It’s very windy today in London. I’ve just spotted this broken branch which reminded me of the aerial view of Keshit Village in Kerman Province, Iran Read More
"In one hand holding A cup of wine In the other caressing your hair What I really yearn for Is dancing with you in the open-air!" My free translation of this beautiful fragment from a poem b… Read More
The cup created masterfully for you to take Even a drunk consider impertinent to break So many beautiful heads and feet, from top to toe Created by whose love, shattered by whose woe My tran… Read More
How sweet the flowers are! Enjoy them now, for they As quickly as they bloomed Will fall and fade away. We're all friends here my dear, Sing love songs! Why should you Sing yet again? As tha… Read More
Spring and all its flowers now joyously break their vow of silence. It is time for celebration, not for lying low; You too — weed out those roots of sadness from your heart. The Sabaa… Read More
This astrological miniature ( ca.1582 ) depicts the zodiac sign Leo, the lion, ridden by a personification of the Lady Sun (Khorshid Khanoom خورشید خ……Read More
Caucasian elm & detail from a Sohrab Sepehri’s painting. Today marks the 90th birthday of the late Sohrab Sepehri (7 October 1928 - 21 April 1980) Read More
Yesterday I spotted Johnny Depp in Modigliani exhibition at Tate Modern. The picture on the left is Dr Paul Alexandre who was Modigliani's first patron Read More
Two Illustrations by the evolutionary scientist Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) who coined such terms as ‘stem cell’ & ‘ecology’, and two Central Medallions, the most c… Read More
An amusing illustration of the oldest surviving Persian Rug (4th century BC) at the British Museum's shop, possibly inspired by The Simpsons! The Pazyryk carpet was excavated in 1949 from th… Read More
According to Professor Michael Barry, Matisse was overwhelmed by the Persian miniatures in the Paris and Munich exhibitions of 1903, 1910 and 1912, then by masterpieces in southern Spain and… Read More
Bedrooms in Hafslo (Norway) & Arles (France) Bedroom in Arles is the title given to each of three similar paintings by Vincent van Gogh. Van Gogh's own title for this composition was sim… Read More
Which one is madder? Iraqi police display captured vehicles that were turned into armoured car bombs for suicide attacks by Islamic State militants during the battle for Mosul. The cars are… Read More
British horror comedies: Advisors and Sightseers Theresa May advisors Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill quit while the PM clings on despite no overall majority. In Sightseers, a 2012 British horro… Read More
Hezar Cham, Mazandaran Province, Iran in 1833 & 2016. Hezar Cham is between Tehran and Chalus, near the Caspian Sea. The watercolour by traveller Godfrey Thomas Vigne (1801-1863) is kept… Read More
(14 May 2017) This Chestnut-leaved Oak (Bolandmazu in Persian) comes from Iran and was planted in 1846 at Kew Gardens. It stretches 30 metres high and 30 metres wide and is still growing fas… Read More
"Love After Love" The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other's welcome, and say, sit here. E… Read More
A photo of plastic ewers (aftabeh) taken by my cousin in Shiraz and "Tehran Candella" by Scottish artist David Batchelor, a site-specific work at AB-ANBAR Gallery in Tehran. >> Read Th… Read More
Best cinematography Oscars winners (1927-2016). Emmanuel Lubezki won in the last three consecutive years for Gravity (2013), Birdman (2014), and The Revenant (2015) Read More
Trees by Sohrab Sepehri & Anselm Kiefer "Tonight I must go! I must take a suitcase Big enough to contain my shirt of loneliness And walk in a direction Where epic-singing trees can be se… Read More
"I have a Conde guitar, which was made in Spain ... I put my face close to the beautifully designed rosette, and I inhaled the fragrance of the living wood. You know that wood never dies. I… Read More
Waterlow Park is a 26-acre park in the south-east of Highgate Village, in north London. It was given to the public by Sydney Waterlow, as "a garden for the gardenless" in 1889. >> View… Read More
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) & National Iranian Radio and Television (NIRT) National Iranian Radio and Television (NIRT) was the first Iranian radio and televisi… Read More
Levers Water, a turn on the Coniston fells 1923 & 2011 A few years ago I bought a watercolour painting by Cuthbert Rigby RA, RWS (1850-1935) titled "Levers Water, a turn on the Coniston… Read More
Jeremy Corbyn, the new leader of the Labour Party & the Dutch photographer and film director Anton Corbijn - here with the English actor Robert Pattinson Read More
László Moholy-Nagy self-portrait (1944), part of his early experimentation with colour transparencies. He was born on this day in 1895. Moholy-Nagy was a Hungarian painter and… Read More
Frida Kahlo - Viva la Vida, Watermelons - 1954 Pablo Neruda's "Ode to the Watermelon" The tree of intense summer, hard, is all blue sky, yellow sun, fatigue in drops, a sword above the highw… Read More
I’m a native of Kashan. My descent perhaps goes back to a plant in India or to an earthen vase from the soil of Kerameikos in Athens ~ Sohrab Sepehri >> View larger image Read More