Hilliard’s Burning Man
“The flames seemed to flicker and hiss”: who is burning in Nicholas Hilliard’s miniature, and why?
Read More“Her Writing Journey”
“She timed escape routes on two continents, planned arson, and scouted the perfect place to commit murder…”
Read MoreZabdiel Boylston, in my dreams
No portrait of Zabdiel Boylston survives, but this is how I like to imagine him…
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…
Read MoreSmallpox: the “Speckled Monster”
Smallpox was a hideous disease that made its victims unrecognizably monstrous, and many died in agony. The terror it fueled was intense…
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About My Blog
Occasional musings about stories, history, art, ideas, and the adventures of a writer's life...
