Rattle Bag

A Summer Feast of Brain Food

Alberto Reading, by Giovanni Giacometti. The boy is Alberto Giacometti, who went on to become one of the great sculptors of the twentieth century. Giovanni was his father, a Swiss painter. I don’t know how it’s achieved - I’m an art ignoramus - but there is so much love in this painting. I came across it via the art historian Richard Morris, who notes that in Giacometti Sr.’s late career (when this was painted) “he pushed as much light into his painting as he could”. I wonder if that’s common to many late-career artists - that they start to think that light is everything, really, and that they want to capture as much of it as they can before it goes.

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Catch-up service:
The Wile E. Coyote Illusion
The Happiness Paradox
How To Be Good.

After the jump, answers to the following questions: why should children learn music and chess? Who actually decided to drop the bomb on Japan and why and what does that question tell us about AI? What are Kendall Roy’s Jeremy Strong’s favourite books? What book should I take on holiday? What should I be watching on TV? When it comes to race, should we be colour-blind? Do left-handers have the advantage in sport and in fights? Plus more, more more…