Genius & Ink 🖌 | Vashik Armenikus | Substack

Inner Landscapes (Essays)

The Most Honest Work I Read: Tolstoy's 'A Confession'

In the midpoint of his life’s journey, Leo Tolstoy found himself in despair — a despair so intense that he was afraid to go hunting alone.

Jan 11 • Vashik Armenikus

The Art of Teaching...

…or how to teach art to teenagers.

Dec 15, 2024 • Vashik Armenikus

Yousuf Karsh: Character, like a photograph, develops in darkness.

Photographer-Philosopher who took portraits of Churchill, Einstein, Hepburn, Elizabeth II and countless others

Dec 8, 2024 • Vashik Armenikus

Rilke: How to Change Your Life

Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?

Nov 17, 2024 • Vashik Armenikus

Letters 🪶

On the Inner Citadel (Part I)

(Letters to the Ancients #5)

Aug 26, 2025 • Vashik Armenikus

On the Empires of the Mind

(Letters to the Ancients #4)

Aug 12, 2025 • Vashik Armenikus

On the Importance of Change in Life

(Letters to the ancients #3)

Aug 5, 2025 • Vashik Armenikus

We Build With Our Brains, Not By Hands

(Letters to the Ancients #2)

Jul 29, 2025 • Vashik Armenikus

Book Reviews

Annual Special: Favourite Books of 2024

+ films, series, and amazing people I encountered this year.

Dec 29, 2024 • Vashik Armenikus

Why Was Walt Disney Buying Books in Nazi Germany?

... or how Caspar David Friedrich's paintings and the German Romantic movement inspired Disney's Bambi.

Dec 1, 2024 • Vashik Armenikus

Géricault: What Happens When You Lose Hope

Deconstructing ‘The Raft of Medusa’: A true tale of hope and despair.

Nov 24, 2024 • Vashik Armenikus

Eastern Spirit, Western Mind: How to See the World Through Poetic Eyes

Parallels between the lives of Rainer Maria Rilke and Natsume Sōseki and their path to poetic genius.

Nov 10, 2024 • Vashik Armenikus

Recent posts

Measure seven times but don't forget to pray

(Paradiso, Canto XXXII): Celestial beauty

Dec 21, 2025 • Vashik Armenikus and Lisa Statler

Dante's Independence

(Paradiso, Canto XXXI): Departure of Beatrice, Bernard of Clairvaux

Dec 18, 2025 • Vashik Armenikus and Lisa Statler

How to Drink from the River of Light

(Paradiso, Canto XXX): Empyrean, Dante drinks from the river of light

Dec 14, 2025 • Vashik Armenikus and Lisa Statler

Dante and the film 'Arrival': Language and Angels

(Paradiso, Canto XXIX): Arrival, Remote and Near Past, and the nature of Time.

Dec 11, 2025 • Vashik Armenikus and Lisa Statler

Footnotes

Losing My Library: The Poetics of Space | 🍂 Footnotes #10

In this edition: Umberto Eco, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Ripley, Bulgakov, Terence Malick and (of course) Seneca.

Aug 25, 2024 • Vashik Armenikus

Rescuing Books from British Pubs | 🍂 Footnotes #9

In this edition: Dante Alighieri, Giovanni Bocaccio, Carlo Rovelli, Victor Hugo and Peter Jackson.

Jun 23, 2024

🍂 Footnotes #8 | Why Dictators Like eBooks

In this edition: Solzhenitsyn, Christopher de Hamel, Ali Abdaal, Nikos Kazantzakis, Steven Gambardella, Armand D'Angour and others

Jan 7, 2024

10:35

EP. 3 Tolstoy on Science vs Religion, and the Meaning of Life

In this episode, we're delving into a rare book by Leo Tolstoy, written during his darkest times.

Dec 20, 2023 • Vashik Armenikus

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