"Murano", a recent work by the distinguished American poet Mark Doty, is a contemplative meditation on human mortality and the mystery of artistic creation. Addressed to his late friend, the poet Lynda Hull, the musings in "Murano" are set against th...

Bernardo Bellotto's magnificent View of the Grand Canal provides a rich visual record of life in eighteenth-century Venice. This painting one of the most popular in the Getty Museum is so sweeping in its scope and so detailed that it requires repeate...