High Culture
featured
The Rijksmuseum employed an AI to repaint lost parts of Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch.” Here’s how they did it.
All Stories
The toilet “is a portal to a mysterious otherworld.”
In war zones, aggressors steal art to eradicate the cultural heritage of others. Victims, meanwhile, sell stolen art in order to survive.
For J.R.R. Tolkien, the single most important element of a fairy tale was the dramatic reversal of misfortune in the story's ending.
The world’s “most produced living playwright” wins out over other contestants, including Salman Rushdie and Margaret Atwood.
Science and technology were making early modern Europe a better place to live, but at what cost?
Want to write a time-travel story? Do so at your own risk.
In Georgia, it's becoming less common to pronounce words like "prize" as "prahz."
A history of othering, experimentation, and mystery.
The One Ring has its own agency and sentience — and it opens up a wonderful philosophy of things beyond our comprehension.
Pure cinema is about removing redundancy so that even the smallest detail serves a purpose in relation to the bigger picture.
The polymath used science to elevate his art.
Six authors, six monumental legacies, and a unique thread connecting them: a solitary novel that shines brightly.
The author of Frankenstein had an obsession with the cemetery and saw love and death as connected.
In Kannauj, perfumers have been making monsoon-infused mitti attar for centuries.
Voyage into the lawless world of experimental literature.
An X-ray offers a glimpse into the painter’s early years.
Engineer James Clarke liberated John, Paul, George, and Ringo from their mono and stereo straitjackets using algorithms at Abbey Road.
What better explains the prevalence of heavy metal in Scandinavian countries: culture or economy?
These initially sympathetic characters take readers down a dark path.
Great writing can unveil the criminal psyche better than any other artistic medium.
Those white, marble statues you see in museums all over the world were originally painted with bright colors.
The strange case of cultured ultra-thief Stéphane Breitwieser — who claims “art is my drug” — has divided opinion. Is it Stendhal syndrome?
Your whole body is part of the instrument.
Aiming to unlock the secrets of his unconscious mind, Jung experimented with intensive daydreaming.
Ignoring the legacy of William Shakespeare is difficult for any writer, let alone one as quintessentially English as "Lord of the Rings" author J.R.R. Tolkien.
When done right, dark humor can help us face inconvenient truths and question stifling social conventions.
Dante’s epic journey through hell and heaven reveal how the poet felt about his own country.
You become the main protagonist in these novels.
Take a closer look before judging a book by its title.