Bizarre Culture

A man climbs into a pine box, barely large enough for him to sit cross-legged. The lid is hammered shut, plunging him into absolute darkness. Lowered into a stone pit three meters deep, he can hear the shovels of his disciples throwing earth and rock over him, the sound growing duller and more distant with […]

The next time you wander through a museum, admiring the deep, luminous shadows of a 19th-century masterpiece, lean in a little closer. The secret to that perfect, glowing flesh tone might be staring back at you. Because for centuries, the most sought-after color in an artist’s toolkit was made from one shocking ingredient: ground-up human