Forget Count Dracula, Meet History’s Most Prolific Female Serial Killer

Every year, nearly a million people flock to Romania’s famous Bran Castle, a medieval fortress in Transylvania often referred to as the home of Dracula. Us mere mortals have a morbid fascination with the seductively taboo tales of vampires from deepest Transylvania and the immortal be-fanged and be-cloaked Count Dracula – but what of the Countess Dracula?…

There was No Business like Show Business in Ye Olde English Royal Court

With the lights of Broadway and the West End lit once again, live theatre fans are dazzled anew by crashing chandeliers, green-skinned witches and rapping revolutionaries. But for all their glitter and grandeur, no modern musical can approach the absolute spectacle of the royal costume parties that played out on stage during the English Renaissance.…

Postcards from the Last Windmill in Paris

In the dappled light coming through the trees, a jovial bohemian crowd have gathered to dance and dally at the Moulin de la Galette, one of the many windmills that originally stood at the northern tip of Paris. By the time Renoir’s famous painting had captured the scene in 1876, the unlikely venue was already…

A Brief Exploration of Male Objectification Through The Ages

‘Objectification’ simply doesn’t sit well with our emancipated, liberal 21st century selves; in its simplest form it suggests the degrading of someone to the status of a mere object. Throughout history, the objectification of women, going hand in hand with gender discrimination, body dysmorphic disorders and sexual violence, is a familiar problem we know all…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. DLXXIII)

1. Take a peek around this Georgian style home for sale “The Hargrove Bellamy House is a prominent Market Street mansion in the heart of historic Wilmington with an impressive historic pedigree. Built in 1928, by Hargrove Bellamy, a descendant of Wilmington’s famed Bellamy family, this mansion quality residence is the unique marriage of romance…

Renoir’s Art Model Was the Greatest Painter You Never Heard Of

Name a post-Impressionist woman painter and most people would draw a blank. Or they would cast their mind back to Mary Cassat or Berthe Morisot and their pastel domestic scenes. Few know of Suzanne Valadon, who shocked the turn-of-the-century art world with her boldly outlined nudes. A circus performer, single teenage mother, and art model…

A Brief Compendium of Mesmerising and Macabre Memento Mori

We often try to avoid death. Sweep it under the rug, pretend it doesn’t exist and live in comfortable denial. But we weren’t always this way. In fact, many past societies have been completely obsessed with death, as seen in their art, literature, and philosophy. It can all be examined through a study of one…

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Autumn & Winter in Paris Inspiration & Events Guide 2021

The air is getting colder, the kids are back in school, and the sidewalks are strewn with leaves. It’s autumn in Paris, and we’re back with our seasonal guide! So whether you live in Paris or will just be passing through, read on for our recommendations of what do do, eat, and see as we…

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Meet the Trendsetting Mystics that gave The Beatles their Psychedelic Style

The Fool left its mark all over the 1960s, but few can match the name to the art today. The Dutch collective of artists and designers who named themselves after a Tarot card that’s often numbered as zero in the deck – as in the first – were unquestionable pioneers of the psychedelic aesthetic that defined…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. DLXXII)

1. A Live-In Museum/ Gallery Space in Provence for Sale Situated in the heart of beautiful Bonnieux Village in the Luberon region, asking 420,000 euros. More details found on Espaces Atypiques. 2. England’s oldest inn, Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem (dating to 1189) Nottingham, England was once described as a “Place of Caves” and indeed,…