“Engineer Pascal Cotte has spent three years using reflective light technology to analyse The Lady with an Ermine … [and] has shown the artist painted one portrait without the ermine and two with different versions of the fur.” (includes video)
Author: Matthew Westphal
Now The Big Guns Are Joining Writers’ Fight Against Amazon
“Andrew Wylie, whose client roster of heavyweights in literature is probably longer than that of any other literary agent, said he was asking all his writers whether they wanted to join the group, Authors United. Among those who have said yes … are Philip Roth, Orhan Pamuk, Salman Rushdie, V. S. Naipaul and Milan Kundera.”
The Philly Fringe Festival Isn’t Really A “Fringe”, Says Its Founder
Nick Stuccio: “[It] is really not a fringe . … I don’t know what it is. It’s an arts festival, picked by me and Sarah [Bishop-Stone, programming manager], that worked. We call it ‘fringe’ because 18 years ago we really didn’t know what we were doing and we called the whole thing the ‘Fringe’.”
Social Trust And Personal Trust: What Policymakers Can Learn From The Self-Help Gurus
“Even some of the most seemingly unemotional forms of trust can be deeply emotional. In other words, policymakers who want to improve our faith in others should take a page from the self-help crowd and do more to build a sense of social intimacy and promote what neuroeconomist Paul Zak once called the ’empathic human connection’.”
UK Copyright Law Finally Allows Exception For Parody
“Under current rules, there has been a risk of being sued for breach of copyright if clips of films, TV shows or songs were used without consent. But the new European Copyright Directive will allow the use of the material so long as it is fair and does not compete with the original version.”
Two Lancaster, Pa. Museums Merge (No Hostile Takeovers Involved)
“The Demuth Museum and the Lancaster Museum of Art will merge into one museum at two locations. … The museums will not change their names, nor will they unite under an umbrella title, Lampe said, because the community has strong ties to both museums. … [but] they will be a single 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with one staff and one board of trustees.”
Can L’Exception Culturelle Save Paris’s Oldest Bookstore?
“This month, the Librairie Delamain’s lease is up for renewal by the Qatari company Constellation Hotel Holdings, which … plans to double the bookstore’s rent to 100,000 euros per year – nearly a tenth of their annual revenue.” But now the Académie Française and the nation’s minister of culture have gotten involved.
Philadelphia Doesn’t Have To Say Goodbye To Those Thousands Of Sendak Items Forever
“Practically speaking, it doesn’t matter where the Sendak materials live or who owns them. Any exhibition uses only a few dozen items at a time, and loans are common in the world of arts and literature. In theory, if the Rosenbach and the Sendak trustees agreed, a steady stream of Sendak shows could continue to flow through the Rosenbach, and as far as the backstage legal status and residency of the collection goes, the public would be none the wiser.”
Legal Battle Over Astérix Ends As Co-Creator And Daughter Kiss And Make Up
“It was a dispute as bitter and drawn-out as Astérix the Gaul’s campaign against the Romans. On Friday, however, the illustrator Albert Uderzo … and his daughter … buried the hatchet after a court threw out a case brought by Sylvie Uderzo claiming her father had been tricked into selling off part of the family heritage.”
Longwood Gardens, Near Philadelphia, To Give Its Fountains $90M Upgrade
“With more than one million visitors a year, Longwood – the former estate of the industrialist Pierre S. du Pont, who designed and built the Fountain Garden in 1931 for his own entertainment – is the most popular public garden in the country.” Currently, the fountains’ original plumbing – described as “a network of Band-Aids” – is still in use.