Victorian People-Watching at the Beach

Today, our time machine is going for a pit-stop on a sunny, Victorian Era beach in Atlantic City, where the ponies are aplenty, and the bathing costumes make the women look like layer cakes. Sure, contemporary eyes may see a bunch of prudes, but for folks in the 1800s, showing off your bloomers at the…

Who were the Monets of Japan? The Impressionist Movement your Art History Class Forgot

What happens when a samurai puts down his sword, and picks up a paintbrush? In 1868, feudal Japan was steamrolled by a new decade known as the Meiji Restoration. Western influences flooded every crevice of the country’s social fabric, but arguably the most fascinating battle between “old” and “new” Japan took place on canvas. Suddenly,…

The Unexpected Relevance of Medieval Monsters

Monsters once lived at the heart of pop culture, albeit during what was arguably the weirdest time to be alive: the Middle Ages. In intrepid, faraway lands you’d find them: neckless men with their faces in their stomachs – known as “blemmyae” – or yet another being, known as a “panotti”, with ears big enough…

The Enchanted Cities Hiding Inside Theatres

For some lucky theatregoers, a trip to see the latest B-Movie at their local picture house also means a trip across space and time. It’s all thanks to the atmospheric movie palaces and theatres of the early 20th century, whose construction brought veritable mini-cities, from old Spanish streets to lost temples of Ancient Egypt, into…

Long-lost Erotica of a Pre-Freudian Sexologist

Forget Freud. Today, we’re snooping around the personal archives of Richard von Krafft-Ebing, a 19th century psychoanalyst and sexologist extraordinaire who history has often been forgotten despite his groundbreaking research in sexual pathology. His chef d’oeuvre is undoubtedly Psychopathia Sexualis, the book that made jaws drop across Europe in 1886 and the first-ever scientific study on sexual…

Who’s Afraid of Adolf Wölfli?

Some artists leave us tangled legacies– reputations tied up in creative theft, family feuds and unresolved estates. Others, like Adolf Wölfli, leave us a veritable Pandora’s Box for consideration. At a glance, Wölfli’s work oozes the sentiments of Psychedelic art; its kaleidoscopic swirls of colour look fresh off the Haight Ashbury, circa 1967. In truth,…

The Outlawed Secret Masonic Society of Pugs

There was one way only for Europe’s intellectual elite to become a member of what is probably history’s oddest Masonic societies: by puckering up to the rear end of a pug as an expression of total devotion. You read correctly; the mid-18th century was filled with pantaloon-clad ladies and gents lining up to become “Mops,” …

Drawing Boards for the Ballets Russes

Nineteenth century Russia was restless, and so was Léon Bakst. The young man belonged to a new generation of creatives, one ready to turn Realism on its head with one flick of a bejewelled, utterly fabulous wrist. Today, his name is “a byword for excitement, for colour and glamour” and a radical new approach to…

The Unexpected Elegance of Antique Salt Cellars

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: there is no better entertainment than watching the rich out-rich each other. Especially when all the standard bling has been bought, and folks start getting really creative – like, salt-shaker-bedazzling creative, which was the class act move for ye olde aristocrats in need of a stand…

A Brief Compendium of Crazy Kitsch Lighting

The Southern Belle. The Moon Beam. The Serenade. We’re not spitting romance novel titles, honey – we’re talking lamps. Kitschy, retro lamps. Lamps with names worthy of their painstakingly groovy macramé. Novelty TV lights in the shape of an elephant. Lamps made of yesteryear’s synthetics (ex. lucite, fiber glass, popcorn acrylic) and design gimmicks that…