Art & Culture
Monthly Archive: December Art
'The Elements of Armories': A Very Short History of Heraldry
The colourful pennants and shields carried by bold knights and courageous squires are known to us today from illustrated books and films telling stories of Robin Hood, or King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. But these bright emblems are more than decoration, and have long historical roots.
The Anatomy of a Book: Saving The Naturalist's Library
Books are remarkably durable. Fragments have survived from ancient times, while others have traversed the centuries in near perfect condition. One such example is the St Cuthbert Gospel from the 7th century, the earliest intact European book. But despite the robust structure of the book, the rigours of use and the passage of years cause many fall into disrepair and to require mending.
International Women's Day
In honour of International Women’s Day, the ROM Library and Archives highlights a number of the many women whose work at the ROM made advances in science, art, and museology.
"All manner of Sychenesses": Domestic Medical Books
The late winter months often coincide with cold and ‘flu season, a time when we look for remedies to help cure runny noses or coughs. Now we might turn to the internet for this kind of information, but in years past people would have consulted the household medical book for advice.
Of Africa at the ROM. Exploring the complexity of African and Diasporic experience.
The third week of October marked the launch of the three-year multi-platform project Of Africa: a rich and thought-provoking series of talks and performances entitled Histories, Collections, Reflections.
The Wildlife Photographer of Yesteryear
The Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition is celebrating its 50th year, and the exhibition showing this year's outstanding images of the natural world opened at the ROM last week. Wildlife photography has a history nearly as long as the medium itself.
The Monastery of St Moses, Syria: The Prehistoric Remains
Since 2004 I had walked the Qalamoun mountains around the monastery of Deir Mar Musa looking for archaeological features to record. In all that time I found one lithic, a stone tool from humanity’s prehistoric past. My colleagues back home that specialised in these objects would say that I just didn’t know what I was looking for. In the last days of the 2009 season, what turned out to be my last season at the monastery, I thought I would reconnoitre the southern part of the field area.
Modern Design for a Modern World: Art Deco in Paris
In the years between the World Wars a new design style emerged which embraced the imagery of industrialization. This style, known as Art Deco, responded to the social and technological developments that had come out of the First World War, and celebrated all things modern.
Pacifist Males & Warrior Females
About a hundred year ago, mass produced colour lithographs proliferated across the South Asian subcontinent creating new imaginary communities through a shared visual imagery. In this new kind of visual culture, hero images seemed to flip traditional gender roles by being dominated by warrior females and pacifist males. Written by Deepali Dewan
Unfrozen in Time: From the Erebus and Terror to the ROM
Today’s blog post is a glimpse of a tale that is largely untold. It is the story of the exploration of the Canadian Arctic, as seen by Adam White in his botanical scrapbooks. These scrapbooks were donated to the University of Toronto, and came to the ROM together with what is now the ROM’s Green Plant Herbarium. What do these scrapbooks have to do with Franklin, the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror? It’s a fantastic story!
