortalised by Dante in his Inferno, Canto 5. But their lips haven't actually touched - it is a case ...

To win a copy of L J MacWhirter's Black Snow Falling , just answer the question below in the Comments section. Then copy your answer to maryhoffman@maryhoffman.co.uk so that I can contact you for your land address if you win. "Which book would you most miss if you had no access to it? " Closing date: 7th August We are sorry that our competitions are open to UK Followers only Good luck!

Typical. I started writing this article a couple of days ago, at 5.30am after yet another sticky, close night. In the end I gave up trying to sleep and decided to do something useful instead. It is now Sunday morning and the weather is cool and grey and rainy, making this one of the most poorly timed blog posts ever. But all is not lost. According to my phone, the heat is coming back. So, for those of you who love a heatwave - and those like me who just want it to be 20 degrees and cloudy LIKE NORMAL FOR JULY IN BRITAIN - here’s a quick overview of a few ways people have kept cool through history. At the end I’ll pick my favourite to go into this month’s Cabinet of Curiosities. 1. Caves. Ok, so they won’t fit into my cabinet, but many caves are Nice Cool Places. On holiday in Sicily this year, this was brought home to me in two different ways. The first was that my bedroom in our rented villa was one! It was by far the coolest (in both sense of the word) room in the house and despite ...

Author photo by Kate Gren L.J. MacWhirter was born just outside London, grew up in the North of England and today lives in Edinburgh with her husband and family. After studying English Literature, Liz went on to become an award-winning copywriter. Black Snow Falling is her début novel for young adults and up. It draws on her fascination with the inner workings of minds and mechanical machines, and how people can be controlled by cultural dynamics. Black Snow Falling launches on 1 August 2018 and is nominated for the First Book Award at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. www.ljmacwhirter.com Facebook @LJMacWhirter Twitter and Instagram @LizMacWhirter Without libraries, I doubt I’d have written my début novel for young adults, Black Snow Falling . I doubt I’d even be a writer. I spent my childhood with my nose in books, many from our local library in Bramhall. When I had the idea for this novel, I burrowed into the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh. Yellow request s...

This summer we travelled around Scotland with American friends, touring through the Highlands via the Pass of Glencoe, where our tour guide told us all about the famous massacre.   I’d known about it before, but somehow travelling through that bleak, beautiful countryside whilst hearing what had happened in 1692 brought home the stark horror of the event. The Pass of Glencoe A 19th century depiction of the site of the massacre. As ever, it was religion that caused the problem.   In England William and Mary, staunch Protestants, were on the throne. William and Mary They  had heard that many of the Highland clans were equally staunch Catholics who called themselves Jacobites because they were still hoping for the return of the Catholic King James VII who was still living in exile in France.   James VII Fear of a French invasion in support of the deposed king led the Government to make payments to the Highland clan chiefs in return for their allegiance to William and Ma...

Warning: This blog is much longer than usual, but it reviews a fascinating book.           Why does the human race - supposedly intelligent - keep fighting wars, despite all that can be said against the habit?           Why do empires, such as the Roman and the British, periodically rise and then fall or fade away?            Why do leaders such as Alexander, Napoleon and Hitler periodically arise to lead their people into war -- and why do the people willingly, even eagerly, follow them?           Why has Europe been, for centuries, a 'cockpit of war'? And revolution.            Can the EU prevent such 'Wars of Civilisation' in the future?           Why are so many vicious, murderous political gangs -- I could say 'IRA' or...

Every now and again I feel fortunate to stand face to face with a remarkable piece of history. Last week, while I was in Paris, I swung off Boulevard Saint-Michel and strode to the Panthéon where hangs a huge photographed image of Simone and Antoine Veil. They are backdropped by the European flag.  I stood alone. There were no tourists, no fellow citizens near me, aside from those passing by. I was able to steal that private moment to reflect upon the life of a truly remarkable women whose sorrows and battles seeded a vision and an energy that changed the fortunes of millions, most especially French women. The week previous I had sat in front of the television for two hours on a Sunday morning, 1st July, with my husband watching the entire ceremony, the  panthéonisation,  of Simone and her "beloved Antoine". The coffins containing the remains of the pair were being brought for burial to the Panthéon. It was a very hot morning and I applauded the members of the French nati...

   In the eighteenth century Italy was the centre of the art world. Young artists flocked to Rome, Venice and Florence and were dazzled by the achievements of past generations. It was widely believed that the great artists of the Renaissance knew a ‘secret’ that had been lost. How did Titian achieve his “divine” colours? Nobody knew but many artists became obsessed with the idea that if they could only discover this secret, which Titian supposedly got from the Greeks, they would outshine their rivals. Paintings by Giorgione and Titian like the one illustrated above, Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne (1523), had a luminosity and richness of colour that eluded living artists who continued to search for the ‘secret’, rather like medieval alchemists pursuing the formula for gold.    Joshua Reynolds used to buy up old masters (some of which were probably forgeries) in auctions and literally take them apart to see how they did it. Reynolds hid himself away from his pupils s...