Hilliard’s Burning Man
“The flames seemed to flicker and hiss”: who is burning in Nicholas Hilliard’s miniature, and why?
Read MoreElizabeth I: the “Sieve” Portrait
“A face capable of both greatness and cruelty”: Queen Elizabeth I at 46
Read MoreShakespeare’s Faces
Everyone knows Shakespeare’s iconic portrait from the First Folio (1623), but I’ve never much liked it. There are others…
Read MoreLady Mary: Beauty and Brutality
Richardson’s 1726 portrait of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in her Turkish robes hides her smallpox scars but paints in slavery…
Read MoreThe Turkish Bath by Ingres
Ingres’s painting of luxuriant nudity began as an awareness of absence. As a young man, the painter read Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s dream of unscarred skin…
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About My Blog
Occasional musings about stories, history, art, ideas, and the adventures of a writer's life...
