‘a full dish of various kinds of fruits’
Watching the anger, frustration and despair in America, it is easy to feel overwhelmed and helpless. There is no easy resolution to these longstanding and entrenched difficulties – particularly when …
On being a hermit
Now that there is a plan to move from lockdown to re-engage with the world, I have to confess that I have really embraced my ‘inner hermit’. As I have …
‘A plague on both your houses’
Had we been alive in the early 17th century when the bubonic plague repeatedly struck London we would not have had the luxury of watching Netflix, having virtual zoom meetings …
Not the plague again …
In my inbox this week I received an email with the title ‘Get your public art pitch ready with $5k funding from Test Sites Online’. It appears that the City …
Cheers! (2)
A reminder that The Frick in New York is continuing its Friday evening ‘Cocktails with a Curator’ – this time the portrait of ‘Sir John Suckling’ by Antony van Dyck …
Art in the time of plague (1)
As we know from our current situation, crisis generates creativity, and this was certainly the case in the late 14th century when European artists responded to the devastation of the …
The helping professions
Today when a contagion appears we have a clear sense of aetiology, treatment, epidemiology and prevention. This was not the case in the Medieval period when the Black Death emerged. …
A tomb with a ‘view’
The chaos, uncertainty and devastation that came with the Black Death caused profound changes in the Medieval world. This is well-documented by contemporary writers and also reflected in art and …
Dealing with death
Every night we see televised images of bodies being taken from hospitals and stacked in refrigeration trucks before going to overwhelmed funeral parlours. Often people have died without their families …
‘Unprecedented’
It is unprecedented the number of times we hear the word ‘unprecedented’. It seems that ‘unprecedented’ things happen on a daily basis. Perhaps this is not surprising in the context …