The Myth of the Artistic Genius
On two forgotten portraitists and how to actually alter the art historical canon.
On two forgotten portraitists and how to actually alter the art historical canon.
Edgar Degas and the stories we tell ourselves, at the opera and everywhere else.
Nancy Jo Sales on the changes of childhood and the irredeemability of Facebook.
How can you go about finding out ‘who you really are’ if the whole idea is a cultural fabrication?
Does speaking in a second language make you a more moral person?
Why is art with themes and readily available meanings so often privileged above pure aesthetic beauty?
With the writers we read again and again, our interpretation of their stories and legacies tends to change over time.
On the new style of summer music festival and the rise of the capitalist bohemian.
On Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and the sexual anxiety of the Lost Generation for The Paris Review
The best food in France comes from a single place — but hardly anyone knows it (and now it could be toast). It’s pitch-black out and we’re telling the cab driver to hurry. The moonlight draws a path in front of us as we glide through Paris at 4:30 a.m. We’re just in time to make the bus, which runs only once a month — and always leaves early. It’s almost like it wants to be missed. After passing through two security checkpoints, we finally arrive at the center of the Rungis International Market. It’s only 30 minutes outside the French capital, and it’s the largest wholesale market in the world. But ask most Parisians if they’ve heard of it, and they’re likely to shrug and shake their heads. Three hours earlier, at around two in the morning, buyers from some of the world’s biggest restaurants, hotel chains, and grocery stores had come through to make their daily purchases of meat, fish, vegetables, and flowers. Once they were done, smaller shops and restaurants — the ones who can’t afford the “premier” pass — came in take …