The Culture Enthusiast

Source "Melinda and Melinda" starts with four friends arguing over dinner if life is in its essence comic or tragic. One of them begins telling a story and two of the friends shape it in a comedy and in a drama respectively. The movie is therefore half comedy, half drama.  The movie seems to ask: is it possible to tell the same story...

Source “Why has God done this to me? What have I done to be thus used?” Robinson Crusoe - Chapter 8 "The Journal" Many people hated reading that dreadfully long story about a guy stuck in an island. But what Robinson Crusoe lacks in action, it makes up for in heroism. Think: his ship sank, he is the only survivor. His reaction is...

Hegel's Vacation - René Magritte Source "My latest picture began with the question: how to paint a picture with a glass of water as the subject? I drew a number of glasses of water, a line always appeared in these drawings. Then this line became deformed and took the form of an umbrella. Then this umbrella was put into the glass, and finally...

Let’s face it, we all have some movies that are so bad we are afraid to admit we love them. Here are the movies that I hope nobody finds on my Dvd shelf: Super Mario Brothers Imdb rating: 3.8 Even though many people played the classic video game, not that many people watched Mario portrayed by Bob Hoskins. I recently watched this with...

Everybody's first Austen book Source I was at a book store the other day and I saw two different people holding copies of “Pride and Prejudice”. Now that I consider myself an Austen reader (which, let’s face it, it’s no big deal, she only wrote six novels) I look down on people who only read "Pride and Prejudice". “They’re not real fans!” –...

J. M. W. Turner was an English painter from the Romantic period. Here's some interesting information about him: 1) According to his will, he wished to be buried in his painting Dido building Carthage, considered by him his masterpiece. Dido building Carthage - Turner Source 2) His body of work is huge: almost 1.000 oil paintings and about 10.000 drawings and watercolors. 3) To...

The romantic comedy for those who hate romantic comedies I never liked romantic comedies but “The Shop around the corner” is probably one of my favorite movies of all times. In case you also don’t like romantic comedies, try watching this one. I mean, it is so important to fall in love with the right type of movies. I know so many people who...

Click on the title to be redirected to the post Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe Jeanne Samary by Renoir How to read more often Books I should have read All about Eve ...

Source Are books turning into reality shows? On my last year in college I got a chance to do something I hadn’t done for a while: to read modern, recent books. During the previous three I concentrated on reading old, classic books which I easily found on the library. My assigned reading was: Wide Sargasso Sea, Fisher Child, Let the Great World Spin and Disgrace....

I absolutely love reading blogs and this list keeps growing each week as I discover more people that like to talk about culture. If you would like to be included in this blog roll or if you are interested in exchanging banners, leave a comment below or write an email to thecultureenthusiast(at)gmail(dot)com Art A piece of monologue About last night Art and architecture...

The Conversion of the Way to Damascus - Caravaggio Source A little bit of history Date: 1601 Located in the church of Saint Maria del Poppolo, Rome, Italy As the name says, the painting portrays the Biblical scene of Saint Paul’s conversion. Before his conversion, it was his job to persecute people who believed in Christ and he was on his way to...

Source Hi, my name is Paula Peters and I’m into culture. To me, it’s not really enough going to museums or watching movies. Half the fun is talking about it. So, that’s what I’ll be doing here. I’ll post three times a week, so you can expect art posts on Mondays (a Caravaggio post is coming right after this one!), book posts on...