Renaissance or Dark Ages – How Do We Decide?

When Vasari described the Middle Ages as being in a ‘state of darkness,’ he reflected a confidence in his age that was rare in preceding centuries. Without entering into the snobbery of his claim – not only him, of course; Petrarch described the medieval era as being ‘surrounded by darkness’ – and the nobility of…

Bullfighting and the Revolt Against Self-Enslavement

In the last few weeks I have been re-learning how to love one of my earliest and most faithful of loves: Spain. Whenever a lecturer mentions a glimmer of Spanish art I get carried away into a fantasy world – I feel like a sixteen-year-old again. And now I have the opportunity to make myself…

Art as a Revelation of Human Nature

What is the currency, the ultimate goal of the art historian when he looks back at the art of the past? Is it simply to explain art, to engage with beauty, to come to a definition of beauty? I don’t think art history as a discipline has one unifying aim, but rather it is split…

The Destruction of Art

I have just finished watching Mary Beard’s new series Forbidden Art and my mind whirls with new insights into the nature and power of art. It’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about over the last few days. Yesterday, as I read for my Zuloaga assignment over a beer at a dive bar, I thought…

A Manifesto for Existential History

I feel the same wonder towards the Parthenon that a Catholic must feel for the Virgin. My atheistic sense of reason has not dulled my sense of the sublime. I seek it not in the supernatural but in the historic, in the artistic, in my fellow man.             During a lecture on Paleochristian art this…

The Reconversion of the Hagia Sophia

Heaven on Earth “And we went into the Greek lands, and we were led into a place where they serve their God, and we did not know where we were, on heaven or on earth; and do not know how to tell about this. All we know is that God lives there with people and…

Historical Impressions II

History as Religion In a secular age that is bereft of the overwhelming, sweeping influence of religion, a gap is left behind that needs filling. Whilst the overthrow of religion is a necessary evil for the sake of a liberal, scientific, democratic society, it nonetheless deprives us of a many numinous needs. And I’m not…

Historical Impressions

The Persian Wars “He asked, ‘Croesus, who told you to attack my land and meet me as an enemy instead of a friend?’ The King replied, ‘It was caused by your good fate and my bad fate. It was the fault of the Greek gods, who with their arrogance, encouraged me to march onto your…

Bonfire of the Vanities 2.0

On the Horrors of Cancel Culture, Past, Present and Future “Terror is nothing else than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible.”             Maximilien de Robespierre, author of The Terror in Revolutionary France, late 18th century. Is it just me or does the quote feel frighteningly relevant?             Terror in the name of justice. Prompt and severe, and,…

Misogyny Is Winning the Art War

This morning, like most people, I woke up with headlines of the news of Sarah Everard’s tragedy, which I don’t need to delve into as most of you already know the story.             What struck me most – apart from the obvious horrors of it – is the photograph that is doing the rounds (gone…