The Boxer at Rest—Defeated Hellenistic Athlete
Coming face-to-face with a piece of art you’ve loved for years is a thrilling, exciting and oftentimes overwhelming experience. Such was the case...
Nadine Waldmann 11 June 2025
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Masterpiece Story: Laocoön and His Sons
Laocoön and His Sons was one of the most influential sculptures during the Renaissance. The contorted bodies of the figures, their faces full of...
Anastasia Manioudaki 11 June 2025
There Were Really Hot Guys in Ancient Greece: The Barberini Faun
Drunk, sleeping men are rarely, if ever, beautiful and sexually appealing, but this is not the case with this really sexy faun from ancient Greece.
Marta Loza 11 June 2025
Let’s Talk about Courbet’s Origin of the World
In the 19th century, the display of the nude body underwent a revolution – and a massive critique. Gustave Courbet, one of the main scandalous...
Zuzanna Stańska 10 June 2025
Masterpiece Story: Woman with a Parrot by Gustave Courbet
Gustave Courbet, the enfant terrible of French 19th-century art, did everything he could to save himself in the memory of the contemporary art...
Zuzanna Stańska 10 June 2025
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 2025
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 2025
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 2025
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 9 June 2025
Are You a Connoisseur of Male Beauty? A Nude Invasion!
According to the famous poster by Guerrilla Girls, 85% of nudes in Western art history are of women. They were subject to the male gaze, presented on...
Magda Michalska 9 June 2025
The Greatest Male Nudes in Art History
Nudity started being an important subject in art in ancient Greece. The male body was celebrated at sports competitions or religious festivals, it...
Anuradha Sroha 9 June 2025
Masterpiece Story: Portrait of Gabrielle d’Estrées and One of Her Sisters
To a 21st-century viewer, the portrait of Gabrielle d’Estrées might seem homo-erotic. However, pictured with her sister, the Duchess of Villars,...
Anna Ingram 9 June 2025
