English

Carlo Cignani, Charity, ca. 1680  Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City What is love? Is it a feeling? A physiological reaction? What is love? This question has puzzled poets, philosophers, and artists for centuries. I was overwhelmed by this question while walking through the streets of Manhattan. Nevertheless, I found the answer at the European […]

For this comparative essay, I chose Johann Sebastian Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565 and Jan Vermeer’s The Art of Painting (c. 1666-1668). Firstly, Vermeer’s painting is meticulous. The artwork presents an artist working in his studio. This piece has some household elements, such as a map of the Netherlands on the

Sandro Botticelli, Virgin and Child with Saint John the Baptist, ca. 1500.  Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. At the Renaissance Gallery of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, there is a masterpiece that caught my attention when I visited on September 30th. This marvelous feat was a Madonna painted by the prince of artists, Sandro

This painting “Homage to the Square Yellow Echo” really caught my attention because of its simplicity “like saying: Yes, this is also good art”, but at the same time its capacity of bringing up messages both internal and external. The Josef Albers’ paintings that are regarded «as one of the most iconic series of twentieth-century

The Model of Ballgame with Spectators placed in the ancient Mexican and Mesoamerican culture section at the Yale University Art Gallery is a sculpture piece created in Mexico, West Mexico, Nayarit, between 100 B.C. to A.D. 250; it was made of ceramic with traces of pigment. The person who molded it is unknown, but it

Introduction Is St. John of the Cross one of the most intimidating spiritual authors in the genre of spirituality? His ability to explain the depths of the soul can make people tremble to read his works, like the dark night of the soul. When people hear St. John of the Cross, they get shivers down

For this comparative essay, I chose Thomas of Celano’s Dies Irae and Michelangelo’s Last Judgment. I shall focus on some stanzas of the Gregorian sequence. Dies Irae is a Latin sequence composed by a member of the Franciscan Order, Thomas of Celano, in the 13th century. This Gregorian chant melody was composed for the Requiem

After reading the “Confessions of St. Augustine,” I was very impressed to realize what his desire was, that is, to seek the truth in his own life; something that would help him later to find God and to make sense of many of the most complicated questions in human history. Something that really struck me

Above: Unknown, Statue of the Capitoline Aphrodite, 1st / 2nd century CE with 18th-century restoration.  Marble, H. 73 1/2 in. (187 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET). At the core of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) collections in New York City is a sculpture that captivated all my senses when we visited there on

Images above a: Nike and Poseidon; b: Woman and Old Man (ca. 470 B.C.)  Yale University Art Gallery. Visiting the Yale University Art Gallery on February 17th, I found one piece of art that captivated my attention: a red-figure calyx krater, decorated on each side with a scene of Nike and Poseidon, a woman, and an