January 2009

The Return of Cultural Relics

America is defined by what comes to be American, not by what has been American. There…
Jim Williams of Mercer House

There are only things that interest me, work, and those trappings of aristocracy that I find…
Frederick William MacMonnies and His Works in Brooklyn

MacMonnies was a Brooklynite and Brooklyn offered him the best spot for show his talent. Although…
Thoughts on Architecture, No Need To Begin the World Again

Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty. Daniel Burnham, Chicago architect. (1864-1912) In a…
The Concordant 50’s

I would rather not to talk about Sam Mendes’s new movie “Revolutionary Road”, since it can…
John Francis Murphy — The Landscape Within

Both antebellum French Barbizon school and post-war American painters have found civilized landscape peculiar yet intimate…
Egypt and Mesopotamia — Visiting “Beyond Babylon” Exhibition at Met

It looks ridiculous that Mesopotamian tried so hard to pursue something which can only be used…
Chippendale Comes to Pottery Barn

I was flipping the pages in the January, 2009 Pottery Barn Catalog that had arrived in the day’s…
Mystery of a Chinese painting

The painting features plum in the top half part and a rooster at the bottom. Eric…