Arts & Culture

John Milton was a great poet, but he has such a daunting reputation for solemnity that few people read him for pleasure. That’s unfortunate because it deprives potential readers of experience with his brilliant writing.

“The mind of man is bounded only by the universe.” If you do not recognize this quote, you are about to discover one of the most exciting and entertaining examples of Romantic art in movie history.

“This is a picture,” reads one description of Emmanuel Leutze‘s masterpiece, “by the sight of which, in this weary and exhausted time, one can recover health and strength. . . . [It] has power to work upon the hearts, and inflame the spirits of all that behold it.”

“It is personal action that preceded every major advancement in this country. This is the aspect of being American that gives me the greatest sense of pride.” —René Marie

John White Alexander’s paintings demonstrated refined romanticism and a sense of benevolent, sunlit tranquility.

Art deco sought to reconcile industrial mass production with the fine arts in a way that was both inspirational and elegant: to replace the stately permanence of classical architecture with a vibrancy and dynamism appropriate to the new technological age.

The “real challenge” of cinematic music, said Jerry Goldsmith, “is to write a score that works brilliantly in a film, and also has a life of its own.” For half a century, his music bested that challenge.

I didn’t realize the extent to which I had become relatively apathetic toward music—until last year when that apathy abruptly dissipated.

Tim Blake Nelson’s excellent play retells the story of one of the West’s first great philosophers—Socrates.

Isaacson’s Leonardo Da Vinci distills this complex Renaissance man whose achievements in art and science have enriched posterity.