Huntington Verso

The blog of The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.

Uncategorized

Looking Back at 2018

Wed., Dec. 26, 2018 | Kevin Durkin
As the year draws to a close, we invite you to revisit a dozen of our favorite stories from this year's Verso offerings.
Exhibitions

Venice: Real and Imagined

Wed., Dec. 19, 2018 | Linda Chiavaroli
Countless novelists, composers, poets, and playwrights have sourced Italy's Venice for their creations. Somewhat less prominent on the cultural radar are the visionary developers, marketing-savvy citrus growers, and architects of expositions who have done the same.
Botanical

From Compost to Collectible

Thu., Dec. 13, 2018 | Usha Lee McFarling
For years, the boxy myrtle hedges running through the heart of the Rose Garden have concerned Tom Carruth, the E.L. and Ruth B. Shannon Curator of the Rose Collections at The Huntington.
Conferences

Moving Landscapes

Thu., Dec. 6, 2018 | Stephen Bending and Jennifer Milam
What do we mean by an "English," a "French," or an "American" garden? What are the differences between them in the early modern transatlantic world, and what might they—or those who experience them—still share?
Library

The Prayer Book of Mary, Queen of Scots

Mon., Dec. 3, 2018 | Vanessa Wilkie, Ph.D.
The family feud between England's Queen Elizabeth I (1533–1603) and her cousin, the Scottish Queen Mary (1542–1587)—not "Bloody" Mary, Elizabeth's half-sister—has fascinated people since the 16th century.
Art

Resplendent Reunion

Thu., Nov. 29, 2018 | Thea Page
Something rare and golden will be unveiled in the Huntington Art Gallery this weekend. Beginning Dec. 1, four tempera-with-gold-leaf panels from an altarpiece by Florentine Renaissance master Cosimo Rosselli (1439–1507) can be seen reunited on the same wall, hung in a beautiful new display after more than 200 years of...
Exhibitions

Rituals of Labor and Engagement

Wed., Nov. 21, 2018 | Carribean Fragoza
When push comes to shove, there are two kinds of people in the world. The kind who will either run away from a fire or a fist fight, and the kind who will run toward it to get a closer look.
Library

The Curious Afterlives of Ambroise Paré

Wed., Nov. 14, 2018 | Seth LeJacq
The French surgeon Ambroise Paré occupies a curious place in medical history. He is a towering figure in Renaissance medicine and the history of surgery, and yet relatively unknown, especially next to prominent contemporaries like the anatomist Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564) or the nonconformist thinker Paracelsus (d. 1541).
Conferences

A History of the Medical Book

Wed., Nov. 7, 2018 | Mary E. Fissell
When we analyze an early-modern medical book nowadays, we often read it on Early English Books Online (EEBO), Google Books, or a similar platform. While such digitization has opened up all kinds of scholarly opportunities, it has also meant that we less frequently encounter a historical medical book as a...
Library

The Spirit of Party

Tue., Oct. 30, 2018 | Olga Tsapina
Few documents of the Founding era were more admired in the United States before the Civil War than George Washington's Farewell Address. Americans liked to think of themselves as the same nation to which its first president appealed in 1796—patriotic citizenry with "reflecting and virtuous minds" whose "love of liberty"...

Beatrix Farrand at The Huntington

Wed., Oct. 24, 2018 | Ann Scheid
Documentary filmmaker and six-time Emmy Award-winner Karyl Evans will present a screening of her film "The Life and Gardens of Beatrix Farrand" at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 12 in The Huntington's Rothenberg Hall. In anticipation of the screening, we have invited historian Ann Scheid to write about the work.
Events

“Nightwalk” in the Chinese Garden

Wed., Oct. 17, 2018 | Lynne Heffley
It was an auspicious omen. At dusk, during a mid-September rehearsal of Nightwalk in the Chinese Garden—The Huntington's first-ever, site-specific, evening theatrical production—"these huge wild geese came in formation and they flew down and sort of circled us and left," says playwright-director Stan Lai. "That felt so wonderful. Sort of...