It’s Jane Austen’s bicentenary

After a performance of the chamber opera Hell’s Angels, featuring nudity and profanity, a lady violinist left the theatre saying, “I think I’ll go home now to read some Jane Austen.”

Celebrating Käthe Kollwitz

Käthe Kollwitz (1867-1945) is one of the most important female sculptors and printmakers of the 20th century.

“Imprisoned in a cage of sound”

Sounds transcend time, evoking ages past.

“Now the eyes of my eyes are opened”

In praise of trees and life generally.

Adam and Eve: The first migrants

In “Paradise Lost”, Eve gets some of the best lines.

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings!

Archaeologists have found a statue buried in a Cairo slum that may depict the pharaoh Ramses II.

Nizar Ali Badr creates small miracles in stone

BBC News ran a wonderful story last week about depictions of the war in Syria delicately put together with pebbles.