John Sabapathy
banner
jwwsabapathy.bsky.social
John Sabapathy
@jwwsabapathy.bsky.social
Professor of history @uclhistory.bsky.social + co-convenor @anthropoceneucl.bsky.social. Editor at @enghistrev.bsky.social.

Institutions, rationalities, environments, mostly medieval.

https://tinyurl.com/2p8r9yeh + https://www.ucl.ac.uk/anthropocene/.
It's official @fmussgnug.bsky.social @uclselcs.bsky.social has sold out the Gustave Tuck.

Clearly we do, indeed, love apocalypses too much.
October 27, 2025 at 5:22 PM
October 24, 2025 at 4:08 PM
Henrietta Leyser & the much missed Jinty Nelson's editors' preface for the series has not dated, despite Brexit, Ukraine, or indeed, the Middle East.
October 9, 2025 at 1:42 PM
October 9, 2025 at 1:42 PM
October 9, 2025 at 1:42 PM
Chapeau to @pseudo-isidore.bsky.social for his wonderful new book which has just arrived, an amazingly global and ecumenical volume, in all senses! Beautifully produced by OUP (and before publication day!?).

A spur to others!
October 9, 2025 at 1:42 PM
August 28, 2025 at 12:08 PM
A bad photo from the Scrovegni chapel
Is the only real photo there can be.
Since
the blues, the blues,
the golds
the reds
the green earth underneath it all
are already fading and flaking in your memory
while the crowd and Christ argue
about whether Lazarus is dead – 
or not.
May 29, 2025 at 1:24 PM
May 17, 2025 at 9:35 PM
The city the city the alien alien
May 17, 2025 at 9:35 PM
May 11, 2025 at 11:28 AM
May 9, 2025 at 1:39 PM
A final image, a painting I’ve been waiting to see a long time, the Master of St Giles’ miracle of the hind.

What a triumphant rehang at the National Gallery!
May 9, 2025 at 1:39 PM
From the same room, another ‘most disturbing painting’ - Bosch’s mockery of Christ, v unheimlich. Everything about it is /wrong/. If Michael Haneke painted the mockery of Christ it’d look like this.
May 9, 2025 at 1:33 PM
Exhibits a,b,c.
May 9, 2025 at 1:28 PM
Back in the Sainsbury Wing, from the northern renaissance room, surely one of the most disturbing adoration of the magi ever painted by Pieter #Breugel

There’s a totally alien story actually going on here like something out of Alexei German’s Hard to be a God.
May 9, 2025 at 1:28 PM
Rousseau’s perfect meal
May 9, 2025 at 1:07 PM
Monet almost out-Cezanning Cezanne.
May 9, 2025 at 1:07 PM
Wow, an immediately amazing new still life room, Courbet, Zurbarán, Monet (have I seen this ever before?, a private loan), Treck, Kalf, Rousseau.

#national-gallery
May 9, 2025 at 1:07 PM
Poussin and Claude rehung
May 9, 2025 at 12:54 PM
Two of my favourite paintings in the whole gallery, campagna landscapes by Poussin, slightly sadly not in their old quiet room but cleverly complemented by Claude landscapes
May 9, 2025 at 12:51 PM
From the ‘illusion’ room, van der Weyden’s workshop.

A colleague once told me I look like this guy.
May 9, 2025 at 12:45 PM
Bellini so good at earth, detail of the Madonna of the meadow.

#Sainsburywing
May 9, 2025 at 12:40 PM
A glorious Venice room!

Bellini’s bad Cathars- Peter Martyr’s martyrdom
May 9, 2025 at 12:38 PM
Super looking at nature room, Bellini’s Jerome
May 9, 2025 at 12:30 PM