drannaclark.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

Power of Venice: Leonardo Loredan, Doge of Republic of Venice, 1501-21, in ceremonial corno ducale & ornate gold & silver damask robe, died #OTD 1521; masterpiece of Renaissance portraiture, oil on panel, painted by Giovanni Bellini, 1501, Venetian artist, master of Titian. National Gallery London

submitted 11 hours ago • 1 comment

Deux Ouvrières dans l’Atelier de Couture: two seamstresses, 1891, by Édouard Vuillard, French Intimiste artist & printmaker, died #OTD 1940; member of avant-garde group Les Nabis, his densely patterned interior scenes were influenced by Japanese printmaking and textiles. National Galleries Scotland

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

Inigo Jones, ‘England’s first classical architect’, influenced by Vitruvius and Palladio, designed The Queen’s House with Tulip Staircase 1616-35; died #OTD 1652. The Queen’s House Greenwich | 🤳 staircase [email protected]

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

In Schleswig, and it’s very pretty.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

What a fabulous night at the Penguin Books 90th birthday party! I am star-struck, champagne-filled and elated 🤩🥂😊

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

Another hot day tomorrow! BnF MS Latin 14410; f.19 @gallicabnf.bsky.social

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

Delighted to see that Carol Gilligan has been awarded the Kyoto Prize this year. www.kyotoprize.org/en/

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

Summer: woman of ripe fruits & vegetables, symbol of fecundity, from Four Seasons series, painted in 1563, by Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Italian Mannerist artist working at Habsburg court in Vienna, & patronised by Rudolf II in Prague. He inspired surrealist Salvador Dalí. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

V&A East Storehouse, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, London, 2025. #architect #dillerscofidiorenfro #photograph #williamtozer

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

The best time in Parc Monceau.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Owl of Athena! 🦉❤️ A very rare Athenian silver decadrachm coin, c. 467 BC. Münzkabinett der Staatlichen Museum 📷 ArchaiOptix #ReliefWednesday #Archaeology

submitted 3 days ago • 9 comments

“Le silence éternel de ces espaces infinis…” Blaise Pascal, great French mathematician, philosopher, author of Pensées; a pioneer of mechanical calculators, laid foundation for probability theory; born #OTD 1623. Pascal studying diagram of cycloid, sculpture by Augustin Pajou 1785. Musée du Louvre

submitted 3 days ago • 2 comments

A zonal map with the Orkneys tucked away near the outer rim Bnf MS Latin 6371; Macrobius, Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis; 11th century; France (Champagne ?); f.20v @gallicabnf.bsky.social

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

Inside St Mary the Virgin's, Llanfair Kilgeddin, Monmouthshire, is a remarkable series of Arts and Crafts-style sgraffito panels. 1/10

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

Incredible colours at the John Soane house on a sunny afternoon.

submitted 4 days ago • 2 comments

The Magdalen Reading, c. 1435, delicately turning the page, beside her alabaster jar of ointment, oil on panel, fragment of altarpiece by Rogier van der Weyden, influential Flemish artist, pupil of Robert Campin, court painter to Duke of Burgundy; died #OTD 1464. National Gallery London

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

Most books I have read over the years are German novels and biographies from the 1920s and 1930s. To at least come closer, even if you can never really understand it. Here is my top 5. 🧵

submitted 5 days ago • 18 comments

Finally, the photo artist Franco Fontana at the age of 91, is recognized as a national treasure. Well done #Italy, and well done Franco Fontana. Franco Fontana. Retrospective Museo dell'Ara Pacis Until 31/08/2025 Highly recommended. Thx harbel.substack.com 📷 substack.com/@harbel/note...

submitted 5 days ago • 1 comment

Master of illusion: M.C. Escher, Dutch graphic artist of conceptual works, inspired by mathematics, born #OTD 1898. Kunstmuseum Den Haag | Museum Escher in Het Paleis, Den Haag

submitted 5 days ago • 1 comment

Giovanni Paolo Panini, Italian architect & painter born #OTD 1691, known for architectural views & capricci of Ancient Rome; trained Hubert Robert & influenced Canaletto, Bellotto. Pantheon c 1734 National Art Gallery, Washington DC

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

Happy Bloomsday "...and yes I said yes I will Yes." Leopold Bloom's Dublin day #OTD 1904 Ulysses by James Joyce, published in Paris 1922 by Sylvia Beach (Shakespeare and Company).

submitted 6 days ago • 2 comments

Wheat, c. 1860, oil on canvas, by John Linnell, English Romantic painter & engraver, born #OTD 1792; friend & patron of William Blake. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

15th June is Trinity Sunday. Here is an initial ‘O’(mnipotens) depicting Christ in Majesty, preceding the benediction for Trinity Sunday BL Add 49598; Benedictional of Æthelwold; 963-984 CE; England S; f.70r

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

810 years of Magna Carta: cornerstone of UK's constitution & world's first bill of rights, sealed by King John #OTD 1215. Magna Carta, iron gall ink on parchment, British Library Cotton MS Augustus II.106 King John hunting stag, illuminated manuscript, British Library Cotton MS Claud DII folio 116

submitted 7 days ago • 4 comments

“A book of verses underneath the bough, A jug of wine, a loaf of bread - and thou…” Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám Trans. 1859 by Edward Fitzgerald, died #OTD 1883. Manuscript, with calligraphy by William Morris, illustrated by Edward Burne-Jones, 1872 @bodleianlibraries.bsky.social

submitted 8 days ago • 1 comment

Peasants’ Revolt: as rebels stormed the Tower of London, Richard II met leaders at Mile End #OTD 1381; he acceded to some demands but subsequently reneged. Froissart, Chroniques 154v @labnf.bsky.social

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold... The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity...” The Second Coming, 1919, by W.B. Yeats, Irish poet born #OTD 1865; inspired Chinua Achebe and Joan Didion. Photo 1923 Nobel Prize

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

Greatest scientist between Newton & Einstein: James Clerk Maxwell, Scottish physicist, born #OTD 1831; formulated Theory of Electromagnetism, four equations which underpin modern information & communication technologies. Monument George Street Edinburgh | James Clerk Maxwell Foundation Edinburgh

submitted 9 days ago • 2 comments

’Founder of sociology’, Harriet Martineau, abolitionist, feminist, champion of equal education for women, born #OTD 1802. Portrait by Richard Evans (assistant to Sir Thomas Lawrence) 1834, National Portrait Gallery | The Armitt Library & Museum @ucuuoc.bsky.social | @hpsleeds.bsky.social

submitted 10 days ago • 1 comment

”The sky is the chief organ of sentiment.” The White Horse, painted in 1819 by John Constable, English romantic landscape painter, born #OTD 1776; monumental ‘six footer’ landscape depicting a scene on the River Stour, bordering Suffolk & Essex. Frick Collection

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

La Primavera, c. 1480, tempera on panel, early Renaissance masterpiece by Sandro Botticelli, Florentine painter (1445-1510); inspired Rosa Genoni’s La Primavera evening gown of 1906, & Proust’s description of Odette’s Primavera gown. Uffizi Gallery, Florence

submitted 11 days ago • 2 comments

Dalmatian Pelican, northern Greece. I had this shot in mind, after reading the sublime 'Lifelines' written by @julianhoffman.bsky.social 'Julian so accurately describes them, '...skimming so low over the lake that you could barely slide a knife between the bird & its reflection' (Lifelines, p.13).

submitted 12 days ago • 3 comments

Will you look at this?! @womensprize.bsky.social have collaborated with London bakers extraordinaire, Biscuiteers, who have recreated every book on the two 2025 shortlists, fiction & non-fiction, in gorgeous edible miniature form. Too lovely for words! 🍪📚🫀

submitted 12 days ago • 4 comments

#TombTuesday The smaller Neolithic portal dolmen of the pair standing at Dyffryn Ardudwy, Meirionnydd in north Wales, basking in dappled sunlight in July 2023 📷 My own

submitted 12 days ago • 1 comment

The Round Table BnF MS Français 343; Lancelot-Graal; 14th century (1380-1385); Italy (North); f.3r @gallicabnf.bsky.social

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

La belle Irlandaise, Jo Hiffernan, model & mistress of Whistler, painted in 1865 by Gustave Courbet, radical French pioneer of realism, born #OTD 1819; known for truthful portrayals of peasants, labourers & prostitutes. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm

submitted 12 days ago • 1 comment

Formidable champion of women in medical profession: Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Britain's first qualified woman physician & surgeon, co-founder & Dean of London School of Medicine for Women, first female Dean of British medical school; born #OTD 1836. Portrait: John Singer Sargent 1900, NPG London

submitted 13 days ago • 3 comments

Visionary pioneer of public railways, George Stephenson, great British engineer, born #OTD 1781; with his son Robert Stephenson, he built first steam locomotive for the first public passenger railway, at Stockton & Darlington in 1825. Portrait: Pickersgill 1845, NPG London | National Railway Museum

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

The famous Viking attack on Lindisfarne took place #OTD in 793, regarded as the start of the Viking age in Britain. ‘Never before has such a terror appeared in Britain as we have just suffered from a pagan people,' wrote the scholar Alcuin.

submitted 14 days ago • 3 comments

Today is Pentecost. This beautiful image is taken from a 15th century 'Honresfield Book of Hours', depicting the Virgin and Apostles sitting beneath a dove. [MS5204 f. 90v] #LambethPalaceLibrary #Manuscript #Pentecost

submitted 14 days ago • 0 comments

’She only said, “My life is dreary, He cometh not,” she said...’ Mariana in the Moated Grange: inspired by Tennyson’s poem on Shakespeare’s heroine, painted 1851 by Sir John Everett Millais, born #OTD 1829; vivid tapestry, autumnal leaves, stained glass (based on Merton College Chapel). Tate Britain

submitted 14 days ago • 0 comments

Rhyl Sands, c. 1854, oil on canvas, late work by David Cox the Elder, great English landscape artist, died #OTD 1859; preeminent watercolour painter who became proficient in oils, his work foreshadowed impressionism, influenced Monet & Pissarro. Tate Britain London

submitted 15 days ago • 0 comments

As I wrote about in "Van Gogh and the End of Nature," the green background in this 1888 self-portrait by Vincent van Gogh, which was dedicated to fellow artist Paul Gauguin, also derived its vivid coloration from highly toxic arsenic yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...

submitted 15 days ago • 4 comments

“If Goethe claimed towards the end of his life that every reasonable person is a moderate Liberal, then in our time one must say: Every reasonable person is a moderate Socialist.” (Thomas Mann, 1950)

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

“The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” Sir Isaiah Berlin, influential philosopher, Fellow of All Souls College at University of Oxford, founding President of Wolfson College, born #OTD 1909. @ox.ac.uk @wolfsoncollege.bsky.social

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

“A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” Thomas Mann, German writer, Nobel Prize winner for Literature 1929; born #OTD 1875. Photograph Nobel Prize

submitted 16 days ago • 1 comment

The painter’s painter: Diego Velázquez, great artist of the Spanish Golden Age, influenced Manet, Sargent, Picasso; baptised #OTD 1599. Las Meninas, 1656, @museodelprado.es Infanta Margarita Teresa 1659, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien Vieja Friendo Huevos c. 1618, National Galleries of Scotland

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

”We are all Keynesians now.” John Maynard Keynes, influential economist, founded modern macroeconomics, born #OTD 1883. Pen, ink & watercolour sketch by Gwen Raverat, 1908 National Portrait Gallery, London

submitted 17 days ago • 1 comment

Large and richly appreciated rays of sunshine for UK SHAPE (Arts, Humanities & Social Science disciplines) at a time when grim news in our sector has become normative. Huge thanks to @wellcometrust.bsky.social for making this happen. 1/2

submitted 18 days ago • 3 comments