The End of May
And there we have it: the reign of May is at an end. On Friday morning the Prime Minister stepped up to a podium set before the door of No.10 and announced she was off. Although not quite yet. She will stand down as Tory leader on June 7th to allow for the election of a new leader, then, once they have been chosen by around mid-July, she will resign the office of Prime Minister, allowing the new Conservative leader to replace her. Now the possibility of her deal being voted o
May’s Days are Numbered & Monet Goes for Stacks
To begin with a bit of art news for a change, at Sotheby’s New York this week one of Claude Monet’s series of haystack paintings was sold at auction for £85.7m ($110.7m) to an anonymous buyer. This not only shatters the record price paid for the artist but also the record for any Impressionist art. The last time the work had come up for auction, in 1986, it had gone for a measly $2.5m, this just shows the sickening exponential growth of the international art market in recent
Cosmically Curated: May Art 'Scopes
If ever there was a time to be bull-headed it would be now, during Taurus season. But with the beautiful warm weather and arts buzz in London this spring, it doesn’t seem like we’ll get a long window to stay stagnant and stubborn. In fact, each sign is getting the urge to edge outside their comfort zone and go on some kind of adventure. However, guided by the sensuous and earthy energy of Taurus, it is important that these risks are taken in a manner that is loving and loyal
Self-Care, Self-Delusion, Self-Awareness: How well-being became a global concept and what it means
With exams approaching and various deadlines creeping up on us, think back to how many times in the last week you thought of a day off from studying, a food item, or a purchase as ‘self-care’. Personally, I bought a delicious pastry from my local Italian bakery because I felt that I deserved a treat for having worked so hard and that the sugar intake would also boost my morale enough to do something genuinely productive that day, beyond watching travel documentaries. It worke
Royal Baby Faux Pas While Sharks Circle May
In a relatively quiet week for news, there was a burst of activity when it was announced that the new Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, had gone into labour (no, not the political party – that really would be a surprise!) with her first child with her husband Prince Harry. After a revoltingly cute photoshoot with the new-born at Windsor, he was introduced to his grandparents, HM the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, and then finally the name was announced. Archie Harrison Moun
Roman House & Garden, 79 AD: Classical Interior Design
Fig. 1. Pompeii atrium reconstruction, House of the Vettii, Boboli Gardens, Florence, 2007 (Photo: Wikipedia Commons) If I weren’t only eight years old during the seven-month run of Ancient Gardens from Babylon to Rome: Science, Art and Nature in the Florentine Boboli Gardens in 2007, I probably would have bought a plane ticket just to see it. The reconstruction of the Pompeian house of the Vettii family caught my eye – a peristyle atrium and an almost modernist quad garden,
Attendees: Please Take Notes on Camp!
When I heard that the theme of this year’s Met Ball was based on Susan Sontag’s 1964 essay ‘Notes on Camp’ I was both excited and terrified. Excited because of how intellectual and new the theme was compared to their previous ones, and terrified because of the many misinterpretations that can arise. My gut feeling did not disappoint. In the words of the wise drag-sensei Jasmine Masters: “Well… just as I thought…. Trash!” I will get back to the trash part later, but on the top
Defence Secretary Sacked on Eve of Losses for Both Parties at the Polls
This first week back for MPs, my column, and all Courtauld students was shaping up to be a suspiciously peaceful one, that was until the usual anarchy of politics burst back onto the scene on Wednesday with the surprise sacking of Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson from the Cabinet. This came after the previous week’s leak to The Telegraph that the government intended to choose the tech firm Huawei to build and manage the UK’s new 5G system – by all accounts, 5G is apparently
Feminism, Sex and Power: The Life and Music of Barbara Strozzi
Hello everyone and welcome to my new column on unsung women in the history of the arts! I’m Francesca, a second-year undergrad here at The Courtauld, and each week I’ll be highlighting a new woman whose work has gone un- or underacknowledged due to her gender. I’ll also try to highlight sources from which you can access her work and the scholarship on it. Hopefully it might even inspire you to do some research of your own! Eine Gambenspielerin (Barbara Strozzi [1619-1677]), B
Recycling Right: S-1500 by Snøhetta
S-1500 by Snøhetta (Image: snohetta.com) A few weeks ago, I shared some facts about this chair on The Courtauldian’s Instagram page as a part of the weekly segment ‘Wednesday Wisdoms’. I thought my mention of it would be enough to get it off my mind, done and dusted. I was wrong. Snøhetta’s S-1500 chair has been plaguing me for months, and so I decided to elaborate on my feelings about it. I'll start off by admitting that the global warming crisis is one of my most persistent