Art Forms

Animals

Rosa Bonheur’s Magnificent Lions and the Portrait of Wildlife

Painting animals is part of a tradition in European art dating back to the 17th century when animal-specialized painters began contributing to...

Rute Ferreira 16 March 2023

Rosa Bonheur, The Horse Fair, 1852-1855, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, USA. Wikimedia Commons (public domain). Animals

Masterpiece Story: The Horse Fair by Rosa Bonheur

Today’s Masterpiece Story is that of The Horse Fair by French Realist painter Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899). The Horse Fair was the undisputed star of...

Alexandra Kiely 16 March 2023

Lucas Cranach The Elder, The Suicide of Lucretia, 1525-30, Staatliche Museen, Kassel, Germany. Wikimedia Commons (public domain). Ancient Rome

A Woman with A Knife: The Story of Lucretia

If you see a woman with a knife in a painting – think of Lucretia. She was an ancient Roman heroine whose fate played a vital role in the...

Zuzanna Stańska 15 March 2023

Ancient Rome

Ancient Bikini Girls from the Roman Mosaics

If you have ever wondered when the history of the bikini began, it started at the same time and place in history as philosophy, mathematics, and art:...

Magda Michalska 15 March 2023

Thomas Cole, The Course of Empire, Destruction, 1836, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, USA. Wikimedia Commons (public domain). Ancient Rome

Painting the Fall of the Roman Empire

After many centuries, we are still wondering why the Roman Empire disappeared. Many theories try to explain it: wars, ideological problems, a chaotic...

Celia Leiva Otto 15 March 2023

Ancient Rome

How to Identify a Roman Emperor by His Beard

How many times have you walked into a museum full of statues or busts and not been able to tell one ancient sculpture from another? It can be...

Lauren Dorsey 15 March 2023

Frederic Edwin Church aurora borealis: Frederic Edwin Church, Aurora Borealis, 1865, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC, USA. Detail. Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Aurora Borealis by Frederic Edwin Church

Aurora Borealis is an American national treasure. It explores the relationship between the land, its viewer, and its destiny. It is a masterpiece of...

James W Singer 14 March 2023

Expressionism

The Amazing Midnight Sun in Paintings: Edvard Munch’s Summer Nights

Edvard Munch was fascinated by the Norwegian summer light which evokes both tranquillity and anxiety, two feelings that Munch tried to capture in his...

Magda Michalska 14 March 2023

Art History 101

The Complicated History of Norse Mythology in Art

Literally speaking, mythology is an old-school kind of storytelling. “Mythos” is a Greek word for “story” while “logia” means...

Lana Pajdas 14 March 2023

Beatriz Milhazes, Sonho Tropical, 2017, White Cube Gallery, London, UK. Detail. Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Sonho Tropical by Beatriz Milhazes

Sonho Tropical is a visual feast of abstract art infused with the passion for a Brazilian landscape. Beatriz Milhazes fuses European modernity with...

James W Singer 13 March 2023

Design

Turquoise: Art, Culture, and Myth of a Gemstone

The bright blue-green Turquoise has been valued and revered for centuries by all the cultures around the world that had access to it. Several...

Nadine Waldmann 13 March 2023

Women Interior Designers: Dorothy Draper, The Greenbrier Hotel, 1946-1948, White Sulphur Springs, WV, USA. Architecture

5 Exceptional Women Interior Designers of the 20th Century

Meet the five women designers who changed the face of 20th-century interior design. Their work has been inspiring many designers and their interiors...

Joanna Kaszubowska 13 March 2023