Is the restaurant an ideal total social phenomenon for the contemporary world? Restaurants are framed by the logic of the market, but promise experiences not of the market. Restaurants are key sites for practices of social distinction, where chefs struggle for recognition as stars and patrons insist on seeing and being seen. Restaurants define urban landscapes, reflecting and shaping the character of neighborhoods or standing for the ethos of an entire city or nation. Whether they spread authoritarian French organizational models or the bland standardization of American fast food,...
Is the restaurant an ideal total social phenomenon for the contemporary world? Restaurants are framed by the logic of the market, but promise exper...
Van Eyck is now seen as the artist who bridged the gap between the medieval and the modern. The Enlightenment had quietly placed Van Eyck in the Gothic tradition. Then Napoleon looted panels of his masterwork, the Ghent altar-piece, and took them back to the Louvre. Now, centre stage in the greatest art gallery of the time, interest in the work of Van Eyck exploded across Europe. The 19th Century saw Van Eyck mania with ever-more fanciful tales in the press of his life as monkish painter, murderer, arsonist, and inventor of oil-painting, with Van Eyck carpets and mirrors, scenes from his...
Van Eyck is now seen as the artist who bridged the gap between the medieval and the modern. The Enlightenment had quietly placed Van Eyck in the Go...
