Culture Canvas

A roundup of the week’s arts and culture headlines.

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A speleologist looks at what is believed to be the world’s oldest works of art — 42,000-year-old paintings of seals in the caves of Nerja, Spain. They are the only known artistic images created by Neanderthal man, according to scientists, via the Daily Mail. Photo by Jorge Guerrero/AFP/Getty Images.

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When members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic arrived Wednesday morning at the Teatro Teresa Carreno in Caracas, Venezuela, for their first rehearsal with the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, reports the Los Angeles Times, they encountered 1,207 child singers.

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The Associated Press will live stream Whitney Houston’s funeral. The AP will have the only video camera allowed inside at Saturday’s funeral in Newark.

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Wellesley College and Baylor University have digitized and made available love letters between Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, via the New York Times.

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Two archaeological pieces worth hundreds of thousands of dollars were stolen from the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, via the Montreal Gazette.

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Artinfo profiles North Korean painter Song Byeok, the one-time official propaganda artist for Kim Jong-il who defected to South Korea.

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Authenticating murals by British street artist Banksy continues to be problematic for collectors, as problems arise over “issues of ownership, illegality of street art and the artist’s refusal to sign works,” via The Art Newspaper.

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A 90-year-old musical score and letters by English composer Edward Elgar was discovered in a council building in Leicestershire, via the BBC.

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Charles Anthony, a longtime tenor at the Metropolitan Opera died Wednesday at the age of 82.