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Lesley Peterson is a Toronto-based blogger tripping on travel, art, culture, museums, cities and legendary landscapes. Catch her on Twitter as @culturetripper or contact her at lesley@culturetripper.com. All content by Lesley Peterson copyright © 2009 - Until the Present. All photos by Lesley Peterson except where other credit noted.
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Visions of Mughal India and Howard Hodgkin paintings at Aga Khan Museum, Toronto
Two brilliant exhibitions on now at the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, reveal British painter Howard Hodgkin’s lifelong fascination with India. Inspired by India: Paintings by Howard Hodgkin features the artist’s own work inspired by the energy, light and colours of India. Visions of Mughal India: The Collection of Howard Hodgkin displays extraordinary historical pieces from Hodgkin’s private collection. […]
The Lost Dhow exhibition, Aga Khan Museum, Toronto
“…for I was a merchant and a man of money and substance and had a ship of my own, laden with great stores of goods and merchandise; but it foundered at sea and all were drowned except me who saved myself on a piece of plank which Allah vouchsafed to me of His favour.” – […]
Mesopotamia: Inventing Our World at the ROM
There are some great shows in Toronto this summer. A must-see is Mesopotamia: Inventing Our World at the Royal Ontario Museum until January 5, 2014. This blockbuster exhibition features over 170 treasures from the acclaimed antiquities collection of the British Museum in London, England. Mesopotamia (meaning ‘between rivers’) lay in the Middle East between the Tigris and […]
The exquisite 6th century mosaics of San Vitale, Ravenna
The 6th century mosaics in the Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy, have been drawing pilgrims, art historians and lovers of beauty for nearly a millennium and a half. In all my Italian travels, how did I avoid visiting Ravenna for so long? It was always slightly out of my way, easy to postpone. My art […]
04.03.2013 · Filled under: Architecture, Art, Europe, Italy, Spirituality · Tags: Antiquity, GLASS, Italy
Sicily’s seductive beaches and strange symbol
More than 2,000 years ago, Greek sailors sailing the Mediterranean around Sicily gazed upon its golden shores and likened them to the alluring legs of a woman. They called the island Trinakria, or three pointed, identifying it with the Thrinacia mentioned in Homer’s Odyssey. I love to wander Sicily’s beaches in the off season when […]
08.12.2011 · Filled under: Europe, Italy, Legendary Landscapes, Myths & Legends · Tags: Antiquity, Beaches, HISTORY, Italy
Investing in beauty: The European Fine Art Fair, Maastricht, Netherlands
If TEFAF Maastricht is the mother of all commercial art fairs, she is a gracious hostess with a salon full of fresh flowers and the best-informed minds of the international art world. Often described as an incredible once-a-year museum in which everything is for sale, TEFAF this year hosted 260 of the world’s top art and antiques dealers showing everything from classical antiquities to crave-worthy jewellery by Lalique and […]
05.04.2011 · Filled under: Art, ArtSmart Roundtable, Europe, Festivals & Events, Netherlands · Tags: Antiquity, Holland
Changing Sicily
Having married into a Sicilian family and visited it often enough to consider it a second home, I still succumb to Stendhal syndrome within an hour or two of arrival, willing victim of its beauty and exoticism. At the crossroads of the Mediterranean but on the fringe of Europe (it’s closer to Africa than Rome), […]
17.10.2010 · Filled under: Destination Guides, Europe, Italy, Legendary Landscapes · Tags: Antiquity, Italy
Tut Tut
A double Tut treat Saturday: first a private walkthrough of the Tut show at the AGO courtesy of the Egyptian Tourism Authority, then a trek through the dusk to hear rockstar Egyptologist and Secretary General of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities Dr. Zahi Hawass speak at the U of T on the Mysteries of Tutankhamun […]
King Tut exhibition, Art Gallery of Ontario
Outside the Art Gallery of Ontario in December sleet, colossal Anubis uards the treasures within. The King Tut: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs show is a wonder. The story of Tut is actually the story of two boys: the mysterious Egyptian Boy Pharaoh and another, more modern, English boy who would grow up to discover […]