Arts & Culture

Tim Blake Nelson’s excellent play retells the story of one of the West’s first great philosophers—Socrates.

Isaacson’s Leonardo Da Vinci distills this complex Renaissance man whose achievements in art and science have enriched posterity.

Monticello, by America's first native-born architect, Thomas Jefferson, is a window into the mind of this most complex and captivating of Founders.

Among the stars of silent film, Buster Keaton stands out as a uniquely inventive talent.

“Like other man-made products, wine is created to serve a specific set of purposes, and facts about the wine in relation to facts about man’s body determine whether the product can fulfill its purposes, and to what degree.” —Adam Edmonsond

Harvard professor Steven Pinker lays out a powerful case for cultural optimism in his book Enlightenment Now.

The poets E. E. Cummings and T. S. Eliot offer contrasting views of spring—and of mankind in general. Which captures the soul of the season?

"Architects can add much to human happiness if they actively adopt a design philosophy that projects a good, bright view of the world while holding a heroic view of people." —John Gillis

For Daniel Chester French, sculpting was a means of lighting the world with optimism.

Kind of Blue is a landmark in the history of jazz, and even after sixty years, it still sounds fresh.