iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

How can you leave her to die? That's her punishment. How can you sit out here and listen to her? And that's mine.

030

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

I was admiring this phenomenon too the other day

030

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Anyway, some seventeenth-century academics would probably be right at home in the modern university, like John Ellys aka The Devil of Caius (incidentally a friend of Newton).

Portrait of louche-looking man in academic robes, John Ellys 'the devil of Caius'.

Screenshot from Wikipedia:
Later life
As Master of Caius Ellys tried, from 1709, to exercise a veto in college business, causing the Visitor to intervene in 1714. His ongoing conflicts in old age with the Fellows earned him the nickname "Devil of Caius" He was quite isolated, his only ally in the college being his nephew John Ellys.

050

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

However you're watching the eclipse, spare a thought for Taddeo Gaddi, author of the first real 'night scene' in Western art. Gaddi's obsession with light & celestial effects apparently caused him to stare too long at the 1330 eclipse, causing permanent sight damage. A warning from art history!

Taddeo Gaddi's Annunciation to the Shepherds Fresco from Cappella Baroncelli, Santa Croce, Florence, c.1330. Two shepherds are woken by a glow from an angel against a golden cloud in an otherwise dark sky. Around them in the rocky landscape are sleeping rams and a suspicious-looking dog.

02910

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

A timeless Cambridge scene, one that Rupert Brooke would recognise: "Oh! there the chestnuts, summer through, / Beside the river make for you / A tunnel of green gloom, and sleep / Deeply above; and green and deep / The robot lawnmower glides beneath."

1102

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

Eng v SA and the batter’s names are Luus Brits…

Hastily snapped photo of women’s cricket match on tv

130

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

Thrilled to review two terrific books in this week’s @newstatesman1913.bsky.social: A Golden World by @laurenworking.bsky.social and This Little World by @rentravailer.bsky.social - both expanding our ideas about “insular” Tudor England in fascinating ways.

This week’s New Statesman, with a pink cover showing a hand around the neck of a lion wearing a crown, and two books, A Golden World by Lauren Working and This Little World by Nandini Das, on a white garden table against a backdrop of raspberry plants.

An open page of The New Statesman, at the book review ‘This sceptred but porous isle: Tudor and Stuart England was shaped by the people who left its shores and the objects that arrived here from afar by Christina J Faraday”

1112

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

Last few days to see Tudor Contemporary @heong-gallery.bsky.social at @downingcollege.bsky.social Cambridge! I'm running a Curator's Tour tomorrow lunchtime 12:30-1:15pm, and the show is open 12-5pm every day until Sunday. Don't miss it!

Mat Collishaw's Mask of Youth (2018), a realistic face of Elizabeth I at the age of 55, without hair, ears or neck, mounted on a robotic armature affixed to the wall.

122

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

Extremely proud to share my brother @nearlyoscar.bsky.social’s brilliant, haunting book Fragile July, just out with award-winning indie @brokensleepbooks.bsky.social. The book is a prose-poem w/photos; it captures a time we both remember when things were weird. It might strike a chord with you too.

A book laid on a brightly patterned red and orange table runner, in bright sunshine. The book has a dark brown cover of the corner of an empty room. Bare floorboards and bare brick walls and a large sash window to the right. Light streams in but nothing can be seen outside. The title Fragile July appears in a light orange serif font in the top left, Oscar Nearly in white below.

The book held open at a spread with text only partially visible on the left, a photograph on its side on the right, the photograph in black and white showing a window with curtains, a radiator and the tops of some kitchen chairs. A wooden door into another room to the left. Beyond the window the silhouettes of trees.

193

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 29/03/2026

Looking for something to do this afternoon in Cambridge with little people? Try the @heong-gallery.bsky.social Tudor Contemporary Family Trail! Open 12-5pm!

Advert for free family event for Tudor Contemporary, title in gold frame surrounded by cutout images including a portrait of Elizabeth I by The Singh Twins, Chan Hyo Bae as Henry VIII, Serena Korda’s Bartmann jug.

0185

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

TUDOR CONTEMPORARY now open at The Heong Gallery, Downing College, Cambridge. Free to visit, open Weds-Sun 12-5pm, until 19 April. Image: Mat Collishaw, Mask of Youth, 2018.

060

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

TUDOR CONTEMPORARY opens at The Heong Gallery, @downingcollege.bsky.social, Cambridge in two days! I’m so excited to share these amazing artworks with you. Here’s a sneak peek - free to visit, runs to 19th April.

Close up of contemporary Bellarmine jug by Serena Korda, with grimacing bearded face, large green toads clinging to the sides.

Close up of Mat Collishaw’s Mask of Youth, a silicon animatronic face of Elizabeth I, with detail of slightly open mouth, wonky teeth and fine downy hairs on chin and upper lip.

Face and ruff of Natasja Kensmil’s Elizabeth I, painted photo negative style and almost monochrome except for red in the hair and mouth.

Close up of Korean photographer Chan-Hyo Bae dressed as Henry VIII, with blood running down the side of his face from beneath his red wig. The top of a gold throne in the background.

291

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

Delighted with The Story of Tudor Art’s latest review in the current issue of the @lrb.co.uk! www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

A photo of the review in the LRB paper with an image of Holbein’s Lady with a Squirrel and the top of the Elizabethan portrait of Moroccan Ambassador Al Annuri

$Close up of review paragraph reading: Two new books offer a welcome contribution to our understanding of this fractured legacy. Christina Faraday's lively history of the Tudor visual world examines not just the 'fine arts' of painting and sculpture, but the wider decorative arts, bringing in works as diverse as manuscripts, samplers, armour and candle-snuffers to tell the story of art between the accession of Henry VII in 1485 and the death of Elizabeth I in 1603. Elizabeth Goldring has produced a superb biography of Hans Holbein the Younger. While many important studies have focused on Holbein's work in either Basel or England, Goldring looks at his life as a whole and draws new information from scant archival sources.$

080

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

Also: surely one of the creepiest lines in all of literature

Cropped page from Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, reading:
"What?" Theodora was saying. "What, Nell? What?"
"God God," Eleanor said, flinging herself out of bed and across the room to stand shuddering in a corner, "God God—whose hand was I holding?"

080

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

Announcing 🚨 TUDOR CONTEMPORARY 🚨 the first exhibition to focus on legacies of Tudor history in contemporary art, curated by yrs truly, opens at @heong-gallery.bsky.social at @downingcollege.bsky.social in Cambridge on 20th Feb, until 19th April. More info here: www.dow.cam.ac.uk/creative-art...

Mat Collishaw's Mask of Youth, an animatronic face of Elizabeth I, mounted on a mirror with its armature exposed.

The Singh Twins, Trade Wars, with a Mughal-inspired copy of the Pelican Portrait of Elizabeth I in the centre, surrounded by emblems of trade and colonial atrocities, with bananas and corporate symbols on a turquoise background beyond.

2142

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

They are much debated! Maybe also just hugely padded all over, which i imagine looking like the Horniman walrus or this William Larkin portrait (v much not an apprentice)

A full length swagger portrait of Richard Sackville in a white doublet with black embroidery, large cape, black hose and huge pom-poms on the slippers. A red curtain, Persian rug and red draped table in the background

110

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

Ah yes, I think we all have a friend like Polly Crisis, lurching from incident to incident, always asking your advice but never heeding it…

Guardian headline “We are living in a time of polycrisis, if you feel trapped- you’re not alone” with a light display of a woman sitting at a garden table with a cat surrounded by silhouettes of bombs, phones and lightning strikes

070

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

Working on something really exciting at the moment. Announcement very soon but for now here's a creepy preview.

Close up of the eye, nose and cheek of a silicone mask, with real eyebrow and eyelashes, a robotic armature visible behind.

070

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

Claudia Winkleman putting her History of Art BA (Cantab) to good use! #TheTraitors

A still from The Traitors with Claudia Winkleman and subtitles “players, welcome to my old art gallery”

040

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 01/01/2026

The reverse, for the embroidery nerds out there. A combination of back stitch, running stitch and satin stitch.

The reverse of the embroidery in the first post.

060

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 01/01/2026

I made this for the tv-loving pure mathematician in my life. The choice of quotation reflects my (lack of) understanding of what he does rather than his own (obviously), but I included a diagram from one of his papers and the things in the corners are called tropical cubic curves.

An embroidery on cream coloured linen in leaf green, teal and purple threads. A border in purple with elongated hexagons with spurs in each corner. At the top a diagram with a point expanding to a square with arrows at the corners. The phrase ‘the work is mysterious and important’ in the middle. Underneath an outline of the Cambridge Centre for Mathematical Sciences with birds flying above.

2181

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 31/12/2025

Watch as we nearly set fire to the kitchen with @nearlyoscar.bsky.social’s indoor fireworks / our new year wishes. Happy 2026!

070

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 30/12/2025

Ludmila Jiřincová (1912–1994), Butterfly and Bees above Wildflowers, undated etching on paper. Czech National Museum, Inv. No. KNM GRA Jiřincová 354a.

An etching, silhouetted wildflower leaves in green, the outline of a butterfly in dark red, and a sun outlined in yellow above, with several layers of scratching, interference and shadow impressions giving the image atmosphere and depth. The Czech Museum stamp or watermark in the bottom right corner.

191

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

THE STORY OF TUDOR ART - came out in September. The first book on English art across the whole 16th century, for the royal court and beyond it. Extremely Christmassy - a great gift - doesn’t even need wrapping because the dust jacket is red and shiny gold. 🌟🌹👑♥️

3326

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

A bit of a departure for me in @apollo-magazine.com’s December issue, where I look at what M. R. James's ghost stories can tell us about the pleasing terror of studying art and objects...

A photo of the cover of the December 2025 Apollo Magazine with a close up of a painting by Lippi of Joseph with grey hair and a halo, leaning on a staff, caption in white on his blue cloak reading “Getting Lippi in Rome” with a sub caption “the ghostly world of M R James”

Double page spread of Apollo “Raising the Dead” in gothic writing against a sepia photo of the entrance to the Fitzwilliam Museum in the late 19th century when M. R. James was director, against a patterned red tablecloth.

A photo of the end of the article reading:

“Baxter was only too literal in his desire to “look through dead man's eyes” filling the binoculars with liquid made from boiled bones.
But the dead, who 'didn't like having their bones boiled, finally come to carry Baxter off 'whither he would not'.
An unfortunate end for Baxter, but what greater fantasy for students of the past than seeing history first-hand?
Historians of all kinds - but especially art historians - devote their lives, by different means, to exactly this cause. What else is Michael Baxandall's famous concept of the 'period eye' - his attempt to recover the culturally shaped modes of vision specific to certain times and places - than a more respectable attempt to look through dead men's eyes?
James was writing at a time when professional historians were anxious to distance their quasi-scientific approaches from the whimsical studies of antiquaries. But his stories reveal that he understood only too well what many students of art and history feel when faced with the remains of the past. The creeping feeling that we are never quite alone with the objects we study, that we are always somehow accompanied by the people who once made, viewed and used them, and that their intentions and desires are still deeply embedded in the objects that survive them. Drawing out these intentions, accounting for the humanity of the long dead, is a task that can cause the scholar considerable anxiety - accompanied or not by the fear that, should we get it wrong, the dead will find a way to return, to put us right.”

Christina J. Faraday is an affiliated lecturer in history of art at the University of Cambridge and author of The Story of Tudor Art (Head of Zeus).

1135

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

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

0101

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

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.

120

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

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

2248

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

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.

44412

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

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.

050

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 11/10/2025

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.

0611

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 08/10/2025

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.

1173

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 06/10/2025

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..."

010

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 04/10/2025

Exciting to see The Story of Tudor Art reviewed in today’s Times!

1131

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

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.

050

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

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.

140

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 28/09/2025

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.

0130

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

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.

0101

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

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.”

0172

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

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!

1278

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

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.”

0170

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

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!

1309

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

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

5286

Dr Christina Faraday @cjfaraday.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

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.

040