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Meet the ancestors in medieval who's who of Scotland - Scotsman.com Heritage & Culture
The project focuses on the 12th and 13th centuries as this is the period when 'Scotland' and 'Scots' first began to mean what it does today. By the end of this period it seems to have been taken for granted by the king's subjects that the kingdom consisted of a single country whose inhabitants were a single people. But this contrasts with the be-ginning of this period when the king was thought of as ruling a number of regions and peoples.
400 years after his death, Caravaggio work is found - News, Art - The Independent
Art experts in Rome are analysing what they believe is a previously unknown painting by the Italian Baroque master Caravaggio.
As his homeland marked the 400th anniversary of his death this weekend, the Vatican's official newspaper L'Osservatore Romano published the newly discovered work on its front page. Depicting the martyrdom of St Lawrence, it was found recently among the possessions of the Society of Jesuits in Rome. It shows a semi-naked young man, his mouth open in desperation with one arm stretched out as he leans over flames. If the suspected provenance is confirmed, it would be the first painting by the Baroque genius to emerge since The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew, which went on display two years ago.
"What is certain is that we're dealing with a stylistically impeccable, beautiful painting," said the art historian Lydia Salviucci Insolera. "Particularly notable is the light that leaps from the areas of darkness to reveal the surface volume in sudden flashes."
Caravaggio, born Michelangelo Merisi, is celebrated for his revolutionary use of contrasting light and dark -– chiaroscuro – which anticipated the work of later Baroque giants including Rembrandt and Velázquez.
The art historian cautioned that experts should be careful to avoid the trap of labelling it a Caravaggio "at all costs" at a time when interest in the revolutionary painter was at an all-time high, saying that further analysis and research would be needed.
Another Caravaggio expert, Maurizio Marini, was sceptical about the provenance of the painting in question, noting that St Lawrence, a martyr burned to death during Roman persecutions in 258AD, was not a known Caravaggio subject.
Apostle images from 4th century found under street in Italy | Science | The Guardian
A spotlight illuminates the icon of the apostle John discovered with other paintings in the St Tecla catacomb in Rome. Photograph: Pier Paolo Cito/AP
Archaeologists exploring a Christian catacomb under a residential Roman street have unearthed the earliest known images of the apostles Andrew and John.
Using a newly developed laser to burn away centuries of calcium deposits without damaging the paintings beneath, the team found the late 4th-century images in the richly decorated tomb of a Roman noblewoman.
"John's young face is familiar, but this is the most youthful portrayal of Andrew ever seen, very different from the old man with grey hair and wrinkles we know from medieval painting," said project leader Barbara Mazzei.
Discovered in the 1950s and as yet unseen by the public, the St Tecla catacomb is accessed through the unmarked basement door of a drab office building, beyond which dim corridors packed with burial spots wind off through damp tufa stone.
The catacomb is close to the basilica of St Paul's Outside the Walls, where bones discovered in a sarcophagus have been dated to the first or second century and attributed to St Paul.
Video: Leonora Carrington: Britain's lost surrealist | Art and design | guardian.co.uk
Leonora Carrington: Britain's lost surrealistLeonora Carrington escaped a stultifying Lancashire childhood to run off with Max Ernst and hang out with Picasso and André Breton in 1930s Paris. She fled the Nazis, escaped from a psychiatric hospital in Spain and became a national treasure in Mexico. What happened to one of Britain's finest - and neglected - surrealists?
Video: Leonora Carrington: Britain's lost surrealist | Art and design | guardian.co.uk
Leonora Carrington: Britain's lost surrealistLeonora Carrington escaped a stultifying Lancashire childhood to run off with Max Ernst and hang out with Picasso and André Breton in 1930s Paris. She fled the Nazis, escaped from a psychiatric hospital in Spain and became a national treasure in Mexico. What happened to one of Britain's finest - and neglected - surrealists?
High Art: Were Botticelli's Venus And Mars Stoned? : NPR
Gods On High ... Or Gods Are High? A curious piece of fruit in the bottom right-hand corner of Sandro Botticelli's Venus and Mars has caught the eye of art historian David Bellingham. He suspects that the 15th century master depicted the deities lounging with the hallucinogenic datura stramonium, also known as "poor man's acid." Get a closer look.
The New Review's Month in Photography | Art and design | The Observer
The monthly guide to the 20 best photographic exhibitions and books with photographs by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Philip-Lorca DiCorcia, Helen Levitt, Don McCullin, Man Ray, Sally Mann, Bruce Davidson, Ansel Adams and many more
The New Review's Month in Photography | Art and design | The Observer
The monthly guide to the 20 best photographic exhibitions and books with photographs by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Philip-Lorca DiCorcia, Helen Levitt, Don McCullin, Man Ray, Sally Mann, Bruce Davidson, Ansel Adams and many more
Click the play button to watch the slideshow; click on 'captions' for information on the photographs; pause and click on the links in the captions to be directed to relevant articles, galleries and websites
