Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.
Painted in 1537, the portrait of Henry VIII (1491-1547) by the Swiss-German artist Hans Holbein the Younger is, as the video essayist Evan Puschak (aka the Nerdwriter) puts it in this short, ‘arguably the most famous portrait of royalty ever painted’. It’s also ‘a lie’, portraying the infamous English monarch as imposing, commanding and virile in a moment when both his physical and political power was in decline, and his lack of a male heir was considered a major liability. Centring his analysis on the most protrudent codpiece the English king sports in the painting, Puschak makes the case that, although very few people ever saw the piece during Henry VIII’s life, it’s a masterful work of political propaganda which still shades how he’s viewed today.
Video by The Nerdwriter
video
Food and drink
Local tensions simmer amid a potato salad contest at the Czech-Polish border
14 minutes
video
Knowledge
An Indigenous myth and a geological survey elicit two ways of knowing one place
4 minutes
video
War and peace
A war meteorologist’s riveting account of how the Allies averted a D-Day disaster
6 minutes
video
Technology and the self
How the magic of photography brought Victorian England closer to the spirit realm
16 minutes
video
Home
An artist endeavours to bring the Moon down to Earth in a ritual of yearning
5 minutes
video
Information and communication
An animation built from road signs is a whirlwind study of flash communication
2 minutes
video
Art
Creating art that was aware of itself – and the viewer – made Manet the first modernist
15 minutes
video
Biotechnology
It’s our responsibility to engineer corals that can weather the world we’ve created
11 minutes
video
War and peace
A century later, can poetry help us make sense of the First World War’s horrors?
9 minutes