Inspiring Excitement and Passion about History and the Humanities
Recently I read a book about Ernest Shackelton’s Endurance journey to Antarctica, which started out as the first expedition planned to cross the entire continent, but wound up instead trapped in pack ice when barely starting out. After spending nearly a year drifting in a giant circle with the tide in the Weddell Sea, in a fair…
I recently discovered the work of Charlotte Salomon. She was a young Jewish artist during the Holocaust, but her work shouldn’t be viewed simply as Holocaust art. To view it that way is to miss the extraordinary poignancy of what she created. I feel bad even comparing her to Anne Frank, because she is so…
I’ve been reading The Accidental Masterpiece, on the Art of Life and Vice Versa by Michael Kimmelman. Above all else, it seems to be a meditation on how art, or appreciating art, helps us to appreciate our everyday lives; and how our every day lives (and deaths) can be art as well. So I just…