Genius dissected – Rembrandt

Times
Fashions in morals, aesthetics, technologies and even media change, like all else. But from this standpoint at the start of the 21st century, as the National Gallery displays 60 Dutch portraits from 1600-1680, we can put forward a compelling claim that Rembrandt is the greatest painter since the Renaissance.
He is figurative, unheroic, republican, a democrat, [...]

Balkh, Afghanistan – Masjid-i No Gumbad (Noh Gumbad, Nuh Gunbad, Nu Gumbad)

Built in the first half of the ninth century, the No Gumbad Mosque (Nuh Gunbad) to the southwest of Balkh is one of the oldest known monuments of Islam. Its modern name, No Gumbad, refers to the nine vaults or domes that covered the original structure. These domes have since fallen, and the walls and [...]

Fascinating Narcissism – Leni Riefenstahl

The New York Review of Books
That Leni Riefenstahl was rather a monster is not really in dispute. And if it ever was, two new biographies provide enough information to nail her. Bad behavior began early. Steven Bach, in his excellent Leni, tells the story of Walter Lubovski, a Jewish boy in Berlin who fell madly [...]

Tomaso Albinoni – Adagio in G minor

(Karajan conducts the Berlin Philharmonic as they play the Adagio in G minor by Albinoni. Sorry no video, just audio.)
Tomaso Albinoni, a composer noted for his oboe concertos, was born (8 June 1671) and died (17 January 1751) in Venice. His father, Antonio, was a wealthy Venetian paper merchant, and Tomaso [...]

The new face of Nigerian literature?

BBC
For an impressionable seven-year-old daughter of a professor, living in Mr Achebe’s former house on the university campus in the south-eastern town of Nsukka must have had a profound effect on young Ms Adichie.
The campus features heavily in both of her highly acclaimed novels.
It was also the beginning of her walk in the footsteps [...]