Aphrodite, Adonis, Apollo, Artemis…are about ennoblement of form in Ancient Greece. Its visual remains, its architecture, ceramics, and most especially the statues of male and female bodies are for many aesthetically beautiful. But how can so many things be beautiful in Ancient Greece when they are entirely dissimilar? Is beauty and good relative to our [...]

Click here to read more of this article

The Regency era (1792 – 1830) in England saw the rise of the first professional art critics who were wealthy connoisseurs or collectors like Richard Payne Knight (fine eye for erotica) and journalists like William Hazlitt. Trained as a painter Hazlitt had first hand knowledge of the technical and aesthetic challenges artists faced. He contributed [...]

Click here to read more of this article

All cultures on earth have particular perceptions of and about colour, which in its evolution has come to symbolize many things collectively and individually. It also has many variants so we could say it is neither black or white and has many shades of grey in between. In that respect one could say colour is a metaphor for life.

Click here to read more of this article

One of of the most enduring shows on television since the end of 70’s is about antiques and art. It’s all about finding out if an object is a valuable antique or a worthless copy from someone able to decode its message and decipher the truth about its authenticity and origins.

Click here to read more of this article

As far as women are concerned the Age of Reason in the eighteenth century was inappropriately named. This was a period when the role of women, especially in a professional sphere, took a retrograde step. Private salons hosted by wealthy and powerful women reached the height of their influence at this time with many voices raised in favour of women’s rights, but to no avail. An increasing emphasis was being placed on family life and the role of women was being re-defined all over Europe and England as one that ideally remained in the home.

Click here to read more of this article

This is the starting segment for our course of study the evolution of western art, design, style and culture antiquity until today. It is surveyed in chronological order from antiquity to the contemporary age with respect to intellectual and philosophical ideas, other cultural influences and social change.

Click here to read more of this article

Writer, philosopher and musical theorist from Geneva (now the capital of Switzerland) Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) believed beauty had a common source in ‘well ordered nature’ and that ‘taste is perfected with the same means as wisdom’…and what ‘must be done therefore…is…to cultivate taste.

Click here to read more of this article

In facing the crisis of the global economic downturn a brave group in London have come up with Masterpiece London, a whole new way of marketing fine quality wares by showcasing the most covetable objects in the world: traditional and modern, old and new, from the finest of fine and decorative art to the best of wines, classic cars, jewellery and contemporary design.

Click here to read more of this article