For her book Meals and Recipes from Ancient Greece, author Eugenia Salza Prina Ricotti had to become something of a food detective. The Greeks didn’t have cookbooks as we do; instead, hints at their cuisine exist in their literature, in… More»
I talked to Louis Marchesano, curator of prints and drawings at the Getty Research Institute, about the exhibition Printing the Grand Manner: Charles Le Brun and Monumental Prints in the Age of Louis XIV, now on view at the GRI—how… More»
Old media artifacts like silent films are traditionally thought of as being windows into their individual moments in time. But when they portray another era still—like the ancient world—they serve as a kind of mirror, telling the story of that… More»
When British author Geoff Dyer came to speak at Zócalo Public Square at the Getty Museum, he was prepared to be a bore. “It’s going to be the classic definition,” he said, “the bore, the person who lectures you about… More»
For six months, I lived up the hill from Sunset and Coronado in Silverlake. I’d go to Mariela’s for burritos—always a little too watery, always with salsa not quite spicy enough, but cheap, and the size of a brick. It… More»
It’s one thing to see a writer read her own work, but when someone else gets their hands on it, the fluid dynamic between story and storyteller is revealed. How much is the reader outside of the story, telling it… More»
This spring the Museum is offering a feast of tours and courses about food in art. Nancy Real and Lilit Sadoyan, two gallery teachers, agreed to give me a taste. We went straight to the magnificent Machine d’argent by François-Thomas… More»
Love, in all its glory and frustrations, its heady emotions and sheer physicality, comes alive in Classical Love Poetry, a refreshing dip into the verse of the past for National Poetry Month. Think classical poetry is stale and stuffy? Quite… More»
Remarkably realistic for medieval illuminated beasts, which were often fabulous admixtures of fantasy and fur. The unicorn is clearly drawn from life, for example.