European Art

History

Rotten Royals: 5 Very Bad Kings from History

Portraits of five regal bad boys. We scratch at the paint on the canvas to find the tyranny, treachery and devilish debauchery behind paintings of rotten royals.

Candy Bedworth 16 April 2026

Women Artists

Ginevra Cantofoli—A Baroque Painter from Bologna in 7 Paintings

Ginevra Cantofoli was a Bolognese painter of the Baroque period. Her story speaks to the remarkable power of women supporting one another in the...

Nikolina Konjevod 16 April 2026

European Art

El Greco: The Grandfather of Expressionism

The guide to the Prado Museum describes El Greco as a “philosopher, as an intellectual and as a sensitive and idiosyncratic artist.” It is these...

Wendy Gray 16 April 2026

Artist Stories

Did Goya Make a Career?

Goya’s paintings are often disturbing and very very dark. It’s because his activity coincided with the last period of the Enlightenment, the...

Magda Michalska 16 April 2026

Luisa Roldan, Ecstasy of Mary Magdalene. Women Artists

Luisa Roldán: The Groundbreaking Career of Spain’s First Woman Sculptor

She wrote letters to kings, was Spain’s first documented woman sculptor, and became the official escultora de cámara, or court sculptor, to...

Natalia Iacobelli 16 April 2026

Painting

The Anti-Painting of Joan Miró

Joan Miró is an artist who is very difficult to categorize. In general, he is considered to be a Surrealist. However, his works show a great...

Errika Gerakiti 16 April 2026

WTF Art History

6 Creatures by Hieronymus Bosch That Could Be Pokémon

Did you ever think where the ideas for Pokémon could be coming from? Here are six examples proving that in the 16th century, Hieronymus Bosch caught...

Zuzanna Stańska 14 April 2026

Sculpture

Franz Xaver Messerschmidt and His Bizarre Character Heads

The so-called character heads created by Franz Xaver Messerschmidt are not only a bizarre collection of sculptures but also a unique portrayal of...

Zuzanna Stańska 14 April 2026

Bizarre

The Most Bizarre Building in Scotland: Pineapple House

You likely would not connect pineapples and architecture, right? Wrong! There exists a real artistic folly, and not in Las Vegas where such a...

Magda Michalska 14 April 2026

Titian, Bacchus and Ariadne, 1520-23, National Gallery, London, UK. Detail. Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Bacchus and Ariadne by Titian

Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne captures the vibrancy of a Greco-Roman myth through the lens of an Italian Renaissance painter. Learn about the...

James W Singer 13 April 2026

James Ensor, Masks Confronting Death, 1888, Museum of Modern Art, New York, United States of America Expressionism

James Ensor: What the Mask Hides

Do you know who James Ensor was? James Ensor (1860-1949) was a scandalous, rebellious, and revolutionary Belgian painter with a style that could be...

Andra Patricia Ritisan 13 April 2026

Bizarre

James Ensor’s Fighting Skeletons

Do you know the late Victorian and avant-garde painter James Ensor? Often likened to Edvard Munch is his ability to convey the miseries of human...

Sarah Mills 13 April 2026