Thesmophoria in ancient Greek religion is a festival typically held in late autumn in honour of the goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone. A celebration of human and agricultural fertility, it has been interpreted as the carrying on of things laid down.
Barbara Lewis
Scottish stand-up comedian Daniel Sloss is a centurion by his own admission – in other words, he has slept with at least 100 women. One triggered the dark outpouring Jigsaw, which became a Netflix sensation, notorious for causing more than 300 divorces, 350 cancelled engagements and 120,000 breakups – so far.
The Norwich School of Painting at Norwich Castle. Founded in 1803 by John Crome (1768-1821) and Robert Ladbrooke (1768-1842), the Norwich Society of Artists, later joined by John Sell Cotman (1782-1842) was the first English artistic movement outside London. Of far greater than merely regional influence, it can be credited with establishing the views […]
The Regency Wardrobe at Firle Place. Review by Barbara Lewis. Two centuries after the Regency period officially ended, Jane Austen adaptations and the U.S. series Bridgerton have revived passions for Empire waistlines, corsets and fetching bonnets.
Mustard is the only English thing in the rural Irish home of the young protagonist, named as E, of writer-performer Eva O’Connor’s one-woman show. Review by Barbara Lewis.
The Reichstag is Burning …matches songs, ranging from the 1920s to the near contemporary, with the crucial stages of Hitler’s ascent to dictatorial power, not least the burning of the Reichstag. Black Box Live at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe by Hartstone-Kitney Productions.
Head First: A Psychiatrist’s Stories of Mind and Body by Alastair Santhouse.
Santhouse has found his destined niche in an NHS office, with mismatched furniture and absolutely no view, where he tries to fathom the very adult issues of desperate people on the edge of our society, many of whom have flummoxed every other medical department.
Both artists celebrate the regenerative forces of nature to which we have been sensitised by months of lockdown and both exhibitions are a joyful celebration of a cautious reopening after a period of painful reflection.
An “absurdly normal” love story and it admits the appalling truth that all love stories, not just the high romance of Romeo and Juliet, are essentially tragic: they end in loss and when Alzheimer’s strikes, the cruelty is exaggerated because a once charismatic personality disintegrates.
A study of political murders that destroyed Gladstone’s efforts to find a peaceful solution to the Irish problem.
The Florentines: From Dante to Galileo. By Paul Strathern, Published April 1, Atlantic Books. Review by Barbara Lewis.
by Barbara Lewis • art, exhibitions, painting, year 2021 • Tags: art, Barbara Lewis, exhibitions, painting •
Georgia O’Keeffe. Review by Barbara Lewis. For those in any doubt, the first retrospective in Paris of Georgia O’Keeffe overwhelmingly makes the case that there is even more to the first woman artist to be taken seriously by critics, collectors and art museums than her gigantic sensual flowers.