WTF Art History

Rococo

Masterpiece Story: Marriage A-la-Mode by William Hogarth

The 18th-century British painter William Hogarth created an insightful series of paintings about the arranged marriages of his times, entitled...

Pola Otterstein 19 March 2024

Love Story

Masterpiece Story: Three Ladies Adorning a Term of Hymen by Joshua Reynolds

Three Ladies Adorning a Term of Hymen is a huge triple portrait of the Montgomery sisters by Sir Joshua Reynolds. It thematizes aristocratic marriage...

Isla Phillips-Ewen 19 March 2024

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: The Major’s Marriage Proposal by Pavel Fedotov

When you think of 19th-century Russia, images of Anna Karenina with black furs and white diamonds may come to mind. The lives of the wealthy...

James W Singer 19 March 2024

Love Story

Unhappily Ever After: Unequal Marriage by Vasili Pukirev

Vasili Pukirev’s painting, Unequal Marriage, has a legend surrounding it. Allegedly, after looking at it all the elderly grooms refused to marry...

Elizaveta Ermakova 19 March 2024

WTF Art History

Five Translation Mistakes That Changed Art History

Why did Michelangelo portray Moses with horns? Why are there monkeys in Giulio Romano’s Chamber of Giants? And why does the Nativity scene...

Arianna Richetti 18 March 2024

WTF Art History

The Dark Age of Rome – The Cadaver Synod

In a career that spanned over two decades, Jean-Paul Laurens painted some of French art’s most plaintive historical moments: two young princes...

Guest Profile 15 March 2024

Art State of Mind

Florence Welch — A Modern Pre-Raphaelite Muse

We all know Florence Welch, the leader of the indie-rock band Florence + The Machine. And if you don’t, I suggest you find her cosmic music right...

Elizaveta Ermakova 15 March 2024

Art State of Mind

Celestial Bodies in Art – Comets, Planets and Stars

When we think about flying objects we usually imagine birds, planes, kites, balloons, or even UFOs! It’s easy to forget that at one point the...

Sarah Mills 14 March 2024

Dine & Wine

Come Dine with Art History: Famous Feasts in Art

Socrates said that “We eat to live, not live to eat” (although his wife must have thought differently since according to legend she was terribly...

Magda Michalska 13 March 2024

Quiz

Bon Appetit! Foodie Quiz for Art Lovers

Candy Bedworth 13 March 2024

Dine & Wine

Cooking in Pictures—The Food in Art and the Art of Food

Long before Julia Child published Mastering the Art of French Cooking, artists had already made the connection between food and art. But how to...

Ledys Chemin 13 March 2024

Dine & Wine

Cook Like an Artist! Kitchen Inspiration from Art History

For hundreds of years, kitchens in art were the undesirable work place of unsavory maids, tucked away below the luxurious living spaces of the upper...

Abreeza Thomas 13 March 2024