Melbourneblogger

Since 1990 when I started my art history degree, of all the paintings in the Western World, my absolute favourites have been Dutch works painted in the C17th. Instead of painting saints and monarchs, Dutch artists then preferred ordinary but dignified people: milkmaids, merchants, inn-keepers and loving families with children. Because the new Dutch Republic was a wealthy,...

Known as the Father of British Landscape Architecture, Lancelot Cap­ab­ility Brown (1716-83) started life as an estate worker's son. The Northum­b­erland lad trained as a gardener's boy at the local country house, Kirkharle Hall. By 1741 he had reached Stowe, a Bucking­hamshire estate where he became responsible for one of the loveliest landscape gardens in ...

Barcelona is a loved cultural destination by international trav­ellers – in 2017, c32 million tourists visited the city of 1.6 million residents. When I was a tour­ist there, I loved it.

From C9th until the final Spanish Expulsion in 1492, Jews flourished spiritually and intellectually. Despite Barcelona never becoming the major centre of Jewish life in...

Shirley Temple (1928-2014) was born in in Santa Monica Cal. As a child Temple showed interest in dancing and singing so in 1931, her mother decided to enrol her in a Dance School Los Angeles. There she was scouted by Charles Lamount, Casting Director for Educational Pictures studio. Lamont & producer Jack Hays offered her a contract. They cast in a 1932 ...