Years ago I visited the Trevi Fountain in Rome, Italy. Built in the mid-1700s and located in the Piazza di Trevi square, it is a breathtaking structure bursting with history and glorious art. Like most tourists, I tossed a coin into the fountain pool… legend says those who do so will visit Rome again. I’m infuriated to get the news…
This essay will broach the subject of The Last Supper, a controversial artwork by photographer Elisabeth Ohlson. Deemed blasphemous by many, it was exhibited at the European Union Parliament in Brussels, Belgium in May of 2023. I will contrast Ohlson’s irreverent photo with a brief overview of how visual artists in the West have portrayed The Last Supper—the final meal…
In the continuing war on art, members of the eco-extremist group Declare Emergency, entered the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC on April 27, 2023, and attacked the famous sculpture by French artist Edgar Degas, Little Dancer Aged Fourteen. Two scalawags, a man and woman dressed in black, entered Gallery 3, the room that exhibits Little Dancer. The black…
What new works has the eminent world renown artist Hunter Biden been working on lately? As reported by the New York Post, he has just finished “an intricately patterned painting of an Aztec god.” When it comes to Aztec deities Hunter But didn’t pick just any old god, he went right for “the big guy.” I instantly recognized the deity…
In the late 1700s the Spanish artist Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) created a series of eighty etchings he titled Los Caprichos (The Caprices). An irrational thought or action can be a “caprice,” and Spanish society at the time provided Goya with myriad examples of ferocious caprices. For instance, Goya created paintings and prints that wryly scrutinized the Spanish…
On this day, March 30, 1890, Vincent van Gogh was born in Zundert, Netherlands. He once wrote: “What am I in the eyes of most people… a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person, somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then… even if that were absolutely…
In 1774 Patrick Henry was a delegate to the Continental Congress held in Philadelphia. Along with his associate Samuel Adams (founder of the Sons of Liberty in Boston), they agitated for a war of Independence against Great Britain. As the Continental Congress proceeded, Patrick Henry rallied the colonists to unite against British rule, he proclaimed: “The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians,…
