Monthly Archives: March 2022

March 31

Skandalkonzert: The Battle for Modernism

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On the evening of the 31st of March 1913, the infamous Skandalkonzert at the Great Hall of the Vienna Musikverein took place. Despite the bad press that followed, the event has entered public consciousness as a major breakthrough into the era of modernism in classical music. What could be more symbolic than a riot erupting […]

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March 30

Fortunato Depero’s Futurist Toy

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On the 30th of March 1892, Italian Futurist artist Fortunato Depero was born in Fondo, Trentino. In his youth, he was apprentice to a marble worker, which may explain his future interest in shape, form and design. On a 1913 trip to Florence, he discovered a copy of Giovanni Papini’s periodical Lacerba, which prophesized the […]

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March 29

Emmett Miller: The Yodelling Minstrel

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On the 29th of March 1962, American minstrel show performer, singer and yodelling master, Emmett Miller, died in Macon, Georgia, the US, the city of his birth some sixty two years earlier (although certain sources indicate he was born in 1903). Popular in the mid-1920s and early 1930s for his blues-country-like recordings with the characteristic […]

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March 28

The Elusion of Happiness in Viginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway

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On the 28th of March 1941, English writer Virginia Woolf filled her pockets with stones and drowned herself in the River Ouse, near Lewes, East Sussex during a bout of severe depression. Her entire life revolved around the fruitless chase of inner peace and happiness which she fervently pursued through the creative act of writing. […]

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March 27

Pablo Picasso and Julio Gonzalez: The Power of Collaboration

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On the 27th of March 1942, Spanish sculptor and painter Julio Gonzalez died in Arcueil, France. He is mostly known for his abstract iron sculptures with strong cubist influences. Although involved in various artistic enterprises since early youth, first as a metalsmith and jeweller at his father’s workshop, then as a painter in Paris, he did […]

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March 26

Spermatic Imagery in Whitman’s Leaves of Grass

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On the 26th of March 1892, American poet Walt Whitman died in Camden, New Jersey, aged 72. A humanist, whose work progresses from realism to transcendentalism, he is probably America’s best loved poet. His collection Leaves of Grass, which he published in 1855 with his own money, is an American epic dedicated to the common […]

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March 25

Stories of Venice: Joseph Brodsky’s ‘Watermark’

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According to legend, on the 25th of March 421, Venice was founded. Its founding is identified with the dedication of the first church San Giacomo at the islet of Rialto. Nevertheless, it has been hard to place it within historical context, as the church had not been mentioned in any form of document until 1152. […]

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March 24

Wilhelm Reich: Climax To Happiness!

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On the 24th of March 1897, eccentric psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich was born in the village of Dobzau, part of the old Austro-Hungarian empire (present-day Ukraine). An anti-Fascist Marxist, Reich is primarily considered the inventor of the notion of ‘sexual revolution’ who coined the phrase in the 1930s in order to illustrate his belief that a true political […]

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March 23

John Lennon: James Joyce’s Illegitimate Son?

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On the 23rd of March 1964, In His Own Write by John Lennon was first published. The book was the first solo Beatle project in any form that turned out to be an instant success. Printed initially by Jonathan Cape of Great Britain, it sold only in England 50,000 copies on the first day. In […]

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March 22

Brinkman and The International Style in Architecture

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On the 22nd of March 1902, Dutch architect and exponent of Nieuwe Bouwen, (modern architecture in the Netherlands), Johannes Andreas Brinkman was born in Rotterdam. He is perhaps best known for the design of the former Van Nelle Factory, a prime example of the International Style, which his architectural office, Brinkman & Van der Vlugt, […]

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