Carefully arranged plates of food surrounded by carefully planned out backgrounds, images with hidden meanings, a snapshot of wealth… What may sound like an average display of life through our modern-day social media accounts is actually a well-curated...

Johannes Vermeer was a master of ambiguity. His silent and calm interiors, and beautiful Dutch women, although innocent at first glance, seem to be hiding more than one secret. Let’s meet Vermeer‘s desperate housewives! Vermeer’s Desperate Housewives: Alcohol...

The work of the Flemish Baroque painter Adriaen Brouwer excels in innovation and daring. His folk scenes, often showing drunkards and smokers in pubs, in which he emphasized the emotions of the portrayed, were extremely rare in his...

Frans Hals (c. 1582–1666) was one of the Dutch Golden Age painters. Born in Antwerp, he spent his entire adult life in Haarlem. Hals is most famous for his portraits, which also form the bulk of his oeuvre....

The Night Watch painted by Rembrandt van Rijn is a colossal (363×437 cm) and most famous canvas created by the artist. It is one of the icons of Western art history. Painted in 1642, at the peak of the...

Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all? Self-portraits are closely tied with the existence of mirrors. Although mirrors have existed since antiquity, during the renaissance cheaper and better mirrors made in Venice came onto...

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 the Spanish Golden Age and European Baroque. And The Rokeby Venus is...