In my previous post on “Roman de la Rose” I mentioned two illuminated manuscripts kept in the Polish libraries and available in the service Polona.pl. The Warsaw manuscript is a typical French production of the late 14th century, but the one now in Cracow is actually quite weird and problematic…

In contrary to the common belief, medieval art is actually full of erotic depictions, but if we need an actual image of the couple having sex, we should look for it in one of the Roman de la Rose manuscripts. It was a medieval best-seller, and so it seems strange…

In case of some artworks something just went wrong, in spite of the artist’s good intentions. There are some artworks that may just be summed up with one sentence: “what have been seen cannot be un-seen”. I believe that this is exactly the case: a sculpture from the Holy Spirit…

There’s no doubt that Mona Lisa is one of the most famous paintings in the World, and it is commonly considered as priceless masterpiece that everyone recognises. A lot has been written about this painting, including popular or even sensational articles. I always wondered why one of the Leonardo’s paintings…

Medieval art was full of various obscene motifs, especially in the margins of illuminated manuscripts and in the decorations of gothic cathedrals (for further reading I invite you to check out my previous posts on medieval Phallic Tree, or on some sculptures of the cathedral in Bourges). Many of those…