Category Archives: Arts & Literature

Arts & Literature, Culture, Homes, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Previews: Country Life Magazine- February 7, 2024

Leave a comment

Country Life Magazine – February 6, 2024: The latest features The Travel Issue – View the world from the very best hotels; The map-makers who broadened our horizons; Out of the ashes – Chillingham Castle rescued and Waxwing explosions and snowdrop heaven….

Travel

  • Richard MacKichan rides with the eagle hunters of Mongolia
  • Jo Rodgers asks what makes a good hotel great as we introduce Country Life’s inaugural list of the world’s top establishments
  • All the latest travel news and new openings with Rosie Paterson
  • Nigel Tisdall tails the elusive jaguar in Belize
  • Catherine Fairweather is on the strait and narrow in Istanbul
  • Richard MacKichan puts the fun back into flying
  • Pamela Goodman swims with pigs in the Caribbean

A castle of curiosities

The history of Chillingham Castle in Northumberland is a turbulent and memorable one, peppered with family disputes, imprisonments and a live toad. John Goodall explores

Windows on the world

The urge to chart our surroundings is centuries old. With map in hand, Matthew Dennison ventures forth in search of mammoth tusks and globes

Irruption of the waxwings

Mark Cocker marvels at the exquisite plumage of this European songbird as it flocks to our shores to feed on a glut of its favoured winter berries

Get down on your knees

James Alexander-Sinclair joins the wandering throng as snow-drop lovers descend on Thenford in Northamptonshire to luxuriate in 900 varieties of Galanthus

Joanna Jensen’s favourite painting

The founder of Childs Farm chooses a rural scene to sum up ‘a picture of my England’

Groundhog day

The shortest month can also feel like the longest, delaying the arrival of spring, but what can February tell us about the year ahead? Lia Leendertz reveals all

Thunderous waterfalls and torrents hoarse

From the most dramatic plumes to the calmest cascades, we seek out the corners of the kingdom where water and gravity collide to magical effect

The good stuff

Hetty Lintell says green for go with a selection of stylish and useful khaki travel accessories

Interiors

Sally Stephenson on the secrets of illuminating period houses and Amelia Thorpe’s lighting picks

London Life

  • Russell Higham on piazza plans for the Docklands
  • Carla Passino meets the man who shaped Mayfair
  • Martin Fone reveals the saga of ‘London’s Eiffel Tower’

Kitchen garden cook

Melanie Johnson harnesses the delicious flavours of rosemary

Arts & Literature, Culture, Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Reviews

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – Feb 12 & 19, 2024

Leave a comment
Pixelated Eustace Tilley magazine cover that appears and disappears.

The New Yorker (February 5, 2024): The new issue‘s cover features Nicholas Konrad’s “Online Profile” – The magazine celebrates its ninety-ninth anniversary..

How Nikola Jokić Became the World’s Best Basketball Player

Nikola Jokić holding a basketball during a game.

He doesn’t run very fast or jump very high, and seems to prefer the company of horses. But he has mastered the game’s new geometry like nobody else.

By Louisa Thomas

The Art World Before and After Thelma Golden

Thelma Golden photographed by Lyle Ashton Harris.

When Golden was a young curator in the nineties, her shows, centering Black artists, were unprecedented. Today, those artists are the stars of the art market.

By Calvin Tomkins

Baruch Spinoza and the Art of Thinking in Dangerous Times

A portrait of Baruch Spinoza by Franz Wulfhagen, 1664.

The philosopher was a champion of political and intellectual freedom, but he had no interest in being a martyr. Instead, he shows us how prudence and boldness can go hand in hand.

By Adam Kirsch

Arts & Literature, Classical Music, Music, Performing Arts, Videos

Classical Music: Tiffany Poon Plays Schumann

Video Leave a comment

DW Classical Music (February 4, 2024): Robert Schumann’s “Kinderszenen” (“Scenes from Childhood”) is one of the most popular piano works of the Romantic period. The highlight of the 13-part piano cycle is the “Träumerei” (Dreaming). The work is considered the epitome of romantic piano compositions.

New York pianist, Tiffany Poon, played Robert Schumann’s “Kinderszenen”, Op. 15 at the Dresden Music Festival 2023. The concert took place on June 17, 2023, at the Palais im Großen Garten.

Video timeline: (00:00) Coming on stage (00:21) 1. Von fremden Ländern und Menschen (Of Foreign Lands and Peoples) (02:02) 2. Kuriose Geschichte (A Curious Story) (03:07) 3. Hasche-Mann (Blind Man’s Buff) (03:39) 4. Bittendes Kind (Pleading Child) (04:39) 5. Glückes genug (Happy Enough) (05:17) 6. Wichtige Begebenheit (An Important Event) (06:09) 7. Träumerei (Dreaming) (08:51) 8. Am Kamin (At the Fireside) (09:47) 9. Schumann Ritter vom Steckenpferd (Knight of the Hobbyhorse) (10:32) 10. Fast zu ernst (Almost Too Serious) (12:40) 11. Fürchtenmachen (Frightening) (14:13) 12. Kind im Einschlummern (Child Falling Asleep) (16:16) 13. Der Dichter spricht (The Poet Speaks)

Robert Schumann’s “Kinderszenen” was composed in 1838 and published the following year without a dedication and with the misleading subtitle “Easy Pieces for the Pianoforte.” Unlike the “Album for the Young,” which Schumann had composed for “younger children” in his own words, he did not write the “Kinderszenen” for children, but for adults reflecting on their own childhood.

At first, the cycle was to be titled “Children’s Stories” and preceded or appended to the “Novelettes,” Op. 21. However, Schumann later refrained from doing so. He wanted to have the “Kinderszenen” published as a separate opus. Although the work was not very successful during the composer’s lifetime, it eventually evolved independently and was highly regarded. It had a significant influence on the Romantic program miniature for piano.

Arts & Literature, Books, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Books: Literary Review Magazine – February 2024

Leave a comment
Image

Literary Review – February 2, 2024: The latest issue features ‘We Are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt’s Lessons in Love and Disobedience’;

Anatomist of Evil

By STUART JEFFRIES

We Are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt’s Lessons in Love and Disobedience By Lyndsey Stonebridge

When Hannah Arendt looked at the man wearing an ill-fitting suit in the bulletproof dock inside a Jerusalem courtroom in 1961, she saw something different from everybody else. The prosecution, writes Lyndsey Stonebridge, ‘saw an ancient crime in modern garb, and portrayed Eichmann as the latest monster in the long history of anti-Semitism who had simply used novel methods to take hatred for Jews to a new level’. Arendt thought otherwise.

Sue Bridehead Revisited

By Norma Clarke

Hardy Women: Mother, Sisters, Wives, Muses By Paula Byrne

The title of Paula Byrne’s Hardy Women is a pun on Thomas Hardy’s name and a gesture to the enthusiasm that greeted Hardy’s fictional women. Bathsheba Everdene in Far from the Madding Crowd, Tess Durbeyfield in Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Sue Bridehead in Jude the Obscure were new kinds of women, and Hardy’s fame, which was immense and began with the publication of Far from the Madding Crowd, rested to a large extent on the heroines he created. One young reader wrote to him of Tess, ‘I wonder at your complete understanding of a woman’s soul.’ Hardy’s discontented wife Emma wondered at it too. She observed, ‘He understands only the women he invents – the others not at all.’

Art, Arts & Literature, Culture, Design, Photography, Reviews

Arts & Culture: Aesthetica Magazine-Feb/March 2024

Leave a comment

Image

Aesthetica Magazine (February 2, 2024) – The February/March 2024 issue features ‘Perception is Everything’. This issue recognises agents of change. Throughout history, art has influenced societies, challenged norms, questioned the status quo, raised awareness and prompted new perspectives.

The artists in this issue embody this notion. We speak with Tania Franco Klein about her distinct style, which is realised through cinematic photographs. She surveys present-day anxieties and effects of media overstimulation. Meanwhile, Cristóbal Ascencio’s work and research focuses on the relationship between images and memory. He looks at how experience can be appropriated between generations. Kaya & Blank is a photographic duo that explores the way that humans inhabit the world, pushing the boundaries of how reality is presented. Tara Donovan, featured in When Forms Come Alive, opening at the Hayward Gallery, London, this winter, is one of 21 artists in an exhibition that reclaims space in an increasingly digitised world. It spans 60 years of contemporary sculpture and shows works that trigger a physical response.

In photography we traverse continents with an extraordinary range of practitioners, including Derrick O. Boateng, Ibai Acevedo, Jonathan Knowles, Tom Hegen and Neil Burnell. Our cover duo, Tropico Photo, offers pop colours and urban cool. Finally, the Last Words go to Yannis Davy Guibinga.

Arts & Literature, Books, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

London Review Of Books – February 8, 2024 Preview

Leave a comment
Image

London Review of Books (LRB) – February 1, 2024: The latest issue features Origins of the Gay Novel; Protest, what is it good for?; Poems of Enheduana; Caspar David Friedrich, Israel’s War and more….

A Circular Motion

By James Butler

If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution 
by Vincent Bevins.

The Populist Moment: The Left after the Great Recession 
by Anton Jäger and Arthur Borriello.

Wreckage of Ellipses

By Anna Della Subin

Enheduana: The Complete Poems of the World’s First Author 
by Sophus Helle.

Arts & Literature, Books, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Arts/Books: Times Literary Supplement – Feb 2, 2024

Leave a comment

Times Literary Supplement (January 31 2024): The latest issue features ‘Back to Nature’ – The counterculture begins with Thoreau; Enlightenment dimmed; The secret state and the IRA; Homosexuality in early modern Europe and A family haunting….

Arts & Literature, Culture, Homes, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Previews: Country Life Magazine-January 31, 2024

Leave a comment
Image

Country Life Magazine – January 30, 2024: The latest issue features How British Rivers Got Their Name; Where to find a really wild man; Miniature collecting and more…

‘Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide’

From the Piddle and the Polly to the Yox and the Yeo, the meanings behind the namesof Britain’s rivers run deep, as Vicky Liddell discovers

Call of the wild

The protective, stick-wielding Wild Man that strides through much medieval art has taken on fresh meaning in recent times, reveals Susan Owens

Chainsaw gardening

Taking a blade to our gardens may seem drastic, but a severe pruning sometimes leaves plants and trees in better health, suggests Charles Quest-Ritson

There is wonder in the little things

Huon Mallalieu puts miniatures under the microscope and finds a world of small marvels celebrating power, loyalty and love

Allan Mallinson’s favourite painting

The military historian chooses a moving First World War scene

Murder most pitiful

John Goodall investigates the dramatic events that shaped the history of 18th-century Gilmerton House in Lothian

The devil makes work for idle hands

As dedicated craftspeople fashion a revival in the art of needlepoint, Matthew Dennison can see a pattern emerging

‘Full of a watchful intentness’

John Lewis-Stempel embraces the ‘faerie enchantment’ of the heath as he visits the inspiration for a classic Thomas Hardy novel

Interiors

Matthew Dennison celebrates the Soane chimneypiece that is still hot property after 200 years and Amelia Thorpe’s selections keep the home fires burning

Lord of the rings

Ben Lerwill meets Simon Turner, an arboreal artist who creates wonderful ceramics using the contours and curves of trees

Luxury

Hetty Lintell on high fashion in the Highlands, switching off the stress and astonishing rubies, plus some of McFly drummer Harry Judd’s favourite things

Kitchen garden cook

Melanie Johnson knows her onions, giving an understated kitchen staple a starring role

Ireland’s call

The well-oiled Ireland winning machine can repel France’s strength in depth to retain rugby’s Six Nations Championship, argues Owain Jones

And much more

Arts & Literature, Ethics, Magazines, Philosophy, Previews, Reviews

Preview: Philosophy Now Magazine February 2024

Leave a comment
Image

Philosophy Now Magazine (February/March 2024) – The new issue features ‘Irish Philosophy’ – Pure Philosophy, No Blarney; Steven Pinker – On Violence and Metaphors…

Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker is the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, and a popular writer on linguistics and evolutionary psychology. Angela Tan interviews him about politics, language, death, and reasons to be optimistic.

Thomas Duddy & Irish Philosophy

Tim Madigan travels through time to seek the essential nature of Irish thought.

Irish Philosophy & Me

Cathy Barry charts her journey through historical Irish thought.

Edmund Burke & the Politics of Reform

Jon Langford outlines conservative insights gained from revolutionary failures.

Philip Pettit & The Birth of Ethics

Peter Stone thinks about a thought experiment about how ethics evolved.

Art, Arts & Literature, Exhibitions, Magazines, Museums, Reviews

International Art: Apollo Magazine – February 2024

Leave a comment
Image

Apollo Magazine (January 29, 2024): The new February 2024 issue features ‘Giants of Indian Miniature Painting’; The Crisis in Italian Paintings and more…

• Holidaying with the Habsburgs

• An interview with Julie Mehretu

• The crisis in Italian museums

• Howard Hodgkin’s Indian miniatures

Plus: Slim pickings for foodies on Valentine’s Day, Parma’s monumental museum complex, and  – and reviews of Impressionists on paper, experimental art in the Eastern bloc, and Africa and Byzantium at the Met