Aeon Essays and Videos on Art In the glow of the candle Joseph Wright of Derby put science at the centre of his art. Eclipsed in his lifetime, his work still burns with radical ideas Charlotte Mullins ...

Rising far above the desert, the walls of these magnificent hills carry the ancient story of humanity’s creative spark ...

It was a rust bucket, sure, but this car delivered the most precious good to a group of friends in 1980s Poland: freedom ...

In the US, long-term solitary confinement is still widely practised, with an estimated 122,000 people isolated in small prison cells for 22 to 24 hours a day. This persists despite movements across ...

Light is one aspect of the Universe that, for most people, holds a deep and noticeable value in everyday life, helping them to navigate, learn from, and connect with the world around them. Yet it’s ...

The 17th-century town Cacheu was a hub of West African and European cultures, languages and beliefs (and run by women) ...

A staple of rural Indian festivals for decades, the Well of Death features motorcyclists – and the occasional car driver – performing death-defying stunts while circling 18-metre-high walls. In ...

In Japanese philosophy, unlike the atomised Western self, we are ‘ningen’ (人間), each enmeshed with other humans and nature ...