What Did Shakespeare Really Look Like?

“Over the cen­turies a num­ber of images have been put for­ward as life por­traits of our great­est writer, but at present none of them is gen­er­al­ly accept­ed as such. Up until now… With the emer­gence of the Cobbe por­trait, we are pre­sent­ed with a con­tem­po­rary por­trait that has strong claims to rep­re­sent the drama­tist as he appeared to his con­tem­po­raries.”

These lines from shakespearefound.org.uk (asso­ci­at­ed with the Uni­ver­si­ty of War­wick) set the stage for a 20 minute video/film that fea­tures Prof. Stan­ley Wells talk­ing about the Cobbe por­trait, and why it’s believed to present the real Shake­speare, the tow­er­ing author we still know lit­tle about today. You can watch the video above, or find it on iTune­sU, where it’s among the most down­loaded videos.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Goethe and Shake­speare on Google

Shake­speare and the Uses of Polit­i­cal Pow­er

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Classic Oscar Moments

On the Oscar Chan­nel on YouTube, you can flip through some clas­sic prize-win­ning moments. Above, we fea­ture Rober­to Benig­ni’s speech upon receiv­ing The Acad­e­my Award for best actor (Life is Beau­ti­ful) in 1998. You can also see vin­tage speech­es by Mar­lon Bran­doAudrey Hep­burnFrank Sina­traFed­eri­co Felli­ni, and oth­ers. Per­haps a ques­tion­able call, The Oscar Chan­nel has been added to our page, Intel­li­gent YouTube: The Best Smart Video Col­lec­tions.

The Gates of Hell

Let me bring this to your atten­tion. Erwan Bom­stein-Erb, the founder and direc­tor of Canal Edu­catif in Paris, has released a doc­u­men­tary (in Eng­lish) about The Gates of Hell, a mon­u­men­tal project that Auguste Rodin worked on, not nec­es­sar­i­ly con­sis­tent­ly, for 37 years. On its own, this video is worth your time. But you should also know that this is one of ten films about major art­works that Bom­stein-Erb plans to pro­duce in HD. Canal Edu­catif is all about using the inter­net to pro­vide glob­al access to “cul­tur­al cap­i­tal.” A goal that we can whole­heart­ed­ly sup­port. This kind of phil­an­thropic ven­ture is hard to fund, espe­cial­ly dur­ing these dif­fi­cult times. So Bom­stein-Erb is look­ing for spon­sors and part­ners to sup­port his mis­sion. If you would like to get in touch, you can drop him a line through Canal Edu­cat­if’s web site. Last­ly, you should check out the Canal Edu­catif chan­nel on YouTube. Good luck Erwan.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Art His­to­ry Web Book

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Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.