Dr Christina Faraday
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cjfaraday.bsky.social
Dr Christina Faraday
@cjfaraday.bsky.social
4.4K followers 840 following 380 posts
Historian of art & ideas, University of Cambridge | FSA FRHistS | BBC New Generation Thinker | host of British Art Matters podcast | trustee of The Walpole Society | 📕 The Story of Tudor Art out now! | 🥦👻🎻 views own
https://www.christinajfaraday.com/
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cjfaraday.bsky.social
Saw possibly the greatest Halloween costume ever the evening…
A blurry photo of someone in a large fossil diplodocus costume, their legs in the front legs
October 31, 2025 at 10:17 PM
cjfaraday.bsky.social
My episode of @bbcradio3bot.bsky.social Sunday Feature goes out this Sunday at 7:45pm (or catch up later on BBC Sounds). All about the musical aspects of my favourite Tudor picture, The Henry Unton Memorial Portrait at the National Portrait Gallery in London.
Screenshot of the Sunday Feature webpage on the BBC website, listing the episode information. A detail of the Unton Memorial Portrait showing his house. Unton is hosting a dinner party with musicians in a broken consort, with wind and string instruments, and in an upstairs room plays the viola da gamba in a small group, music books on the table.
October 31, 2025 at 12:15 PM
cjfaraday.bsky.social
Perfect Hallowe'en-e'en post - my author copies of The Haunted Library, @blpublishing.bsky.social's latest Tales of the Weird volume, out on 13th November. My story 'The Advent Visitor' appears alongside some true classics of the genre...
Two copies of The Haunted Library on a table with richly patterned table cloths in red and white. The book cover is green and black, with a figure holding a candle looking up at a domed library. The Haunted Library book open at the contents page: The Devil's Manuscript S. LEVETT-YEATS The Tractate Middoth M. R. JAMES The Whisperers ALGERNON BLACKWOOD Fingers of a Hand H. D. EVERETT Mr. Tallent's Ghost MARY WEBB The Book MARGARET IRWIN The Library HESTER HOLLAND Midnight Express ALFRED NOYES Herodes Redivivus A. N. L. MUNBY W. S. L. P. HARTLEY What Shadows We Pursue RUSSELL KIRK The Work of Evil WILLIAM CROFT DICKINSON Revenant as Typewriter PENELOPE LIVELY The Advent Visitor C. J. FARADAY
October 30, 2025 at 11:29 AM
cjfaraday.bsky.social
It's Halloween-een so let me tell you a real life ghost story from my research. It concerns this guy, William Windover, successful merchant from Salisbury in England, and owner of one of the most impressive desk tidies in all of art history.
An early 17th century portrait of a man wearing black with a ruff and a big black hat. Flanked by four coats of arms for different Livery Companies and his merchant's mark, with the mottos 'I bred him', 'I fed him', 'I made him free', 'yet known by me'. In the foreground a very elaborate desk tidy with pens and ink wells. He holds a letter and a pen.
October 30, 2025 at 11:26 AM
cjfaraday.bsky.social
Had a blast at Cheltenham Literature Festival talking to @tracyborman.bsky.social and Julia Wheeler about The Story of Tudor Art!
Christina Faraday in front of a light blue Cheltenham Literature Festival sign, with golden fallen leaves in the background. Christina Faraday, Tracy Borman and Julia Wheeler on stage, seated on sofas and a chair, with a photo and the event sign behind them, three books on a table: Christina Faraday’s The Story of Tudor Art and Tracy Borman’s Holbein: The Ambassadors and Stolen Crown Christina Faraday by a book table in the Waterstones tent. The book table is covered in The Story of Tudor Art books with a bright red cover, Christina’s t-shirt also has the book cover on it.
October 18, 2025 at 5:16 PM
cjfaraday.bsky.social
RIP Diane Keaton, your coolness made me feel much better about getting glasses.
Black and white photo in two matched halves, left half Christina Faraday in check shirt with big glasses, looking up; right half Diane Keaton looking much cooler in similar check shirt and glasses.
October 11, 2025 at 8:48 PM
cjfaraday.bsky.social
Oscar Wilde could have ridden on the underground drinking a bottle of coke and eating chips with Heinz ketchup.
A black and white photo of Oscar Wilde photoshopped into a colour image of a tube train at Kennington station with a plate of chips and ketchup in his lap and a bottle of coke in his hand.
October 8, 2025 at 9:36 AM
cjfaraday.bsky.social
Term starts here tomorrow; solidarity to any colleagues experiencing a "pretty chronic attack of beginning-of-term-itis", à la Jennings.
Page from a book, with the words: ""Well, so you have; every night for the last four terms. If you want to know what I think, Jennings, I'd say you were suffering from a pretty chronic attack of beginning-of-term-itis." "Uh?" "Oh, it's nothing serious. It's just that you haven't switched over properly from holidays to term time." The specialist frowned thoughtfully at his patient. "You'll feel less chronic tomorrow when you've got over the ghastly shock, and after that you'll settle down to a calm and peaceful term with everything running smoothly." A rash prophecy, if ever there was one! Jennings' feeling of strangeness passed quickly enough..."
October 6, 2025 at 1:56 PM
cjfaraday.bsky.social
Exciting to see The Story of Tudor Art reviewed in today’s Times!
October 4, 2025 at 4:38 PM
cjfaraday.bsky.social
Had a ridiculously swish time recording for @nationalgalleryldn.bsky.social Members’ Book Club with Aliki Braine today, talking about The Story of Tudor Art!
Aliki Braine, in red cardigan, blue shirt and jeans, and Christina Faraday, in colourful trousers, black shirt, burgundy shoes, sitting in armchairs in a recording studio with tv cameras in the foreground, a curtained backdrop tinted red, plants and a bookcase with art books, including The Story of Tudor Art, facing outward.
October 2, 2025 at 7:06 PM
cjfaraday.bsky.social
The AAH 2026 Conference #callforpapers site is live, incl. our session 'Art Writing: Beyond the Crisis?'. Seeking 10-minute papers on examples of innovative art writing & what the discipline can learn from its choices of format, style, subject matter & audience. forarthistory.org.uk/art-writing-...
Screenshot of a Call for Papers titled Art Writing: Beyond the Crisis? Text: At a time when the discipline of art history is seeking ever greater diversity in both subject matter and practitioners, this same diversity has not penetrated to the level of art writing. As Brad Haylock and Megan Patty (2021), James Elkins (2021) and others have noted, channels for criticism are diminishing, acceptable styles of formal art historical writing are narrowing, and movements such as literary studies' 'postcritique' appear to have passed art history by. At the margins of mainstream art history, however, new approaches have been taking root since the 1980s, proliferating in the twenty-first century. These combine creative writing, criticism and scholarship-often seen as separate or even antagonistic disciplines - to push the boundaries of what art writing can look like (e.g. Greg Tate (1986), Gary Indiana (1985-1988), Jill Johnston (1994); Elkins (2023); Gloria Kury (2015); Janet Malcolm (2014); A.V. Marraccini (2023)). Underlying such experiments is a desire to reflect the increasing diversity of voices within the discipline, question old assumptions, engage new audiences, and reinspire old ones.
September 29, 2025 at 5:54 PM
cjfaraday.bsky.social
Sad to say goodbye to my amazing flat in Newnham Cottage, the C18th Cambridge villa where I’ve lived as a Research Fellow @caiuscollege.bsky.social. I’ll especially miss the beech tree’s fiery autumn display outside the window. So glad to have had such a stunning place to think & write for 5 years.
A wall of bookshelves over an antique table next to an open window, with houseplants, armchair and orange cushion. A bright green tree outside the window. A view of a bright orange and yellow beech tree out of a window, with curtains, houseplant and armchair. A view of Newnham Cottage, a yellow brick Cambridge villa, from the back lawn. An ironwork pergola over the floor length downstairs windows, blue wooden shutters against the windows. The branch of a redwood in the foreground. A brilliant blue sky. A mid brown G plan table, on top a pottery lamp with a red shade flanked by houseplants. Patterned placemats by Louise Bourgeois. Two pictures on the wall, on the left a small picture, pink and white with two abstract figures talking, on the right a black and white print by Amy Jeffs of Diana sending Brutus to Albion.
September 28, 2025 at 11:13 AM
cjfaraday.bsky.social
Lovely to return to David’s Bookshop in Letchworth tonight for The Story of Tudor Art publication day!
Christina J Faraday standing in front of a projector screen, many bookshelves behind. She’s wearing a black T-shirt with the red book cover on it, and colourful trousers. Rows of people to the right, a table of books to the left. A view from the back of the room with the heads of the audience, Christina and the projector screen in the distance. Christina signing books at a table after the talk. In a dimly lit room, Christina gesturing with a Tudor monarch timeline on the screen behind.
September 25, 2025 at 8:02 PM
cjfaraday.bsky.social
Happy to be featured in @apollo-magazine.com in brief this month! “Faraday’s revelations – that tapestries were seen as the highest art form in Tudor society, for instance – breathe new life into the familiar stories of Holbein, Hilliard et al.”
Screenshot of a page from Apollo magazine including a feature on The Story of Tudor Art: “This lively analysis of the culture of Tudor England covers all manner of objects, including paintings, jewels and ordinary household objects. Faraday’s revelations – that tapestries were seen as the highest art form in Tudor society, for instance – breathe new life into the familiar stories of Holbein, Hilliard et al.”
September 25, 2025 at 2:56 PM
cjfaraday.bsky.social
Publication day for The Story of Tudor Art! And you’re in the vicinity of David’s Bookshop in Letchworth Garden City (a short train ride from King’s Cross/-St Pancras) please join me this evening for a talk and discussion about weird and wonderful Tudor art!
September 25, 2025 at 12:58 PM
cjfaraday.bsky.social
So nice of the BBC to advertise my talk at this year’s Cheltenham Literature Festival!… Tickets here: www.cheltenhamfestivals.org/events/the-s...
A screenshot of the BBC news article “All you need to know to visit Cheltenham Lit Fest”. First paragraph reads “A TV legend, a former X Factor judge and a Tour de France record holder will all front events at this year's Cheltenham Literature Festival.” And hand written tacked onto the paragraph the words “, and also Dr Christina Faraday.”
September 19, 2025 at 9:30 PM
cjfaraday.bsky.social
It’s here!! I’m so proud of how beautiful @headofzeus.bsky.social have made it. The Story of Tudor Art comes out on 25th September, you can preorder your copy from all good bookshops in the UK, and for Tudor fans elsewhere @blackwells.bsky.social do free international shipping!
September 19, 2025 at 8:08 PM
cjfaraday.bsky.social
Early Modern caption competition - literally (c.1680)
A woodcut showing Cupid watching a man and a woman rolling together on the ground at the bottom of a hill, a town in the distance at the top. An empty speech bubble issues from the couple. Source: https://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/ballad/34937/citation
September 17, 2025 at 10:46 AM
cjfaraday.bsky.social
If you see this, quote with the energy you bring to BlueSky
Close up of an overpainted medieval chancel screen: a medieval saint peers through the blackletter Bible text that was painted over her.
September 16, 2025 at 1:31 PM
cjfaraday.bsky.social
Good morning.
Against a white background. On the left a portrait of John Calvin in his sixteenth century clothes facing right, inside an outline of a house, labelled “Calvin”. On the right a portrait of John Calvin facing left, no house outline, labelled “Calvout”.
September 7, 2025 at 8:05 AM
cjfaraday.bsky.social
I loved 'The World of James VI and I' at Scottish National Galleries: Portrait, which you can catch until 14th September. Read my review in this month's Burlington Magazine for free here: www.burlington.org.uk/archive/exhi...
Large sixteenth century oil painting of four figures kneeling in a church before an altar on which Jesus appears holding the cross, and next to a tomb for Lord Darnley. Baby King James VI, Darnley's son, kneels in front with a crown and prayer desk, his grandparents and uncle kneel behind him wearing black. In the bottom left an inset scene showing his mother Mary Queen of Scots's surrender to the Lords of Scotland at Carberry Hill.
September 3, 2025 at 12:59 PM
cjfaraday.bsky.social
Saw this Psalter (MS 239) at the Fitzwilliam Museum this week, c.1270-1280 from Regensburg, Germany. I love this juxtaposition between Nativity & Ascension - coming into the world & going out of it. The emphasis is on his humanity - from his mother on the left to the little footprints on the right.
Illuminated manuscript, double page spread. On the left the nativity, Mary lying down with an orange blanket with the ox and the ass looking into the manger. On the right page the apostles gathered around a rock with black footprints on it, Christ’s feet and the bottom of his robe disappearing into the clouds above.
August 29, 2025 at 5:19 PM
cjfaraday.bsky.social
Cf Kate Beaton…
Black and white cartoon with a woman telling her father “the day is here, the day the Middle Ages are over at last!”. Her boyfriend arrives: “knock knock, The Renaissance is here! I bought celebration ruffs!” He says he read about his new beard style because they’ve invented the printing press. The father looks angry in his ruff: “Bah, paper news! I get my news from balladeers. A plague on all of this.” His daughter says “Daddy plague will be looked DOWN UPON from now on.”
August 27, 2025 at 11:00 AM
cjfaraday.bsky.social
I’m a historian of art and ideas specialising in the Tudor period; my new book is coming out in September - the first ever to look at art from the whole 16th century in England, and my first for a general audience. My previous book, Tudor Liveliness, was based on my PhD. Also I write ghost stories.
Red book cover with gold lettering reading “The Story of Tudor Art” and instead of the O’s there are portrait miniatures of Elizabeth I and Nicholas Hilliard.
August 20, 2025 at 6:45 AM
cjfaraday.bsky.social
My new book 📕 The Story of Tudor Art 🌹 comes out on 25th September. It’s the first book ever (!!) to look at art from across the whole sixteenth century in England and I can’t wait to share it with you.
Red book cover with gold lettering, titled The Story of Tudor Art. Instead of O’s, two portrait miniatures with Elizabeth I and the artist Nicholas Hilliard. In white at the bottom the words “A history of Tudor England through its art and objects”
August 19, 2025 at 11:53 AM