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The Cultural Tutor

@culturaltutor

Dec 6

Why are cities all around the world starting to look the same?

This might not be going where you think.

Because, for centuries, the forces of technology, religion, colonialism, economics, style, and practicality have conspired to create regional, continental, and even global homogenous styles.

Two thousand years ago the Romans were at it:

And in Medieval Europe Gothic architecture was absolutely dominant in the construction of churches and cathedrals.

There was plenty of regional variation across the continent but, broadly speaking, they were part of a unified architectural style:

Read 20 tweets

The Cultural Tutor

@culturaltutor

Dec 5

There's a lot of writing advice online.

But here's some of the best you'll ever find, given by one of the greatest writers of all.

First published in 1946 and still razor sharp, these are George Orwell's Six Rules for Writing:

Although he's most famous for 1984, George Orwell was much more than just a novelist.

He was also the greatest English essayist of the 20th century.

Animal Farm and 1984 are good - great, even - but it's his journalism where Orwell truly comes alive.

He wrote with a profound clarity of voice which has stood the test of time. Nearly eighty years after his death, Orwell's words still ring true.

Here's what he considered to be the problem with writing in his own time: using the words of *other people*.

Has anything changed?

Read 25 tweets

The Cultural Tutor

@culturaltutor

Dec 3

What the hell is so good about William Shakespeare, anyway?

Here's one thing: how he used the way words sound (and not just what they mean) to manipulate our emotions and regulate our attention.

An old poetic skill called prosody...

So, some terminology.

The iamb: an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (da-DUM). This pair of syllables can be in a single word or spread across two.

You'll notice that iambs really fly off the tongue.

(From She Walks in Beauty by Lord Byron)

Shakespeare mostly used iambic pentameter in his plays.

Penta = five. Hence, in lines of five iambs.

You can see how rhythmic complexity is building; each iamb is one part of a larger structure.

From Much Ado About Nothing:

Read 13 tweets

The Cultural Tutor

@culturaltutor

Dec 2

One painting from every year of the 17th century, from China to India and Italy to Mexico and everywhere in between, in chronological order.

1601: The Calling of Saint Matthew by Caravaggio

1/100

1602: River View with Rocks by Paul Bril

2/100

1603: Flowers with Two Lizards by Roelant Savery

3/100

Read 100 tweets

The Cultural Tutor

@culturaltutor

Dec 1

Language isn't just made up of letters and sounds - it's a living story of human history.

The words you use every day are hundreds or even thousands of years old, and come from the most surprising of places.

So here are 12 common words whose origins tell fascinating stories...

1. "Left Wing" and "Right Wing"

Two words, technically, or even four. They are used every day, all over the world, to describe political alignments.

But their initial meaning was literal rather than ideological, and comes from the French Revolution in 1789...

The king had been overthrown, but in the early days of the republic his supporters were still around.

In the National Assembly the supporters of monarchy sat to the *right* of the President, and the revolutionaries on his *left*.

After which their respective connotations arose.

Read 25 tweets

The Cultural Tutor

@culturaltutor

Nov 30

When people talk about "Gothic architecture" we tend to think of cathedrals and churches.

But the Middle Ages were also full of beautiful town halls, universities, hospitals, and bridges.

So here is a journey through the world of secular Gothic architecture...

The word "Gothic" wasn't how people during the Middle Ages referred to their buildings.

It was Renaissance scholars who, with their interest in the architecture of Antiquity, called the Medieval style "Gothic" as a pejorative reference to the Goths who had sacked Rome:

Even "Middle Ages" is a strange term, defining Europe from 500-1500 as existing between the classical world and its revival during the Renaissance, like a centuries-long, unenlightened mistake.

Perhaps secular Gothic buildings can tell a different story...

Read 23 tweets

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