Valérie Lüthi13.06.2024If we hazard a look at the medieval era, we discover a history of sexuality that is far more multilayered than we might at first have imagined. While the Christian church sought to extend its influence into private bedchambers, ‘lascivious’ attitudes and practices stood in the way of its ambitions.
Kurt Messmer16.05.2024We humans are predisposed to brood over the changing nature of luck. The wheel of fortune has been turning since ancient times, and remains popular today. Around 1220, a rose window at Basel Cathedral was designed to resemble a wheel of fortune, homage was paid to the goddess Fortuna in a Bavarian monastery in the form of the Carmina Burana. Yet, undeserved luck plays no part in the Christian world view. Heavenly salvation is something that has to be earned.
Barbara Basting14.05.2024Children love pictures teeming with animals, even in the 21st century. Roelant Savery was an expert in painting wildlife, and he used his skills to impress the Habsburg emperor over 400 years ago as well as inspiring many of his contemporaries, including Swiss artists.
Franziska Rogger23.04.2024Born in Russia, Ida Hoff became one of the first women to attend university in Switzerland around 1900. In addition to pursuing a career in medicine, she was a staunch advocate of women’s rights, guided by her feminist conscience and a penchant for irreverence. She found an outlet for the latter at the second Swiss Congress for Women's Interests in 1921, where she wittily subjected Ferdinand Hodler’s painting “The Day” to a fresh new feminist interpretation.
Kurt Messmer12.03.2024Swiss cities such as Lucerne experienced an epochal transformation around 1900. Its medieval centre was expanded to include prestigious residential and commercial buildings, stations, postal and administrative offices, school buildings, hotels and villas. However, architecturally this modernisation bore the hallmarks of the past. Time for a virtual tour of Lucerne.
Barbara Basting29.02.2024Who paints older women? A look at art history shows that painters have always struggled with the subject matter and that they usually needed a pretext to even depict them at all.
Michael van Orsouw27.02.2024Alberik Zwyssig (1808–1854), the musical monk from Uri who composed the Swiss Psalm, had an unhappy life. And then, after his death, his remains were dug up and reburied during the Second World War.