Gotthold Lessing News Today

Three-dimensional artwork comes alive when experienced in the flesh, says art historian Nathaniel Jones. Guiding us around the Vatican Museums’ statue of the mythical Laocoön, he describes the storytelling twists and turns the sculpture reveals when viewed dynamically — an effect impossible to capture in a static representation.

The character of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice may be the most famous Jew in Western culture. But what kind of Jew is he?

    Everything you believe about the world can be traced back to an apocalyptic prophet who lived in the twelfth century. Everything. I’m

◆ China property co debt straits play out in EM... ◆ ... and European corporate bonds ◆ The industrious sterling bond market

From the blog of Richard D. Zelin at The Times of Israel

Lion Feuchtwanger’s 1933 novel “The Oppermanns,” newly reissued, raises salient questions about the relationship between art and politics.

The story behind a witty rewrite of an 18th-century classic by Adapter Michael Bloom, with Director Adam Immerwahr

Produced with the Folger, a well-acted and tightly directed expression of hope.

Catharsis, the purification or purgation of the emotions (especially pity and fear) primarily through art. In criticism, catharsis is a metaphor used by Aristotle in the Poetics to describe the effects of true tragedy on the spectator. The use is derived from the medical term katharsis (Greek: