Academic disciplines such as mathematics can contribute through community-led partnerships with Indigenous peoples. Public universities across Canada are committed to addressing the calls to action included in the final report by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC). There is a general expectation that academic institutions and faculty members across the country will contribute to this[…]
Rugendas up the challenging mission of drawing and conveying the New World to Europe. A significant weakness of commonplace records of the first four centuries of Brazil’s history is that they do not capture the wide range of interactions between humans and nonhuman animals, nor recognize them as an essential element in the formation of[…]
Keith C. Heidorn takes a look at the life and work of Wilson Bentley, a self-educated farmer from a small American town who, by combining a bellows camera with a microscope, managed to photograph the dizzyingly intricate and diverse structures of the snow crystal. By Dr. Keith C. HeidornClimatologist This article, The Snowflake Man of[…]
On the night before Christmas Eve in 1888 — a cold Sunday evening in the French city of Arles — Vincent Van Gogh took the razor he kept on his small dressing table and slashed off his left earlobe. By Dr. Donna YaminiSessional Lecturer in History and ArtUniversity of Reading No historians or biographers can[…]
Books had the practical aim of helping children to learn to read, count, and understand the world around them. Stories about animals have always been a staple of children’s literature. At first, such books were not particularly concerned with entertainment, but had the practical aim of helping children to learn to read, count and understand[…]
Examining the role of animals in Thai manuscript art. Illustrations of real and mythical animals play an important role in Thai manuscript art, especially in Buddhist folding books and in animal treatises, but also in manuscripts related to astrology, divination and fortune telling. The belief that certain animals have super-natural powers is well reflected through[…]
Seljuk art and architecture is a fusion of Persian, Islamic, and Central Asian (Turkic) elements. By Dr. Fatema AlSulaitiExpert in Islamic Archaeology Under the Seljuk rule, Persia gained a period of economic and cultural prosperity. The innovative techniques of the Seljuk period and style in architecture and the arts had a strong influence on later[…]
Analyzing classical religious influences on the work of Ehab Mamdouh. Abstract This paper focuses on the work of Egyptian Islamic contemporary artist Ehab Mamdouh who grew up in Saudi Arabia, then moved to Cairo, where he was exposed to religious, historical concepts and art forms, then came back to work in Saudi Arabia to observe[…]
Historians have often neglected tattoos as a source, as artifacts that shed light upon society. In Christopher Nolan’s film “Memento,” the main character, Leonard Shelby, suffers from amnesia. To trigger his memories—both real and imagined—he uses a jarring mnemonic device: tattoos, webbed across his body, reminding him of his mission of revenge. Outside the movie[…]
The All-T’oqapu Tunic is an example of the height of Andean textile fabrication and its centrality to Inka expressions of power. Introduction The Inka were masters of statecraft, forging an empire that at its height extended from modern Quito, Ecuador to Santiago, Chile. One of the engines that drove the empire was the exchange of[…]
Despite the textile’s small size, it contains a vast amount of information about the people who lived in ancient Peru. By Lois Martin Mummy Bundles One of the most extraordinary masterpieces of the pre-Columbian Americas is a nearly 2,000-year-old cloth from the South Coast of Peru, which has been in the collection of the Brooklyn[…]
Analyzing how three maps of Barbados promoted a flattering image of British colonialism in the Caribbean. To any nation pursuing the creation of a New World empire during the early modern period, maps indisputably held great importance. Together with other products of the geographic trade, they provided a fundamental means to construct and disseminate among[…]
Waterhouse’s images of Circe, sirens and sorceresses raise a number of questions. By Michelle Bonollo Mr Waterhouse selected for illustration the well-known passage in the twelfth book of the ‘Odyssey’ of Homer, in which the poet has described the passage of the wanderer’s vessel through the Strait of Messina, with Scylla on the one side[…]
In ‘Peasant and Nestrobber’, Bruegel was engaged with the troubles of his time. Abstract Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Peasant and Nestrobber (1568) remains one of his most challenging paintings. By the time of its creation Bruegel had already innovated by treating ordinary people as subjects suitable for the attention of a serious painter. In this[…]
Lynes was a highly sought-after commercial and fashion photographer in the 1930s and 1940s. But he had to keep his most important body of work hidden away. From the late 1920s until his death in 1955, George Platt Lynes was one of the world’s most successful commercial and fine art photographers. His work was included[…]
Herod created architecture that implemented Roman technology, designs, and styles, while co-mingling them with his existing Hellenistic style of architecture. Abstract After supporting Marc Antony in the Battle of Actium (31 B.C.), King Herod, fearful of losing his power, went to Rome, apologized to Augustus and assured him that he was his biggest supporter. Augustus,[…]
It began with an image – the first on the White House Photography Office’s 4,527th roll of film for the Ford administration. He snaps a photograph of President Gerald Ford, who leans back in a tall Cabinet Room chair, smoking a pipe and listening intently to CIA Director Colby. The image is the first on[…]
This network of FSA camps—the series of communities designed to be occupied and left on a seasonal basis—served the basic needs of their temporary residents. I still don’t know where I’ll be staying tonight. But I’ve accomplished the few tasks I needed to get done by this evening. I have a rental car that is[…]
Exploring how topography was deployed as an instrument of French state formation in Louis Garneray’s Vues des Côtes de France. While the phrase ‘topographical images’ often calls to mind lush green landscapes, this article addresses a less familiar but very pertinent site of the topographic: ports. Specifically, Louis Garneray’s depiction of the ports of France in[…]
Examining Korean architecture from the Neolithic period to the modern world. Introduction The early stages of Korean architecture date to the Neolithic period; archaeological evidence of ondol, the unique Korean floor panel heating system, was found among the remains of the burnished plain pottery culture. For the first century B.C.E., Korean architecture was influenced by the Chinese. After[…]
The story of a cave, a man, and a girl he abducted for marriage. By Dr. Osama Shukir Muhammed AminAssociate Professor of NeurologyShorsh Military General Teaching Hospital O Creator of the material world, at what distance from the holy man (should the place for the dead body be)?” Ahura Mazda replied: “Three paces from the[…]
The Yuanmingyuan was a paradise on earth for the Qing emperors. Introduction The Garden of Perfect Brightness—Yuanmingyuan (圓明園)—is the name of one of China’s most iconic monuments and tourist destinations. Its importance, more to Chinese than to foreign visitors, lies in the fact that it was an imperial palace and garden that was almost completely[…]
The End of History is proclaimed anew by each new generation and each new culture. Mesopotamia, Circa 2000 BCE Orphans of Ur O my flooded, washed awayBrickwork of Ur!My good house, my city,you who have been piled in heaps,As I lay myself down with youin a breach in your good ravaged house,I shall, like a fallen oxnever[…]
The fact that hunter–gatherer peoples could organize the construction of such a complex site as far back as the 10th or 11th millennium BC poses a serious challenge to the conventional view of the rise of civilization. Introduction Located in modern Turkey, Göbekli Tepe is one of the most important archaeological sites in the world. The[…]
Thousands of images from the Pierre de Gigord Collection are now accessible online. By Isotta PoggiAcquisitions and Exhibitions of PhotographsGetty Institute In the 1980s the French collector Pierre de Gigord traveled to Turkey and collected thousands of Ottoman-era photographs in a variety of media and formats. The resulting Pierre de Gigord Collection is now housed in[…]
“Anthony: What Is the Point of All This? The Devil: There Is No Point!”, by Odilon Redon from his “The Temptation of Saint Anthony” series – Wikimedia Commons Gustave Flaubert, best known for his masterpiece Madame Bovary, spent nearly thirty years working on a surreal and largely ‘unreadable’ retelling of the temptation of Saint Anthony. Colin Dickey[…]
Examining how issues of representation and aesthetics impacted the environmental history of early modern Europe. Early modern interaction with water, be it through coastal flooding, stranded sea-life, or trial by ordeal, was one of the totemic means of decoding and countering divine power. Water was woven into the fabric of cultural life: it was an active[…]
Introduction Art, literature, and architecture are forms of expression. These forms of expression often communicate what is happening during certain periods in time. Have you ever heard the word Renaissance? The word Renaissance means“rebirth” and comes from both the French and Latin languages. This word Renaissance describes a cultural movement that began in what is[…]
The first law differentiating the rights within nobility was enacted by the national assembly, the diet of Wladislaus II, in 1498. By Ádám Novák (left) and Balázs Antal Bacsa (right) / 10.22.2018PhD Students of Political HistoryUniversity of Debrecen Abstract One might perceive the Middle Ages as an era of certain rights and privileges.Social stratification or the[…]
Unlike the Western dragon of Europe that is representative of evil, the many eastern versions of the dragon are powerful spiritual symbol. Curated/Reviewed by Matthew A. McIntoshPublic HistorianBrewminate Introduction The Chinese dragon (spelled Long,Loong, or Lung in transliteration), is a Chinese mythical creature that also appears in other East Asian cultures, and thus is also sometimes called the Oriental (or Eastern) dragon. Unlike the[…]