The Culture Dump

The Culture Dump Dr. Rebecca Marks, art and literary historian

19/02/2026

My favourite art history graphic novels! A reading list…

18/02/2026

My two cents on AI use — plus a digression on Walter Benjamin’s essay ‘Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’

17/02/2026

All about the Pre-Raphaelite painter, Evelyn De Morgan!

16/02/2026

Why is this guy’s finger so LONG? 👆👆

This artwork, Madonna and Child with Saints, was painted by the Renaissance artist, Parmigianino. He was known for elegant, but deliberatedly distorted figures.

This elongated style in late Renaissance art is sometimes called ‘mannerism’. It was all about exaggerating beauty, and making the human figure look more ideal than it really is.

In this painting, that long, pointy figure belongs to Saint John the Baptist. He draws our eye up – towards the focal point: the Madonna and the child.

This is what Late Renaissance painting looks like: theatrical, excessive, artificial, and slightly camp. National Gallery

13/02/2026

What is this mysterious shape in the bottom of The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein?

This is one of the most famous paintings in the National Gallery. It is a double portrait of two French ambassadors — Jean de Dinteville and George de Selve.

It was painted in 1533: a time of religious upheaval. The King of England, Henry VIII, was starting to defect from the Roman Catholic Church.

On the table we see a broken lute, mathematical implements, and a hymn book. They symbolise
how early modern culture was increasingly defined by humanism and science: the very things which caused the religious division and political uncertainty this painting is responding to.

If you approach the painting from the right, the distorted object in the bottom of the picture turns into a human skull.

This technique is called “anamorphosis”, and here it is both a display of the painter’s virtuosic skill,
and a reminder of the limits of worldly knowledge.

National Gallery

12/02/2026

Tolkein’s illustrations to the original Lord of the Rings!

What are the ingredients that make a great Romantic Comedy? A ‘meet-cute’ moment, for sure. A foppish male lead, probabl...
11/02/2026

What are the ingredients that make a great Romantic Comedy?

A ‘meet-cute’ moment, for sure. A foppish male lead, probably. Lovable side characters. Low-stakes chaos and miscommunication.

Let’s not forget a GRAND GESTURE — a boombox outside-the-window, running-through-the-city, or heartwarming declaration. Rom Coms are always resolved, and happy at the end.

While the ‘Rom Com’ as a cinematic genre reached its zenith in the late 1990s and early 2000s, in literature and art it goes MUCH FURTHER BACK!

Let’s have a look…📝🪶

‘As You Like It’, by William Shakespeare (1599) — No one does the Rom Com quite like Shakey. Why do you think so many of the classic Rom Com movies (Clueless, 10 Things I Hate About You, She’s The Man) are based on his plays?

‘She Stoops to Conquer’, by Oliver Goldsmith (1773) — A parody of what is sometimes called ‘Sentimental Comedy’. This is a play which pokes fun at drawing-room gossip. Feel-good and fun.

‘Evelina’, by Frances Burney (1778) — One of Jane Austen’s favourites! Evelina is an epistolary romp through London and Bath. Lots of ‘does he like me, doesn’t he like me’ back-and-forth.

‘Emma’, by Jane Austen (1815) — ‘AS IF’ we could talk about Rom Coms mentioning the source for ‘Clueless’! ‘Emma’ is one of the most perfect Rom Coms of all time.

‘Cranford’, by Elizabeth Gaskell (1851–53) — More a comedy of manners than a rom-com… love is nonetheless at the centre of both the narrative and the humour.

‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’ by Helen Fielding (1996) — Loosely based on Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’, and equally as funny.

All’s fair in love and war!

10/02/2026

The Victorian Gothic artist who inspired the ambience in ‘Silent Hill’…?

This artist specialised in ‘nocturnes’ — spooky, gloomy, foggy, nighttime scenes.

09/02/2026

Sir John Soane’s museum is a hop, skip, and a jump from Holborn Station (near the British Museum), and it’s well worth a visit if you’re interested in maximalist interior design!

Sir John Soane was one of greatest English architects of the Regency period. His house is like a cabinet of curiosities… filled to the brim with Greek and Roman paraphernalia, antiquities, antiques, and the occasional sarcophagus.

Although it might seem a bit chaotic, the house is actually ruthlessly designed. Each room has cleverly-placed mirrors and skylights, which make the space seem larger, and more complex, than it really is.

Soane was a passionate teacher, and he used his collection to teach Royal Academy students about Classical aesthetics: proportion, harmony, the serpentine line, visual rhetoric, and so on.

A lot of the objects in this collection are copies of original artefacts, for instance, like the Apollo Belvedere. This was common practice in the eighteenth century because, remember, they didn’t have google images!

If you do come visit, try to come on a weekday (it gets very busy!). Also: Try not to break anything…

08/02/2026

Gustave Doré was a 19th century French illustrator who became known epic, dark, gothic renditions of famous works of literature. His best-known designs are his illustrations to the Divine Comedy. He was admired by gothic writers like Victor Hugo and H. P. Lovecraft!

In this short documentary I’ll take you through JMW Turner’s tragic painting, Hero and Leander (1837). We discuss Romant...
06/02/2026

In this short documentary I’ll take you through JMW Turner’s tragic painting, Hero and Leander (1837).

We discuss Romanticism, Tragedy, and what links this painting to Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights…

Address

Trafalgar Square
London
WC2N 5DN

Website

,

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when The Culture Dump posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category