Monthly Archives: January 2022

January 31

Oskar Fischinger: An Optical Poem

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On the 31st of January 1967, Oskar Fischinger died in Los Angeles, California. He was a German abstract animator, filmmaker, and painter, credited for creating the first music video over fifty years before the appearance of computer graphics. His artistic career path can be traced between Frankfurt – where he worked with coloured liquids and […]

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January 30

Iconic Women in Art: Amrita Sher-Gil

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On the 30th of January 1913, famous Indian painter Amrita Sher-Gil was born to a Hungarian Jewish opera singer mother and a Punjabi Sikh aristocrat father in Budapest, Hungary. She trained at an early age at Santa Annunziata art school in Florence, then at 16 in Paris at Grande Chaumière under Pierre Vaillant and Lucien […]

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January 29

Vito Acconci’s ‘Seedbed’: Art and Pornography

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On the 29th of January 1971, the American performance artist, mostly known for his landscapes and architectural designs, Vito Acconci, finished his installation/performance piece, Seedbed. The installation took place in the Sonnabend Gallery in New York, where a special floor was constructed in the form of a ramp, over which the viewers walked. For two […]

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January 28

A Tale of Serendipity

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On the 28th of January 1754, in a letter to Horace Mann, eighteenth-century English author Horace Walpole coined the word serendipity in the English language: “I once read a silly fairy tale, called The Three Princes of Serendip [the ancient name for Ceylon, or Sri Lanka]: as their Highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, […]

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January 27

The Mozart Effect

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People say, live fast, die young. As vague as this may sound, by looking at the life of one of the greatest, if not the greatest, composers of all time, there seems to be some degree of relevance in it. On the 27th of January 1756, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria. The […]

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January 26

Theatre and Morality: Synge’s Playboy of the Western World

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On the 26th of January 1907, The Playboy of the Western World, a three-act drama, written by Irish playwright John Millington Synge, was first performed at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Synge’s main writing interest revolved around the life of churchgoing Roman Catholic peasants of rural Ireland, paradoxically, the raw paganism of the way they […]

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January 25

Godzilla: The Nuclear Monster

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On the 25th of January 1970, Eiji Tsuburaya, the Japanese special effects director, died in Sukagawa, Fukushima, Japan. Known for his immaculate experimentation in the field of cinematic special effects in his time, Tsuburaya brought new quality into the Japanese science-fiction genre. He began his career in filmmaking as a cinematographer at the Nippon Cinematograph […]

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January 24

Secrets of the Castrati: Carlo Farinelli

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On the 24th of January 1705, legendary 18th century castrato opera singer Carlo Maria Michelangelo Nicola Broschi, known by the stage name Farinelli was born in Andria (Apulia) into a family of musicians. In his career, he used the surname of his benefactors, the brothers Farina. Considered one of the greatest performers in the history […]

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January 23

Django’s Hand: The Story of Success

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If you are looking for inspiration to boost your enthusiasm for following your dreams this year, you will find it in the story of the famous guitarist and banjo player Jean-Baptiste Reinhardt, better known by his stage name Django. Born on the 23rd of January 1910  in Liberchies, Pont-à-Celles, Belgium, into a family of travelling Manouche Gypsy entertainers, Django […]

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January 22

Poetry vs Visual Art in Lessing’s Laocoon

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On the 22nd of January 1729, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was born in Kamenz, Saxony, Germany. He was a precocious writer, philosopher, publicist, art critic, the first real playwright in theatre history and one of the most outstanding representatives of the Enlightenment. As a literary theorist, he is well-known for his essay Laocoon: An Essay on the […]

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