It is not a surprise that every carnival, regardless of its country origin or other characteristics, is traditionally associated with Venetian carnival masks. Being a primary sign of a carnival, the mask has an interesting history connected with...

A major German art museum recently revealed an exciting new discovery – a hidden image of a Cupid in Johannes Vermeer’s Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window, 1657-1659. Conservators at the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister at the...

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...

Much 16th and 17th century art focuses on mythological tropes and origin stories which are deeply embedded in misogyny and sexual violence. Gendered violence was aetheticised, rape heroised. In accordance with ‘the male gaze’, these were not paintings...

With another heat wave hitting Europe this summer, I was reminded of my visit to Rome during the last heat wave with crowds clamoring around fountains and spouts around the city. The most crowded and famous being the...

How to show our sensual experiences visually? The human senses made out one of the most appealing subjects for European painters, especially that since the Middle Ages they had rather negative connotations, being considered as lustful and hence...

I can’t draw, I can’t paint, I can’t sculpt or do pottery. But I can watch videos on Rijksmuseum Youtube channel called RijksCreative and imagine I’m a Great Master, too. If you have canvas and brushes, and some...