Roundup: Pop Culture & the Arts ...
Movies, Documentaries and Museum Exhibits
This page features links to reviews of movies, documentaries and exhibits with a historical theme. Listings are in reverse chronological order. Descriptions are taken directly from the linked publication. If you have articles you think should be listed on the Pop Culture page, please send them to the editor editor@historynewsnetwork.org.
SOURCE: NYT (12-30-09)
If their deaths came in the first decade of the 21st century, their lives helped define the 20th. They led nations, produced masterpieces, pushed the boundaries of science and entertained. And they did so in that seemingly distant time when the years began with 19.
In life we called them famous, renowned, celebrated; their deaths we call notable, because their names register. They people our collective memory. Some — those who destroy rather than build — we would like to forget. But most make us pause and think of the past and take account of what the world has lost.
It’s probably fitting that actors should best evoke a century. To hear the names of the stars of old who have vanished since 2000 (yes, officially the last year of the last century) is to receive final confirmation, if any were needed, that an era — particularly of the sort we tend to dip in gold in retrospect — is truly over. To think of Katharine Hepburn, Paul Newman, Gregory Peck, Alec Guinness...
In life we called them famous, renowned, celebrated; their deaths we call notable, because their names register. They people our collective memory. Some — those who destroy rather than build — we would like to forget. But most make us pause and think of the past and take account of what the world has lost.
It’s probably fitting that actors should best evoke a century. To hear the names of the stars of old who have vanished since 2000 (yes, officially the last year of the last century) is to receive final confirmation, if any were needed, that an era — particularly of the sort we tend to dip in gold in retrospect — is truly over. To think of Katharine Hepburn, Paul Newman, Gregory Peck, Alec Guinness...
Thursday, December 31, 2009 - 16:23
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SOURCE: http://www.culturekiosque.com (12-30-09)
The exhibition Looking In: Robert Frank’s The Americans, now on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, tells the story of the making of one of the most important photography books of the twentieth century and one of the most consequential works produced by a modern Swiss artist. Robert Frank, born in 1924 in Zürich to a Jewish family, moved to New York City in 1947. As so many post-war visitors and émigrés from Europe had discovered, New York was a fascinating place, but it was not (and is not) representative of the United States as a nation. You can argue whether that is because New York is either too American or not nearly American enough, but anyone who really wants to see and understand the country needs to step west of the Hudson River.
Thursday, December 31, 2009 - 15:27
SOURCE: AP (12-30-09)
Tavern on the Green, once America's highest-grossing restaurant, is singing its culinary swan song.
The former sheepfold at the edge of Central Park, now ringed by twinkling lights and fake topiary animals, is preparing for New Year's Eve, when it will serve its last meal. Just three years ago, it was plating more than 700,000 meals annually, bringing in more than $38 million.
But that astronomical sum wasn't enough to keep the landmark restaurant out of bankruptcy court. Its $8 million debt is to be covered at an auction of Baccarat and Waterford chandeliers, Tiffany stained glass, a mural depicting Central Park and other over-the-top decor that has bewitched visitors for decades.
The former sheepfold at the edge of Central Park, now ringed by twinkling lights and fake topiary animals, is preparing for New Year's Eve, when it will serve its last meal. Just three years ago, it was plating more than 700,000 meals annually, bringing in more than $38 million.
But that astronomical sum wasn't enough to keep the landmark restaurant out of bankruptcy court. Its $8 million debt is to be covered at an auction of Baccarat and Waterford chandeliers, Tiffany stained glass, a mural depicting Central Park and other over-the-top decor that has bewitched visitors for decades.
Thursday, December 31, 2009 - 15:22
SOURCE: Lee P Ruddin (12-30-09)
Eighteen months after an epic series involving a journalist going in search of Russia and the BBC’s at it again. Only this time its Andrew Graham-Dixon’s turn, however, to help viewers understand what Winston Churchill described as “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”
But like Russia: A Journey with Jonathan Dimbleby, in The Art of Russia Graham-Dixon quotes Fyodor Dostoevsky, reads a copy of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina on a train and sails on the River Neva. Neither would have been commissioned by a Putin-era Pravda. Yet only one journalist reveals the enigma, unwraps the mystery and solves the riddle.
That’s not to say Dimbleby’s five-part, 10,000 mile exploration – or for that matter the History Channel’s four-part, 1000-year documentary Russia: Land of the Tsars – doesn’t break new ground. Rather, it’s Graham-Dixon’s trilogy exploring “how art moved from being a servant of the state to an agent of its destruction” which solves the mysteries of...
But like Russia: A Journey with Jonathan Dimbleby, in The Art of Russia Graham-Dixon quotes Fyodor Dostoevsky, reads a copy of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina on a train and sails on the River Neva. Neither would have been commissioned by a Putin-era Pravda. Yet only one journalist reveals the enigma, unwraps the mystery and solves the riddle.
That’s not to say Dimbleby’s five-part, 10,000 mile exploration – or for that matter the History Channel’s four-part, 1000-year documentary Russia: Land of the Tsars – doesn’t break new ground. Rather, it’s Graham-Dixon’s trilogy exploring “how art moved from being a servant of the state to an agent of its destruction” which solves the mysteries of...
Wednesday, December 30, 2009 - 23:57
SOURCE: After Downing Street (12-28-09)
Let's face it, if James Cameron had made a movie with the Iraqi resistance as the heroes and the U.S. military as the enemies, and had set it in Iraq or anywhere else on planet earth, the packed theaters viewing"Avatar" would have been replaced by a screening in a living room for eight people and a dog.
Nineteen years ago, Americans packed theaters for"Dances with Wolves" in which Native Americans became the heroes, but the story was set in a previous century and the message understated.
The Na'vi people of"Avatar" are very explicitly Iraqis facing"shock and awe," as well as Native Americans with bows and arrows on horseback. The"bad guys" in the battle scenes are U.S. mercenaries, essentially the U.S. military, and the movie allows us to see them, very much as they are right now in 177 real nations around the world, through the eyes of their victims.
People know this going into the movie, and do not care. For better, and certainly for worse, they do not...
Tuesday, December 29, 2009 - 10:23
SOURCE: NYT (12-24-09)
THE tradition of dropping a ball in Times Square began more than a century ago when Adolph S. Ochs, the publisher of The New York Times, hired the sign maker Artkraft Strauss to build — then lower — a 700-pound wood-and-iron ball, five feet in diameter and illuminated by 100 25-watt bulbs, to mark the passage from 1907 to 1908. The ball descended slowly from a flagpole atop One Times Square, at the intersection of Broadway, Seventh Avenue and 42nd Street, where thousands witness it live — and millions more on television — each New Year’s Eve. The ritual echoes one that has taken place since 1833 at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England, where a ball is lowered daily at 1 p.m., originally to help ship captains nearby synchronize their chronometers. Beginning in 1845, there was also a ball dropped each noon at the United States Naval Observatory in Washington so inhabitants could reset their timepieces; it was eventually replaced by more advanced methods including today’s master...
Sunday, December 27, 2009 - 14:32
SOURCE: NYT (12-23-09)
World War II was in its final stages when “A Walk in the Sun” was released in January 1945, and the film, in its honesty and ruefulness, already has the feel of a retrospective, postwar vision. The need for propaganda had passed — it was no longer necessary to convince audiences that the war was a cheerful romp, as in “This Is the Army” or “I Wanted Wings” — and certain things could now be acknowledged, like fear, panic and death.
Directed by Lewis Milestone from a well-received but now forgotten novel by Harry Brown, “A Walk in the Sun” follows a few members of an Army platoon as they land on the beach in Salerno, Italy, and make their way a few miles inland, where they are to blow up a bridge and take a farmhouse held by a German machine-gun crew. The action begins in the predawn darkness and ends in the blaze of noon; in between, war happens.
After the opening credits, a narrator (Burgess Meredith) introduces the main characters, who seem at first like the...
Directed by Lewis Milestone from a well-received but now forgotten novel by Harry Brown, “A Walk in the Sun” follows a few members of an Army platoon as they land on the beach in Salerno, Italy, and make their way a few miles inland, where they are to blow up a bridge and take a farmhouse held by a German machine-gun crew. The action begins in the predawn darkness and ends in the blaze of noon; in between, war happens.
After the opening credits, a narrator (Burgess Meredith) introduces the main characters, who seem at first like the...
Sunday, December 27, 2009 - 14:31
SOURCE: NYT (12-23-09)
IN the catalog preface for “Bauhaus 1919-1933: Workshops for Modernity,” a comprehensive survey now up at the Museum of Modern Art, the curators write about the museum’s — and America’s — last major exhibition on the subject, in 1938. That show, they maintain, offered a scattershot presentation of the Bauhaus, complety ignoring its last five years, after Walter Gropius, the school’s larger-than-life founding director, had resigned. Not coincidentally, they suggest, most Americans have a limited understanding even now of what the Bauhaus accomplished or how it fit into the history of its time.
We think of the word Bauhaus as shorthand for “an international modern style unmoored from any particular moment,” the curators write, and their show, on view through Jan. 25, does a lot to counter this impression. It connects the evolution of Bauhaus art and design — painting, furniture, glass constructions, metalwork, photography, textiles and theater design — with the extreme...
We think of the word Bauhaus as shorthand for “an international modern style unmoored from any particular moment,” the curators write, and their show, on view through Jan. 25, does a lot to counter this impression. It connects the evolution of Bauhaus art and design — painting, furniture, glass constructions, metalwork, photography, textiles and theater design — with the extreme...
Sunday, December 27, 2009 - 14:23
SOURCE: MICHAEL FEINSTEIN in the NYT (12-17-09)
If you look at a list of the most popular Christmas songs, you’ll find that the writers are disproportionately Jewish: Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas,” “The Christmas Song” (yes, Mel Tormé was Jewish), “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!,” “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” “Silver Bells,” “Santa Baby,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Winter Wonderland” — perennial, beloved and, mostly, written for the sheet music publishers of Tin Pan Alley, not for a show or film. (Two notable exceptions: “White Christmas,” introduced in “Holiday Inn,” and “Silver Bells,” written for “The Lemon Drop Kid.”)
You’ll notice that certain famous Jewish songwriters are conspicuously absent from this list. Why? Unlike the Tin Pan Alley songwriters, who churned out songs to order on every conceivable subject for their publishers, writers like Jerome Kern, the Gershwins, Richard Rodgers and Harold Arlen mainly created songs for musical plays and films, and unless a story line required a...
You’ll notice that certain famous Jewish songwriters are conspicuously absent from this list. Why? Unlike the Tin Pan Alley songwriters, who churned out songs to order on every conceivable subject for their publishers, writers like Jerome Kern, the Gershwins, Richard Rodgers and Harold Arlen mainly created songs for musical plays and films, and unless a story line required a...
Friday, December 18, 2009 - 19:09
SOURCE: NYT (12-17-09)
Toward the end of his thought-provoking book “The Moment of Psycho,” the film historian David Thomson gives us a long list of movies made possible or informed by Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 horror classic “Psycho” — a list that includes not just Brian De Palma homages to Hitchcock like “Dressed to Kill” and slasher films like “Halloween” and “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” and their innumerable spawn, but also some less obvious choices:
¶The continuing Bond franchise, which, Mr. Thomson notes, cashes in on the “tongue-in-cheek attitudes toward sex and violence” pioneered by Hitch.
¶“Bonnie and Clyde,” which, like “Psycho,” left audiences alarmed at their capacity to enjoy violence in the darkness of a movie theater.
¶“Jaws,” which, like Hitchcock’s films, used artfully cut sequences and carefully paced scenes to manipulate audiences and amp up their feelings of fear....
¶The continuing Bond franchise, which, Mr. Thomson notes, cashes in on the “tongue-in-cheek attitudes toward sex and violence” pioneered by Hitch.
¶“Bonnie and Clyde,” which, like “Psycho,” left audiences alarmed at their capacity to enjoy violence in the darkness of a movie theater.
¶“Jaws,” which, like Hitchcock’s films, used artfully cut sequences and carefully paced scenes to manipulate audiences and amp up their feelings of fear....
Friday, December 18, 2009 - 19:07
SOURCE: by Jim Castagnera (12-13-09)
[Jim Castagnera is the author of Al Qaeda Goes to College (Praeger 2009) and 17 other books.]
“Invictus” means “unconquered.” The poem of that name, by 19th century Scotsman William Ernest Hensley, is said to be Nelson Mandela’s favorite. As the title of Clint Eastwood’s new film, which opened last week in the U.S., the word has a dual significance. Mandela, played to perfection by Morgan Freeman, claims that it helped carry him through his 27 years of incarceration at the hands of the Apartheid. When Mandela writes out the verses and gives them to Springbok team captain Francois Pienaar --- another perfect portrayal, this by Matt Damon--- they become the symbol and inspiration for the South African national rugby team’s unlikely triumph in the 1995 Rugby League World Cup.
Whatever its ultimate outcome, the ’95 contest made history from the first whistle. Because of Apartheid, South Africa had been banned from the championship event, which occurred...
“Invictus” means “unconquered.” The poem of that name, by 19th century Scotsman William Ernest Hensley, is said to be Nelson Mandela’s favorite. As the title of Clint Eastwood’s new film, which opened last week in the U.S., the word has a dual significance. Mandela, played to perfection by Morgan Freeman, claims that it helped carry him through his 27 years of incarceration at the hands of the Apartheid. When Mandela writes out the verses and gives them to Springbok team captain Francois Pienaar --- another perfect portrayal, this by Matt Damon--- they become the symbol and inspiration for the South African national rugby team’s unlikely triumph in the 1995 Rugby League World Cup.
Whatever its ultimate outcome, the ’95 contest made history from the first whistle. Because of Apartheid, South Africa had been banned from the championship event, which occurred...
Friday, December 18, 2009 - 08:46
SOURCE: Medieval News (Blog) (12-31-69)
Universal Pictures has released the first trailer for the Robin Hood movie that will be coming out in 2010. Directed by Ridley Scott, the film stars Russell Crowe along with Cate Blanchett and William Hurt. It has been described as a more gritty portrayal of the Robin Hood legend.
The official synopsis of the film was also released:
"Oscar winner Russel Crowe stars as the legendary figure known by generations as 'Robin Hood,' whose exploits have endured in popular mythology and ignited the imagination of those who share his spirit of adventure and righteousness. In 13th century England, Robin and his band of marauders confront corruption in a local village and lead an uprising against the crown that will forever alter the balance of world power. and whether thief or hero, one man from humble beginnings will become an eternal symbol of freedom for his people.
"The untitled Robin Hood adventure chronicles the life of an expert archer,...
The official synopsis of the film was also released:
"Oscar winner Russel Crowe stars as the legendary figure known by generations as 'Robin Hood,' whose exploits have endured in popular mythology and ignited the imagination of those who share his spirit of adventure and righteousness. In 13th century England, Robin and his band of marauders confront corruption in a local village and lead an uprising against the crown that will forever alter the balance of world power. and whether thief or hero, one man from humble beginnings will become an eternal symbol of freedom for his people.
"The untitled Robin Hood adventure chronicles the life of an expert archer,...
Wednesday, December 16, 2009 - 21:27
SOURCE: Lee P Ruddin (12-15-09)
“I want to begin with a question – what is the BBC for?” These were the opening words of BBC Director-General, Mark Thompson, in a speech last month about the future of public service broadcasting.
Thompson was responding to criticisms from politicians and commercial competitors that the BBC is too ubiquitous and too subsidised at a time when the rest of the industry is hemorrhaging funds.
Critics presume that commercial media would fill the vacuum left by the behemoth BBC. There is simply no evidence of this, though. Rather, as Thompson continued in his Voice of the Listener and Viewer Conference address, there would be a “big black cultural hole.” Let’s not forget, no serious current affairs programme remains on ITV. And while Channel 4 has its Dispatches series, the commercially funded but publicly owned outlet also needs a subsidy to continue.
Why do I say all this? In view of the fact that yet another fascinating documentary has just aired on...
Thompson was responding to criticisms from politicians and commercial competitors that the BBC is too ubiquitous and too subsidised at a time when the rest of the industry is hemorrhaging funds.
Critics presume that commercial media would fill the vacuum left by the behemoth BBC. There is simply no evidence of this, though. Rather, as Thompson continued in his Voice of the Listener and Viewer Conference address, there would be a “big black cultural hole.” Let’s not forget, no serious current affairs programme remains on ITV. And while Channel 4 has its Dispatches series, the commercially funded but publicly owned outlet also needs a subsidy to continue.
Why do I say all this? In view of the fact that yet another fascinating documentary has just aired on...
Tuesday, December 15, 2009 - 21:02
SOURCE: Artdaily.org (12-15-09)
One of the most complete and textured collections of Tibetan Buddhist art in private hands will be presented to the public for the first time this winter through an exhibition at the Freer + Sackler Galleries of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. and documented in a related book, A Shrine for Tibet: The Alice S. Kandell Collection, by Marilyn M. Rhie and Robert A.F. Thurman. The objects in the collection—dating from the 13th through 19th-centuries—will be installed in the gallery as they would have been in a Tibetan shrine room.
The collection, built by Dr. Alice S. Kandell of New York, is one of the foremost and most comprehensive collections of Tibetan Buddhist art in the West. It comprises hundreds of Buddhist works of art and ritual and cultural objects predominantly from Tibet. The collection is currently installed in a shrine room in Dr. Kandell’s apartment as it would have existed in a Buddhist temple or in the home of a prominent family in Tibet. The...
The collection, built by Dr. Alice S. Kandell of New York, is one of the foremost and most comprehensive collections of Tibetan Buddhist art in the West. It comprises hundreds of Buddhist works of art and ritual and cultural objects predominantly from Tibet. The collection is currently installed in a shrine room in Dr. Kandell’s apartment as it would have existed in a Buddhist temple or in the home of a prominent family in Tibet. The...
Tuesday, December 15, 2009 - 16:40
SOURCE: Artdaily.org (12-15-09)
Fragments of an ancient wall painting that caused a feud between Egypt and the Louvre Museum are heading home.
France returned the ancient artwork to Egyptian officials after President Hosni Mubarak inspected one of the fragments following a visit with his French counterpart, Nicolas Sarkozy. The pockmarked slab in sepia and blue tones, from a 3,200-year-old tomb near the ancient temple city of Luxor, shows an offering from a nobleman to a servant.
Egypt's antiquities czar Zahi Hawass cut ties with the Louvre in October, saying the famed Paris museum had refused to return the fragments. Egyptian officials said the artifacts had been stolen in the 1980s — chipped from the tomb's walls.
French officials quickly agreed to hand over the fragments following a recommendation by scientific experts.
France said the works had been acquired by the Louvre "in good faith" in 2000 and 2003, but doubts emerged last year about whether the...
France returned the ancient artwork to Egyptian officials after President Hosni Mubarak inspected one of the fragments following a visit with his French counterpart, Nicolas Sarkozy. The pockmarked slab in sepia and blue tones, from a 3,200-year-old tomb near the ancient temple city of Luxor, shows an offering from a nobleman to a servant.
Egypt's antiquities czar Zahi Hawass cut ties with the Louvre in October, saying the famed Paris museum had refused to return the fragments. Egyptian officials said the artifacts had been stolen in the 1980s — chipped from the tomb's walls.
French officials quickly agreed to hand over the fragments following a recommendation by scientific experts.
France said the works had been acquired by the Louvre "in good faith" in 2000 and 2003, but doubts emerged last year about whether the...
Tuesday, December 15, 2009 - 16:38
SOURCE: ParcBench (12-31-69)
[Greg Victor, Culture Editor for "ParcBench" is a historian, pop culture critic, and theatrical writer]
Hate history class?
If so, then you must have had to put up with one of those pesky history teachers that insisted on footnotes and citations. And your teacher must have forced you to study the humankind-hating words of dead, white males that are responsible for everything bad in this world.
Now there is no more need for any of that. Matt Damon starred in a movie called “Good Will Hunting” in which he yelled “You wanna read a real history book, read Howard Zinn’s ‘People’s History of the United States.’ That book will f**kin’ knock you on your ass.” He got good reviews, so now apparently Matt is on a mission to spread the word.
Historiography has always prided itself for being a study of truth and data. Theory was always more highly regarded by social scientists and other soft academic departments. But history students – your...
Hate history class?
If so, then you must have had to put up with one of those pesky history teachers that insisted on footnotes and citations. And your teacher must have forced you to study the humankind-hating words of dead, white males that are responsible for everything bad in this world.
Now there is no more need for any of that. Matt Damon starred in a movie called “Good Will Hunting” in which he yelled “You wanna read a real history book, read Howard Zinn’s ‘People’s History of the United States.’ That book will f**kin’ knock you on your ass.” He got good reviews, so now apparently Matt is on a mission to spread the word.
Historiography has always prided itself for being a study of truth and data. Theory was always more highly regarded by social scientists and other soft academic departments. But history students – your...
Monday, December 14, 2009 - 10:08
SOURCE: Artdaily.org (12-11-09)
An exhibition entitled Van Gogh: the Flaming Soul showcasing more than 70 drawings and 20 paintings by Vincent van Gogh from the Kröller-Müller Museum’s collection is to open at the National Museum of History in Taipei (Taiwan) in December. In preparation, a delegation from the Kröller-Müller Museum travelled to Taipei at the end of October to discuss the various aspects of an exhibition of this scale with those involved. Topics of discussion vary from transport, security, light and climate conditions to the design of the rooms and the content and appearance of the accompanying catalogue.
The exhibition wants to introduce the Taiwanese public to the work of Vincent van Gogh. It is the first Van Gogh exhibition to be organised in a Mandarin (Chinese) speaking country. United Daily News Group is sponsoring the exhibition. In the Far East it is customary for a media company or major newspaper to act as main sponsor...
The exhibition wants to introduce the Taiwanese public to the work of Vincent van Gogh. It is the first Van Gogh exhibition to be organised in a Mandarin (Chinese) speaking country. United Daily News Group is sponsoring the exhibition. In the Far East it is customary for a media company or major newspaper to act as main sponsor...
Friday, December 11, 2009 - 22:47
SOURCE: Artdaily.org (12-11-09)
The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery will recognize the influence of the “King of Rock n’ Roll,” Elvis Presley (1935–1977), on American life, history and culture with two exhibitions in 2010. “One Life: Echoes of Elvis” opens on Presley’s 75th birth anniversary and is a one-room exhibition devoted to the evolution and influence of Presley’s image after his death. The traveling exhibition, “Elvis at 21: Photographs by Alfred Wertheimer,” shows a young musician just about to rise to fame.
“One Life: Echoes of Elvis” Opens Jan. 8, 2010
“One Life: Echoes of Elvis” explores the image and story of Presley since his death. The world remains enamored with Presley’s music and image even though he died more than 30 years ago. His records continue to sell by the millions, his home is the second-most-visited private residence in the United States (second only to the White House) and public interest in his music, career and life has yet to subside.
“The life...
“One Life: Echoes of Elvis” Opens Jan. 8, 2010
“One Life: Echoes of Elvis” explores the image and story of Presley since his death. The world remains enamored with Presley’s music and image even though he died more than 30 years ago. His records continue to sell by the millions, his home is the second-most-visited private residence in the United States (second only to the White House) and public interest in his music, career and life has yet to subside.
“The life...
Friday, December 11, 2009 - 22:46
SOURCE: Huffington Post (11-12-09)
Actors have the privilege of exploring fictional characters, to see the world from the perspective of another person's imagined life. Sometimes, usually less often, we have the opportunity to speak the words of historical figures, to say the words they themselves spoke. This presents a different kind of challenge, in many ways, something I have been thinking about personally since becoming involved with a performance project and now documentary film called The People Speak, which is airing on History Channel, Sunday, December 13, at 8 pm (7 pm Central). (A soundtrack of music from the film is available from the Verve label December 9.)
The project is inspired by Howard Zinn's books A People's History of the United States and, with Anthony Arnove, Voices of a People's History of the United States, two books that have had a deep influence on how I understand this country. Howard's books provide a history of the United States from below, from the standpoint of ordinary people...
The project is inspired by Howard Zinn's books A People's History of the United States and, with Anthony Arnove, Voices of a People's History of the United States, two books that have had a deep influence on how I understand this country. Howard's books provide a history of the United States from below, from the standpoint of ordinary people...
Friday, December 11, 2009 - 15:34
SOURCE: Artdaily.org (12-10-09)
Sex, love and lust among the gods, rulers and lesser mortals of the ancient world are the focus of a new exhibition in the Greek capital this month.
Phallic-shaped lamps, love letters engraved in clay and erotic symbols on lucky charms dating from 7 BC to 4 AD are just a fraction of what visitors will see at an exhibition dedicated to the Greek and later Roman god of love.
"Eros: From Hesiod's Theogony to late antiquity" runs from Dec 10 to April 2010 at the Cycladic Art Museum, featuring a collection of 280 artifacts from 50 museums in Greece, Cyprus, Italy and France, including the Louvre.
The exhibition surveys the changing perceptions of Eros (known as Cupid to the Romans) from the eighth century BC when he was viewed as an influential god to the Roman period when he became less potent and a mere companion to Venus.
Exhibition organizers say visitors should check the modern world's sense of decency at the door when...
Phallic-shaped lamps, love letters engraved in clay and erotic symbols on lucky charms dating from 7 BC to 4 AD are just a fraction of what visitors will see at an exhibition dedicated to the Greek and later Roman god of love.
"Eros: From Hesiod's Theogony to late antiquity" runs from Dec 10 to April 2010 at the Cycladic Art Museum, featuring a collection of 280 artifacts from 50 museums in Greece, Cyprus, Italy and France, including the Louvre.
The exhibition surveys the changing perceptions of Eros (known as Cupid to the Romans) from the eighth century BC when he was viewed as an influential god to the Roman period when he became less potent and a mere companion to Venus.
Exhibition organizers say visitors should check the modern world's sense of decency at the door when...
Thursday, December 10, 2009 - 13:52
