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The joy of clutter
The world sees Japan as a paragon of minimalism. But its hidden clutter culture shows that ‘more’ can be as magical as ‘less’
Matt Alt
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Music
A novel kind of music
So-called ‘classical’ music was as revolutionary as the modern novel in its storytelling, harmony and depth
Joel Sandelson
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Art
Creating art that was aware of itself – and the viewer – made Manet the first modernist
15 minutes
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Beauty and aesthetics
All aquiver
The Decadent movement taught that you should live your life with the greatest intensity – a dangerous and thrilling challenge
Kate Hext
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Design and fashion
Sitting on the art
Given its intimacy with the body and deep play on form and function, furniture is a ripely ambiguous artform of its own
Emma Crichton Miller
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Architecture
The celebrated architect who took inspiration from sitting, waiting and contemplating
29 minutes
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Art
More than breathtaking, ‘The Birth of Venus’ signalled an aesthetic revolution
19 minutes
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Meaning and the good life
Why strive? Stephen Fry reads Nick Cave’s letter on the threat of computed creativity
5 minutes
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Art
The overlooked polymath whose theatrical oeuvre made all of Rome a stage
30 minutes
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Beauty and aesthetics
The grit of cacti and the drumbeat of time shape a sculptor’s life philosophy
11 minutes
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Music
‘Dun dun dun duuun!’ Why Beethoven’s Fifth sticks in the head and stirs the heart
5 minutes
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Film and visual culture
The truth of photographs
It’s often said that a successful picture ‘captures the essence’ of a subject. But a great photograph does so much more
Daniel Star
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Art
Inside the unique creative space where ‘outsider’ artists find their form
14 minutes
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Stories and literature
What makes John Keats’s ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ so enduringly powerful?
10 minutes
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Politics and government
Models of antiquity
Radicals in the Age of Revolution saw the classical world as a common inheritance that could aid their fight for liberty
Francesca Langer
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Art
The art of rules
Conceptual art often confounds. The key is to understand the rules of the artwork and the aesthetic experiences they yield
Sherri Irvin
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Stories and literature
The sonnet machine
A sonnet contains an emotional drama of illusion and deception, crisis and resolution, crafted to make us think and feel
Timothy Hampton
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Love and friendship
When drawing your muse hundreds of times becomes an exercise in love
7 minutes
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Beauty and aesthetics
Patterns of the lifeworld
Machine learning theory is shedding new light on how to think about the mysterious and ineffable nature of art
Peli Grietzer
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Art
Tracing Goya’s ‘dark’ journey from Spanish court painter to macabre visionary
51 minutes
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Animals and humans
Where went the wolf?
The very attributes that make small dogs cute and popular are slowly strangling their ability to function as real animals
Jessica Pierce
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Architecture
The radically impractical 18th-century architect whose ideas on beauty endure
19 minutes
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Chemistry
A square inch in a Petri dish becomes a grand stage for chemical transformations
4 minutes
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History of ideas
The first Romantics
How a close group of brilliant friends, in a tiny German university town, laid the foundations of modern consciousness
Andrea Wulf