Special

Cats

Cats in Chinese Art

Who doesn’t love cats? Check out these cute and cuddly house cats, ferocious lions, and majestic tigers, created by Chinese...

Rucha Vijay Bodas 29 January 2025

Chinese New Year Art State of Mind

Lunar New Year—The Art of Celebration

Imagine a household celebrating the Chinese New Year where children share a home and joyfully play together. They have different kinds of toys to...

Marina Kochetkova 29 January 2025

Art History 101

Top 10 Most Famous Chinese Paintings

With thousands of years of continuous history, China is one of the world’s oldest civilizations. It is also one of the most culturally unique...

Marina Kochetkova 29 January 2025

Snake in art, Katsushika Hokusai, The Lute and the White Snake of Benten (Sarasvati), 1847 Asian Art

Snake in East Asian Art: Happy Lunar New Year!

The 2025 Lunar New Year, begins on January 29th. This is the Year of the Wood Snake, sixth animal of the Chinese zodiac, known for wisdom and intuition. Let us take a look at some of the East Asian art history that celebrates this awesome animal!

Candy Bedworth 28 January 2025

Asian Art

Edo Period in 10 Words and 4 Schools of Painting

Edo period in Japan lasted from 1603 to 1867/1868. During this time the country was ruled by the Tokugawa shogunate. Those 250 years were a time of...

Joanna Kaszubowska 28 January 2025

Asian Art

Art from Horror Movies: Japanese Woodblocks of Tsukioka Yoshitoshi

For centuries, gore has been part of the culture in Japan, rooted in its history. Its representation is very common in woodblock engraving pictures.

Sofia Rodriguez Cuevas 28 January 2025

European Art

Did Pieter Bruegel Play Dice? The Story of Seemingly Insignificant Detail

Pieter Bruegel The Elder was a prominent Flemish painter of the 16th century, famed for his vivid, often humorous depictions of peasant life and...

Guest Profile 27 January 2025

Painting

Masterpiece Story: Niagara by Frederic Edwin Church

At a time when American newspapers flourished and new dailies popped up like weeds, Frederic Edwin Church (1826–1900) invited reporters to his...

Guest Profile 27 January 2025

Piero della Francesca Artist Stories

Piero della Francesca: Artist, Mathematician, Humanist

Piero della Francesca was not only an accomplished artist of the Early Renaissance, but also one of the greatest mathematicians of his day. His works...

Natalia Iacobelli 27 January 2025

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein the Younger

The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein the Younger is one of those paintings that we know so well we tend to forget to look closer. It’s like the Mona...

Joanna Kaszubowska 27 January 2025

Dürer Magic Square Bizarre

The Mystery of Dürer’s Magic Square

Many very strange symbols appear in Albrecht Dürer’s famous engraving Melencolia I. Among them is a magic constant 34, a well-known and enigmatic...

Zuzanna Stańska 27 January 2025

Design

The Last Craftsman. Exploring Henry van de Velde and the Passage of Modernism

Until 1972, the Museen zu Berlin exhibited, among other things, a teapot and its accompanying set. From above, the teapot is around 22 centimetres...

Geoffrey Bunting 27 January 2025