Art Movements

Artist Stories

What Art Has to Do with Politics: Gustave Courbet and the Paris Commune

The painter Gustave Courbet, a central figure of Realism, is known for his paintings in which he reveals the true lives of peasants and ordinary...

Rute Ferreira 10 June 2023

Courbet Nudes:Gustave Courbet, The Sleepers, 1866, Erotica

The Scandalous Nudes of Gustave Courbet

In the 19th century, French painter and rebel Gustave Courbet generated outrage with his scandalous nudes. What exactly was so scandalous about his...

Kelly Hill 10 June 2023

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: A Burial at Ornans by Gustave Courbet

Who nowadays doesn’t appreciate Gustave Courbet‘s striking realism? We all do, but as happens with many geniuses, Courbet was not appreciated by...

Magda Michalska 10 June 2023

Architecture

The Louvre Pyramid and 5 Other Museums Designed by I. M. Pei

Ieoh Ming Pei (貝聿銘), known as I. M. Pei (1917-2019) was a Chinese American modernist architect with international acclaim. Exciting for art...

Isla Phillips-Ewen 8 June 2023

Review

The Artist and the Eternal City: Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Career in Rome

Can an artist single-handedly impact an entire city? Considering that the city in question is Rome, probably not. But add to the mix an influential...

Joanna Kaszubowska 8 June 2023

Art Worlds: Passages Marijana Stanić Interview

The Artist and Her World: Marijana Stanić

Marijana Stanić is a conceptual and multimedia artist and curator who just had her mini-retrospective exhibition. I talked with her about the...

Petra Dragasevic 7 June 2023

Impressionism

Slava Raškaj, The Story of a Deaf Impressionist Watercolorist

In the final years of the 19th century, the art scene in Zagreb, Croatia, was pretty vibrant. The various ideas that circulated among artists...

Lana Pajdas 7 June 2023

Baroque

5 Best Works by Diego Velázquez

Diego Velázquez is the most important figure of the Spanish Baroque period and one of Europe’s most significant old masters. He was born in...

Anna Ingram 6 June 2023

Art History 101

Everything You Must Know About Las Meninas

This is one of Velázquez’s largest paintings in which he worked very hard to create a complex and credible composition that would convey a...

Zuzanna Stańska, Nicole Ganbold 6 June 2023

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: The Rokeby Venus by Diego Velázquez

Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (1599–1660) was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV and one of the most important painters of...

Joanna Kaszubowska 6 June 2023

Correggio, Jupiter and Io, 1530, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria. Detail. Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Jupiter and Io by Correggio

Jupiter and Io by Correggio is a masterpiece of the Northern Italian Renaissance. It explores sensual nudity through the lens of a Roman...

James W Singer 5 June 2023

North American Art

Inflating Art: Special Balloons in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade holds as much tradition in America as football, turkey and stuffing itself. Over the past 9 decades, it has only...

Rachel Witte 5 June 2023