Books
The Long Shadow of Artificial Darkness on Modern Culture
The emergence of artificial darkness in the 19th century, from the darkroom to the theater, radically influenced our experiences with art.
University of Chicago Press
Books
A 19th-Century Master of Light and Violence Reconsidered
In the spring of 1870, Paris had yellow fever. Not the disease, but the color, which spread as quickly as an epidemic among the most fashionable of the French capital. The cause was a gleaming painting named for the biblical John the Baptist-slayer "Salomé" on view at the annual state-sponsored Salo
Books
Reader’s Diary: Kristin Ross's 'May ’68 and Its Afterlives'
Some thought the Arab Spring could not have happened without social media. But the necessity makes the means and not vice versa. May ’68 didn’t need Facebook. They had transistor radios.
Books
Dave Hickey, Ladies’ Man and Feminist, Made a Book About Women Artists
Dave Hickey has had some ... trouble with women before.
Books
A Visual Essay Recalls the Latin Alphabet's Pictorial Past
The Latin alphabet's letter A can be traced back to an Egyptian hieroglyph of an ox head; the letter M is believed to have its origins in a hieroglyph representing water.
Art
A Bestiary for the Magnificently Wrong Monsters of Medieval Times
Beyond the borders of maps, where the limits of exploration fell to imagination, medieval artists and authors created monsters.
Books
The Nomadic Libraries Bringing Books to the Four Corners of the Globe
Arriving by camel in remote areas of Mongolia or on boat along the coast of Norway, contemporary libraries are often mobile, creative, and community-driven, and are adapting rather than fading with the rise of electronic books and decrease in budgets.