Category: visual

You can’ see, in other words, the whole of London, until now an unencompassable splodge that could last have been captured in a single view perhaps 200 years ago, to its perimeter and beyond. Close to, familiar and not-small objects, such as the Gherkin and HMS Belfast, look like large toys. It is both implausible and real, something well-known seen from an unprecedented place. It’s hard to know what to do except gawp.” (And then there’s the building itself.)

” The museum shows how earthly a religion Mormonism is, how practical its actions have been and how intimately connected its history is to the American past. The printing press, the farm, depictions of the ordinary citizens who were the first church members — we see a vision of early American democracy. The covered wagon, the daring mapping of unknown territory: Mormon history is a version of the American pioneering myth.”

“‘We are incredibly surprised that we had such a significant object in our collection,’ museum CEO Ian Galloway told Australian press.”

“Cleopatra’s twin babies now have a face. An Italian Egyptologist has rediscovered a sculpture of Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene, the offspring of Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII, at the Egyptian museum in Cairo. Discovered in 1918 near the temple of Dendera on the west bank of the Nile, the sandstone statue was acquired by the Egyptian Museum in Cairo but has remained largely overlooked.”

What are you missing when you go to Paris? St.-Étienne-du-Mont, an unassuming medieval/Renaissance church slightly off the beaten path. “Our lone Parisian survivor is in a class unto itself: not just the sole instance in Paris, but one of the few in the world, and a magnificent specimen of carved stone. It impels the eye. Looking at this gigantic wedding cake of a loft, one knows instinctively that one is in Paris.”

“Nine artists from Glasgow on the Turner Prize shortlist in the past six years alone and ten more on the Beck’s Futures shortlist during its six-year existence in the early 2000s.”

“Archaeologists generally agree this megalithic structure, known as Ales Stenar (“Ale’s Stones”), was assembled about 1,000 years ago, near the end of the Iron Age, as a burial monument. But a team of researchers now argues it’s really 2,500 years old, dating from the Scandinavian Bronze Age, and was built as an astronomical calendar with the same underlying geometry as England’s Stonehenge.”

“The 18 items, mostly jade and from the Fitzwilliam Museum’s permanent collection, are believed to be worth millions of pounds. Cambridgeshire Police said a group of people were involved in the break-in at about 19:30 BST on Friday.”

“Among the stolen items were six pieces from the Ming dynasty, including a jade 16th century carved buffalo, a carved horse from the 17th century and a green and brown jade carved elephant.”