Areopagus Special: Public Art

Seven short lessons every someday.

Welcome one and all to another special instalment of the Areopagus. Last week, inspired by a mural on the streets of Sofia, I asked you to send me photographs of public art. And your responses were, as ever, magnificent. There is little I need say by way of introduction other than: thank you. So, for readers new and old, I present here a delightful collection of public art from all around the world, of the murals and graffiti and sculptures that must remind us of an ancient truth about art — that it is, and always has been, everywhere.

And, if only to set the tone, I share with you here a stanza from the wild-roving poet Arthur Rimbaud, born 169 years ago today:

I have seen starry archipelagoes! and islands
Whose raving skies are opened to the voyager:
Is it in these bottomless nights that you sleep, in exile,
A million golden birds, O future Vigour?

Let our tour of the worlds' streets commence...