Last week, a major museum asked for my help in locating a work of art I adore and about which I’ve written…
Author: michellefacos
I am a multi-lingual art historian, consultant (art, travel, writing), editor, entrepreneur, lecturer, and writer who has lived along the shores of the Baltic, the Mediterranean, and Lake Erie, in New York and in Paris, and in the forests of Quebec and Sweden. While I’ve lived a semi-nomadic existence for the past few decades, I’m inching toward a life anchored in Europe.
Dance!
A scientist at Institut Curie in Paris recently explained how human embryo cells dance. Yes, dance. From the moment of their formation…
Midsummer
Swedish artist Anders Zorn (1860-1920) painted Midsummer Dance (1897) at a moment when, throughout Europe, many felt it important to assert and reify one’s geographical identify—local, regional, national…
Gardening
I am happily surprised by the joy I derive from gardening. My father would have observed dryly, ‘I told you so’…
Dresden
I’ve been coming to Dresden regularly (at least every other year) since the mid-1990s and it’s been fascinating to observe the city’s transformation following the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989….
Walking to Spitzkunnersdorf
Inexplicably reluctant to break my writing procrastination streak, instead of writing my Monday blogpost, a ritual I enjoy, I decided to spend the cool, sunny morning taking a short hike….
Caspar David Friedrich
I currently find myself residing at a house in a rural German village tucked into the corner where Germany meets the Czech Republic and Poland. It’s a region where one of my first art historical loves, Caspar David Friedrich, often wandered. He captured the rolling hills, distinguished by pale nuances even at sunset, in many of his paintings, although Cross in the Mountains (painted in 1808 and now in Dresden) depicts the nearby, pointier, red sandstone peaks a few kilometers southeast….
Balancing Act
During the past year, the unexpected deaths or devastating traumas experienced by close friends and family have instigated intensified reflections on mortality, materialism, legacies, and the choices we make. I’d prefer to have such thoughts poke me a lot less often…
A Walk in the Park
Since arriving in Warsaw at the beginning of April, I’ve often found myself too distracted to write….it’s partly the fault of Łazienki Park…
Vision: Motif from Visby
As a staunch Social Democrat from the bourgeoisie, Bergh hoped to dissolve social demographic barriers, establish common ground, and generate empathy among social layers…