Art Movements

Ancient Art

Have You Ever Seen Ancient Sculptures’ Colors?

We admire the beauty and plasticity of ancient sculptures, how harmoniously they fit into the surrounding landscape. But we rarely ask ourselves the...

Elizaveta Ermakova 18 July 2025

Ancient Greece

Pompeii of the Aegean: Thera Wall Paintings on Santorini

The Thera wall paintings on Santorini reveal the bustling civilization that existed on the southernmost island of the Cyclades circa 1600 BCE. Around...

Anastasia Manioudaki 18 July 2025

Medieval Art

The Sutton Hoo Ship Burial and Its Anglo-Saxon Treasures

A 2021 Netflix production called The Dig is a fictionalized story about the 1939 discovery of the Sutton Hoo ship burial. It is based on John...

Alexandra Kiely 18 July 2025

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Sphere Within Sphere by Arnaldo Pomodoro

The world has recently bid farewell to Arnaldo Pomodoro, the Italian sculptor whose name became synonymous with monumental bronze spheres—enigmatic...

Lisa Scalone 17 July 2025

Woman with Stylus, 55-79 CE Ancient Rome

Woman with Stylus: What a Portrait Can Tell Us About Women in Ancient Rome

Woman with Stylus is an ancient Roman fresco unearthed in Pompeii nearly two millennia after the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 CE. Various details...

Natalia Iacobelli 17 July 2025

Photography

Zdzisław Beksiński in 5 Photographs

The name of Zdzisław Beksiński is mostly associated with surreal images filled with gloom and anxiety. Although the artist is mainly known for his...

Guest Author 17 July 2025

Baroque

Fascinating (and Creepy) Coffin Portraits of the Polish Nobility

In the 17th and 18th centuries, Poland was a much bigger and more important country than it is today, as it encompassed some parts of the territories...

Magda Michalska 17 July 2025

Ancient Art

Lifelike Faces of the Dead: Fayum Portraits from Roman Egypt

Though they are often referred to as “Fayum portraits”—taking their title from the location of a region in Egypt where Pharaoh Amenemhat...

Anthony de Feo 17 July 2025

Artist Stories

Osman Hamdi: The First and Last Ottoman Orientalist

The first and last Orientalist painter of the Ottoman Empire is Osman Hamdi Bey. Born in modern-day Turkey, educated in Paris, and highly regarded as...

Irina Diana Calu 15 July 2025

European Art

Paul Gauguin in 10 Paintings

Paul Gauguin is a revolutionary and savage in the art of the late 19th century, an artist rejected by society. A man who quit his job at the stock...

Valeria Kumekina 14 July 2025

Jean Antoine Watteau, Feast of Love, ca 1718-19, oil on canvas, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, Germany. Detail. Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Feast of Love by Jean-Antoine Watteau

Feast of Love is a beautiful painting by Jean-Antoine Watteau that explores the themes of love and impermanence. It holds a polished mixture of urban...

James W Singer 13 July 2025

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: The Roses of Heliogabalus by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema

Lust, Gluttony, and Sloth. Three of the Seven Deadly Sins are depicted in Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s The Roses of Heliogabalus. Many other sins are...

James W Singer 13 July 2025