Ancient Societies
Abydos & Herculaneum – Helping Us to Understand Antiquity
Professor David O’Connor and Professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill have spent a great deal of time excavating and conserving the sites of Abydos in Egypt and Herculaneum in Italy respectively. Both continue to yield spectacular discoveries invaluable to classical historians and the world at large.
Alleluia Apollo, Vitruvius, Palladio, Mozart and Jenkins
Changes in the economic order and the social structure of society brought into favour in England and Europe during the second half of the eighteenth century a new style in architecture, literature and the arts. Today it has become more generally known as neoclassicism. Its tenets were based on the considerable legacy of the remains and ruins of the societies of ancient Greece and Rome. This sophisticated style of grace by and large, favoured simplicity of form over complexity. It had a taste for structural clarity and it is this emphasis that worked its way into the world of music, taking it forward towards a style in which melody was preferred.
Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs – Astrology and Humankind
Astrology, according to the dictionary, is a study of the positions and relationships of the sun, moon, stars and planets in order to judge their influence on human actions. Making a study of the sun and star signs for many is a hobby. But now and then there has been some really serious diviners out there. None more effective in my experience than America’s Linda Goodman 1925 – 1995 (real name Mary Alice Kemery) a former New York Times bestselling astrologer and poet.
Walking a Labyrinth – Chartres Cathedral to Centennial Park
A labyrinth is an ancient symbol relating to wholeness, with powerful patterns within a sphere that merge the sublime and beautiful where heaven and earth meet.
PostModern – Pursuing the Past to Attain the Peak of Chic
Postmodernism (1970-1990) ranged from fashion to folly, from the luxurious to the ludicrous, from theory to theatre as it spawned out of control consumerism. It also grew a corporate design culture, which became encircled by money, wealth and power. Stylistically and realistically it all had to come to an end. Finally it collapsed under the weight of its own success.
Alexander the Great – God, Legend, Immortal on a Grand Scale
There has been much written about Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) since his death. Hero, adventurer, King and conqueror Alexander has achieved legendary, ‘godlike’ and immortal status on a grand scale.
Conserving Culture – Cairo Genizah Fragments Now Online
The Cairo Genizah fragments are an accumulation of Jewish manuscript fragments in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. They are now online, so they can be studied by scholars and all of those with an interest in the rich heritage of the Jewish tradition.
Tennyson’s Ulysses – An Odyssey for a Contemporary Age
Ulysses is thought provoking piece of prose for those searching for continuity between past, present and future and for all those with a positive approach to life.
Vitruvius On Architecture – The Art of Enclosing Space
Architecture is all about the art of enclosing space something the Roman architect and engineer Marcus Pollio Vitruvius certainly knew about. He lived in the years straddling the old republican Roman world and the new Empirical era and was a champion of standards, of strength, function and beauty.
The Quest for Nature – William Kent and the English idyll
William Kent was an English architect interior designer painter and landscape architect who ‘leaped the fence’ and saw that all nature was a garden’
Chinese Kingfisher Ornaments – Beauty and Decoration
Drawn by their iridescent beauty, many races and peoples have used feathers as adornment or accessory to decorate themselves using entire feathers from the bird
Art of Living Well – Antiquity to a Residence Australia
Today our art of living well has evolved since antiquity in Europe to a residence in Australia through a diverse and special mix of peoples and their cultures.
Peabody Essex Museum at Salem – Opening Windows on the World
A connoisseur, scholar and devout Buddhist, within the forbidden city Chinese Emperor Qianlong created a luxurious garden compound to serve throughout his retirement as a secluded place of contemplation, repose and entertainment. When the city was shut down following the Chinese revolution of 1911 – 1912 many of its treasures gathered dust for a century. Now, through a great deal of international cooperation and negotiation they have been conserved and sent on tour.
The Culture Concept Circle – You Tube Channel
On our You Tube Channel you will find our mini-documentaries, which provide an insight into the evolution of art, design, music, fashion and style.
Inalienable Rights of Man – Charting Freedom and Liberty
For the English of the thirteenth century the signing of the Magna Carta was a huge step forward towards protecting the inalienable rights of man
The First Emperor of China – Seeking the Mandate of Heaven
Today the first Emperor of China’s terracotta army has no battles to fight, but rather it seeks to win the war for China about culture as art. Should they be displayed in an ‘art’ gallery or in a Museum whose premise is about presenting stories of cultural development and history.
Asides
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