Featured Story

Masterpiece Sunday: Art from Rome

Dioskourides, Gemma Augustea, 9-12 CE, sardonyx and gold, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria. Detail. Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Gemma Augustea by Dioskourides

The Gemma Augustea is the second largest cameo surviving from antiquity, and one of the most artistically valuable pieces of ancient Roman art. It is...

James W Singer 17 May 2026

Renaissance

Masterpiece Story: Pietà by Michelangelo

The Pietà–or Virgin of Pity–is the representation of the Blessed Virgin holding her divine son on her knees. This iconic type entered Italy...

Montaine Dumont 17 May 2026

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: The Calling of Saint Matthew by Caravaggio

The Calling of Saint Matthew by Caravaggio depicts the moment Matthew turns away from tax collecting and toward Jesus. Caravaggio was a master of...

Guest Author 17 May 2026

Baroque

Masterpiece Story: Apollo and Daphne by Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Apollo and Daphne, one of Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s first major commissions, was completed between 1622 and 1625 for Cardinal Scipione Borghese, a...

Maya M. Tola 17 May 2026

Ancient Rome

Masterpiece Story: Mithras Slaying the Bull

Mithras Slaying the Bull is a compilation of the entire religious and symbolic images of Mithraism. It reflects promised immortality and personal...

James W Singer 17 May 2026

LatestTrending

Browse More Browse More
Quiz

QUIZ: The Skulls Speak—Death, Vanity, and Bones in Art

Joanna Kaszubowska 16 May 2026

Quiz

QUIZ: How Much Do You Really Know About the Renaissance?

Javier Abel Miguel 16 May 2026

Cats

QUIZ: Who Painted This Cat?

Lisa Scalone 16 May 2026

Quiz

Quiz Time! How Well Do You Know Early Modern Women Painters?

Alexandra Kiely 16 May 2026

Quiz

QUIZ: How Much Do You Know About Picasso?

Ruxi Rusu 16 May 2026

Painting

Indoor Gardens: Houseplants in Art

The recent resurgence of enthusiasm for indoor plants speaks to something deeply human: a longing for calm, connection, and beauty within our living...

Maya M. Tola 15 May 2026

Painting

10 Most Beautiful Artistic Flower Arrangements for Spring

For some of us, Winter this year has passed rather quickly; for others, it was way too long. Finally, Spring is beginning to be in full bloom: it has...

Errika Gerakiti 15 May 2026

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Still Life by Henri Fantin-Latour

The greatest happiness can be found in the simple pleasures of daily life. Such simplicities could include the taste of fresh fruit, the smell of...

James W Singer 15 May 2026

Art State of Mind

Boys with Plants in Art (Hotties Alert!)

Boys and men posing with plants and flowers is a popular theme in art. The concept was revisited on Instagram, a social media platform on the account...

Anuradha Sroha 15 May 2026

Art State of Mind

A Tulip Means Love—Decoding the Hidden Messages of Flowers

Nowadays we have social media, emails, and telephone calls. But a century ago, it was not quite as easy to get a message or love note across to...

Rachel Witte 15 May 2026

Erotica

The Secret Rooms of Pompeii That Tourists Weren’t Supposed to See

Erotic art in Pompeii and Herculaneum is a shocking phenomenon often omitted from textbooks about ancient history. These famous Roman cities...

Zuzanna Stańska 14 May 2026

Erotica

The Greatest Male Nudes in Art History

Nudity started being an important subject in art in ancient Greece. The male body was celebrated at sports competitions or religious festivals, it...

Anuradha Sroha 14 May 2026

All Articles

Browse More
Erotica

The Unashamed Gaze: The Story of Goya’s Naked (and Clothed) Maja

Which one do you prefer? The Naked Maja or The Clothed Maja? – this question might have been asked by the painter Francisco Goya when he completed...

Magda Michalska 14 May 2026

Erotica

Is Jeff Koons’ Art Pornography?

Jeff Koons has been controversial from the very beginning of his career, which began around 1979. Having experimented with inflatable bunnies,...

Magda Michalska 14 May 2026

Erotica

The Very Surprising Drawings of Francesco Hayez

The Venetian painter Francesco Hayez is considered a genius of historical Romanticism. In addition to the quality and refinement of his artworks, he...

Rute Ferreira 14 May 2026

Ancient Egypt

The Pharaoh Who Looks Like a Woman—The Mystery of Akhenaten’s Body

If you thought that ancient Egypt had always been only about a large pantheon of gods, solid and emotionless sculptures, and masculine pharaohs, have...

Magda Michalska 13 May 2026

Ancient Egypt

Akhenaten: Artistic Development in the Amarna Period

Amenhotep IV, widely recognized as the notorious Akhenaten, was the enigmatic “heretic” pharaoh who ruled during the Eighteenth Dynasty.

Maya M. Tola 13 May 2026

Broad collar of Senebtisi, ca. 1850–1775 BCE, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, USA. Ancient Egypt

All That Glitters: Gold Jewelry in Ancient Egypt

Personal ornaments were favored by ancient Egyptians from the Predynastic to the late Roman periods, and most of them wore some type of jewelry. The...

Maya M. Tola 13 May 2026

Animals

Blue Faience Hippopotamuses: The Cutest Animals of Ancient Egypt

Blue faience hippopotamus was a popular statuette in ancient Egyptian art. It was considered to have positive traits associated with fertility and...

Zuzanna Stańska 13 May 2026

Ancient Egypt

The Bust of Nefertiti: Ancient Masterpiece or Genius Hoax?

On December 6, 1912, a team of excavators led by Ludwig Borchardt, unearthed a wonderful work of art in Egypt. They found the bust of the Egyptian...

Montaine Dumont 13 May 2026

Painting

10 Pre-Raphaelites You May (Or May Not) Have Heard Of

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood shook the foundations of art and art theory. It quickly went from a group of seven to a movement that counted many...

Edoardo Cesarino 12 May 2026

John Everett Millais, Mariana, 1851, Tate Britain, London, UK. Literature

Literature in the Pre-Raphaelite Paintings

From its very inception, subjects taken from the literature were a staple for the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Shakespeare, Keats, and Tennyson were...

Anastasia Manioudaki 12 May 2026

Photography

Julia Margaret Cameron—The Queen of Pre-Raphaelite Photography

The English Victorian artist Julia Margaret Cameron (who was actually born in India and raised in France) was an irreplaceable representative of...

Rute Ferreira 12 May 2026

WTF Art History

The Pre-Raphaelites and the Wombat

Many people are obsessed with cute cats, penguins, pandas, koalas, and all sorts of animals. However one rarely hears about the wombat, especially in...

Joanna Kaszubowska 12 May 2026