Barbara Basting

A depressed person being tormented by sinister spectres. Print from 1788. Wellcome Collection Melancholy was everywhere in the early modern period: in letters, reports and biographies, but also in medical tracts and theological discourse. A diagnosis is speculative, but in some of the descriptions we can recognise what today is referred to as depression.

Franz Liszt also immortalised a piece of Switzerland in his melodies. Illustration by Marco Heer. Composer Franz Liszt created his own image of Switzerland in his famous work ‘Années de pèlerinage’. Poems and illustrations accompanied his music. “The shores of Lake Wallenstadt detained us for some time. Franz wrote for me there a melancholy harmony, imitative of the sigh of the waves and the cadence of oars, which I have never been able to hear without weeping”.

Die Kunst gehörte in den letzten Jahrzehnten zu den Vorreitern der Globalisierung. Was in den Neunzigern als Erschliessung neuer Territorien und Märkte begann, hat einen tiefgreifenden Wandel angestossen. Glamouröses Business an der Art Basel Qatar 2026: Werk von Jannis Kounellis.