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The Cultural Tutor

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Nov 11

The First World War ended 106 years ago today.

Here are some ways it has been remembered since, in art and architecture — beginning with this simple but moving memorial in Hungary...

It's almost impossible to understand the scale of the First World War, which lasted from 1914 to 1918, until you've seen the cemeteries that had to be created after it ended.

At the Douaumont Ossuary in France, for example, 146,000 soldiers are buried.

And so the former battlefields of France and Belgium are now home to an endless procession of memorials dedicated to the First World War, each attempting in their own way to commemorate, teach, and endure.

From the soaring spires of the Canadian National Vimy Memorial:

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The Cultural Tutor

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Nov 7

The Museum of Modern Art in New York opened 95 years ago today.

So, from Vincent van Gogh to Minecraft, here's a brief tour through MoMA...

New York's Museum of Modern Art — opened on 7th November 1929 — was founded by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Lillie P. Bliss, and Mary Quinn Sullivan.

First based in the Crown Building, MoMA changed location several times and quickly grew in scale, popularity, and influence.

In 1939 it finally moved to a purpose-built museum, which has been expanded and added to over the last nine decades.

MoMA now holds over 200,000 works of art, from the late 19th century through today, along with masses of other materials relating to art history and design.

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The Cultural Tutor

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Nov 5

A short history of purple:

The best place to begin is with the word itself.

The English word purple descends from the Latin "purpura", which also meant "purple-dyed" rather than just referring to the colour.

Purpura came from the older Greek word "porphyra", which had the same meaning.

Now, porphyra referred to a very specific purple dye produced by treating the secretions of a snail called the spiny dye-murex.

Thousands of these snails — which are only found in certain parts of the Mediterranean — had to be harvested to make even a small amount of this dye.

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The Cultural Tutor

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Oct 31

Some of the strangest and most frightening paintings ever made:

1. The Dog by Francisco Goya (1823)

2. Stormtroopers Advancing Under Gas by Otto Dix (1924)

The First World War was filled with horrors previously unknown, and few artists captured them more vividly than Otto Dix.

These, and his other portrayals of warfare in the trenches, are nightmarish.

3. The Heavy Basket by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, from The Thirty-Six Ghosts (1892)

A wonderfully strange, deeply unnerving example of yūrei-zu, a subgenre of Japanese art dedicated to depicting the ghosts and peculiar creatures of folklore.

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The Cultural Tutor

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Oct 29

555 years ago today Erasmus was born.

You've probably heard his name before — but who was Erasmus and why does he matter?

This is the story of history's greatest educator...

The first thing to know about Erasmus is that he was born in 1469 and died in 1536.

So his life coincided with one of the most turbulent and influential periods in history: the Renaissance, the Reformation, the rise of the printing press...

And Erasmus was involved in it all.

Erasmus was born in Gouda, the Netherlands, and by the age of 14 both his parents had died.

His guardians, who couldn't be bothered to raise the child themselves, sent him to a monastery.

In 1492 he was ordained as a priest, though books interested him much more than preaching.

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The Cultural Tutor

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Oct 24

This is Borobudur in Indonesia, one of the world's most important and mysterious buildings.

Why? Because it's the largest Buddhist temple ever built — and it was also abandoned for nearly one thousand years...

First, who built Borobudur?

It was constructed in the 9th century AD under the relatively mysterious Shailendra Dynasty, which ruled the island of Java at that time.

The Shailendras built dozens of Buddhist temples in central Java, and Borobudur was their grandest.

But the Shailendras left Java for Sumatra and by the 11th century Borobudur had fallen from use.

Thereafter it was covered by volcanic ash and consumed by the jungle.

Other than references to a mysterious temple hidden in the forests of Java, Borobudur disappeared from history.

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