High Culture
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The Rijksmuseum employed an AI to repaint lost parts of Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch.” Here’s how they did it.
Tim Brinkhof is a Dutch-born, New York-based journalist reporting on art, history, and literature. He studied early Netherlandish painting and Slavic literature at New York University, worked as an editorial[…]
All Stories
Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.
For linguists, the uniqueness of the Basque language represents an unsolved mystery. For its native speakers, long oppressed, it is a source of pride.
“In witness whereof, the parties hereunto have set their hands to these presents as a deed on the day month and year hereinbefore mentioned.”
Bram Stoker’s mother survived a terrible cholera outbreak and recounted the ghastly scenes to her son years later.
Remember Stephen Hawking’s robotic voice? It wasn’t a robot.
From forgotten Hollywood movies to Frank Herbert’s “Dune,” science fiction illustrates some of our deepest fears about technology.
Soviet censorship was thorough yet fallible.
But make sure you bring the fossegrim the proper offering—or else.
500 sheep were slaughtered to produce the 2,060 pages of the “Codex Amiatinus,” a Latin translation of the Bible.
Rather than sending serial killer art to auctions, it should be sent to abnormal psychologists for research.
You can learn a lot about life through literature’s most unrespectable and heinous characters.
“The Man in the High Castle” may be the most beloved alternate history book, but it is not the most historically accurate.
These composers channeled the horror of the Holocaust and Hiroshima while honoring those who lived through it.
Piano Sonata No. 23 offers a window into the way culture became an instrument of Soviet state policy.
The fellowship’s journey through Middle-Earth mirrors the modernization of the English countryside.
Not every classic enjoyed rave reviews from the start.
One from New Guinea rose to the top in a recent study.
Some authors never saw their books score widespread acclaim—or even get published at all.
To understand Vincent van Gogh, we must first debunk the myth of the tortured artist. Van Gogh believed his illness inhibited his creativity.
It’s a lot easier to point out things that are gezellig (adjective) than it is to define gezelligheid (noun) itself.
Try writing a novel without using the letter “e.”
In order to figure out how English might evolve in the future, we have to look at how it has changed in the near and distant past.
“Not my circus, not my monkeys.”
Monsters have always represented societal fears, but narrative art also casts doubt on whether we fully understand our monsters — and their slayers.
Some classic books, like Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” remain controversial to this day.
What is Captain America doing in ancient Mesopotamia?
“Like real dreams, it does not explain, does not complete its sequences,” film critic Roger Ebert once wrote about “Mulholland Drive.”
Jules Verne wrote about gasoline-powered vehicles, weapons of mass destruction, and global warming more than a century ago.
For Nietzsche, a great work of art can either veil the horror of reality or – better yet – help us face it.
Take a trip through these master-crafted fantasy societies and ask yourself: Could I actually live there?