Art Forms

Asian Art

Qi Baishi, China’s Master of the Ordinary in an Extraordinary Way

Qi Baishi is probably not someone you expect to become one of the highest-valued artists in the world, right next to Andy Warhol and Picasso, but he...

Barry Russell 20 April 2023

Art History 101

Top 10 Most Famous Chinese Paintings

With thousands of years of continuous history, China is one of the world’s oldest civilizations. It is also one of the most culturally unique...

Marina Kochetkova 20 April 2023

Architecture

Jali in Mughal Architecture, the Most Delicate Stone Curtains

The jali, or pierced screens, have been extensively employed in Indian construction since time immemorial. They appear in both Hindu and Islamic...

Maya M. Tola 18 April 2023

Museum Stories

Vase of Flowers: The WWII Theft of a Dutch Still Life

What happens to artworks and cultural treasures as a nation prepares for war? In the case of Jan van Huysum’s Vase of Flowers, the Dutch still...

Natalia Iacobelli 17 April 2023

Painting

The Countryside in Art: from Idyllic Scenes to Social Issues

Pure life in harmony with nature or hardship and poverty? Let’s take a look at various representations of the countryside in art. A Peaceful...

Europeana 17 April 2023

European Art

Escape to the Forest: The Birth of Barbizon School

During the 19th century, the most promising artists trained at the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris. The Academy taught its pupils...

Gokce Dyson 17 April 2023

Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Self Portrait in a Straw Hat, 1782, National Gallery, London, UK. Detail. Artist Stories

Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun Travels Across Europe

Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun was a French portrait painter working in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. While her subject matter and color palette...

Natalia Iacobelli 16 April 2023

Women Artists

Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun and Amazing Women in Her Portraits

Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun and women in her portraits should be a reference for every art-lover. The French painter – also known as Madame Le Brun...

Pola Otterstein 16 April 2023

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Self Portrait in a Straw Hat by Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun

Why is art history predominantly focused on male artists? Are there not enough female artists to fill textbooks? Of course, there are enough, but the...

James W Singer 16 April 2023

Renaissance

Who Are the Women in Leonardo da Vinci’s Paintings?

The life and work of Leonardo da Vinci have been dissected and analyzed in detail by the sharp eye of art critics and historians. Yet, the biography...

Maria Frazzoni 15 April 2023

Renaissance

The Unfinished Works of Leonardo da Vinci

As one of the most influential artists of the High Renaissance, Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci left a prolific legacy in the realm of the arts.

Maya M. Tola 15 April 2023

Lady with an Ermine Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Lady with an Ermine by Leonardo da Vinci

One of the greatest masterpieces of Western art, Lady with an Ermine by Leonardo da Vinci, presents Cecilia Gallerani (ca. 1473-1536). Young,...

Zuzanna Stańska 15 April 2023