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The Daily Triptych263 / 365

20 SEP 2026

Day 263

Every writer creates his own precursors.

Jorge Luis Borges · Kafka and His Precursors
A tall, narrow panel in tempera and gold, painted with the Madonna and Child accompanied by angels, in a refined International Gothic manner.

I · THE OBJECT · BRITISH MUSEUM

Madonna and Child with Angels

Gentile da Fabriano · c. 1410 · Tempera, panel, gold

Tempera, panel and gold: a Madonna and Child with angels by Gentile da Fabriano, painted around 1410 and later named for the collector who brought it to America.

Enter lesson 5 MIN
A reddish-orange metallic element with a pinkish hue on a freshly exposed surface.

II · THE DISCOVERY · HISTORY OF SCIENCE

Copper

Cu, atomic number 29 · roughly the 7th millennium BC · Cyprus

Copper could be found as native metal, then smelted from rock, then cast in moulds, then mixed with tin to make bronze — each step widening what metalwork could do.

Enter lesson 6 MIN
A wide, crowded scene of people fleeing among collapsing buildings under a violent, ash-filled sky; classical bodies twisted in panic across a canvas several metres across.

III · THE WORK · ART HISTORY

The Last Day of Pompeii

Karl Bryullov · 1833 · Oil on canvas

Karl Bryullov spent years on an oil painting over six metres wide, packing it with bodies in flight — and became the first Russian painter Europe took seriously.

Enter lesson 6 MIN
Head-and-shoulders portrait of a tall man in a white baseball uniform with purple and teal piping, a white cap with a teal bill, holding a baseball glove at chest height and looking directly at the camera.

IV · THE GAME · MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL

Randy Johnson

Pitcher · 15 September 1988 · Montreal · Seattle · Houston · Arizona · New York · San Francisco

The tallest pitcher in the league threw left-handed from the third-base side of the rubber. Batters had never seen that angle before, and most of them missed.

Enter lesson 7 MIN

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