The life of Theodor Herzl (1860-1904) was as puzzling as it was brief. How did this cosmopolitan and assimilated European Jew become the leader of the Zionist movement? How could he be both an artist and a statesman, a rationalist and an aesthete, a...

He was, according to Pauline Kael, "the greatest American screenwriter". Jean-Luc Godard called him "a genius" who "invented 80 percent of what is used in Hollywood movies today". Besides tossing off dozens of now-classic scripts – including "Scarfac...

Although Bosch's known works amount to no more than two dozen paintings and a handful of drawings, the artist had an enormous impact on religious imagery during his lifetime and for centuries afterward. His enigmatic and mind-bending depictions of hu...

Egon Schiele left an enormous artistic legacy that is all the more powerful for the brevity of his career. Isabel Kuhl's lively text follows Schiele's trajectory from an artist in the Art Nouveau style to a powerful interpreter of human sexuality and...

Lucian Freud dedicated his life to portraying the people in his world without flattery or refinement. Although his technique and style evolved tremendously over the decades, Freud never wavered in his uncompromising standards or unsentimental approac...

Picasso was arguably the most influential artist of the 20th century. Over the course of a career that spanned seven decades – and included thousands of paintings, sculptures, ceramics, drawings, prints, and tapestries -his work continued to evolve i...

Komotau, the Czech Republic, late summer, 1945. Four women – seventy-year-old Johanna, her two daughters Hanna and Maria, and Hanna's daughter Anna – are ordered by the new Czech authorities to leave their homes and assemble with other Germans at the...

Comprehensive and easy to use, this guide covers the architectural riches of Ireland's largest county. The many atmospheric castles and tower houses include Carrigadrohid, Lohort, and Kanturk; among later country houses, Kilshannig and Fota represent...

What is poetry? If music is sound organized in a particular way, poetry is a way of organizing language. It is language made special so that it will be remembered and valued. It does not always work – over the centuries countless thousands of poems h...

What is sleep? How can this most unproductive of human states – metaphorically called death's shadow or considered the very pinnacle of indolence – be envisioned as action and agency? And what do we become in sleep? What happens to the waking selves...