Guggums Journal: All Posts

Arsenic is well known in classic murder mysteries. Yet in Victorian life, its presence was often far more ordinary, quietly…

In Ford Madox Brown’s Work, laborers dig up a London street while children, wealthy passersby, and people struggling to get by…

This morning, a story on the BBC caught my attention and lingered in my thoughts. Saint Agnese, once unmistakable, had…

Some reviews are harsh, but Charles Dickens’s review of Millais’s Christ in the House of His Parents took criticism to another level. In…

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey opened in cinemas on July 17th, carrying Homer’s ancient journey onto the vast scale of the IMAX screen….

Shakespeare’s GhostsStephanie Chatfield The ghosts begin in the wood, where all lost things are first mislaid. A crown, a letter,…

The good news is that Shakespeare is much easier to read once you stop expecting him to behave like modern…

It may sound silly, but imagine Pre-Raphaelite artists using social media today. The question reveals more than it first appears….

In a recent interview, actor Timothée Chalamet stirred up controversy by saying 'no one cares' about ballet and opera anymore,…

We seem to imagine spring as soft and feminine by default: mild weather, pastel colors, and a dreamy sense of…

Let us open the parlor door a crack.A cold wind slips in.Someone murmurs “witch.”Someone else whispers “fashion.” And there she…

Over the years, the term “Pre-Raphaelite” has wandered far beyond its original meaning. It's become a modern shorthand for a dress style,…

Mariana, Sir John Everett Millais For centuries, the most luminous ultramarine came from lapis lazuli mined in remote mountains (and…

Somewhere along the way, we learned a suspicious equation: beauty = avoidancejoy = ignoranceaesthetic pleasure = moral failure Art history…

This is where The Tempest slips off the page. Pre-Raphaelite attention pins unseen magic to a real patch of grass and…

Key Takeaways Madeleine Smith stood trial in 1857 for the murder of her former lover, Pierre Emile L’Angelier, becoming a…

Somewhere along the way, “Pre-Raphaelite” became shorthand for a look: abundant hair, pale skin, some moody greenery. A woman who…

A flat in Blackfriars, a winter evening, and a sound you can’t quite place… A Light in the Stairwell begins in…

Color harmony sounds like a polite term, as if it should wear a waistcoat and speak softly in a museum….

In 1868, Dante Gabriel Rossetti painted Jane Morris as La Pia de’ Tolomei, a figure drawn from Dante Alighieri’s Purgatorio. Pia appears…