#france

Fashion

French Elegance – How Did Women Dress in 18th-Century France?

While we can no longer personally experience the splendor of 18th-century fashion, thankfully many painters of the time left us the answer to the...

Pola Otterstein 10 August 2023

Rococo fans. Bacchus and Ariadne, c. 1760, Fan Museum, Greenwich, UK. Fashion

Rococo Fans: Craft, Art, and Hidden Messages

Before air conditioning, women relied on fans to keep themselves fresh during the summer. The accessory became so popular during the 18th century...

Jimena Escoto 10 August 2023

Rococo

How to Look Fabulous: Rococo Women Beauty Guide

How to look fabulous? That is the question! Let’s refer to the most splendid and opulent period of history: the 18th century. The Enlightenment era...

Kateryna Martynova 10 August 2023

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: La Toilette by François Boucher

The soft rustle of silky cloth and the hard crackling of burning wood echo against the yellow-papered walls of the boudoir. The small room is...

James W Singer 10 August 2023

Rococo

Queen Marie Antoinette in Portraits

Marie Antoinette, the final Queen of France and Navarre before the French Revolution, is renowned for numerous portraits that depict her life.

Zuzanna Stańska 10 August 2023

Post-Impressionism

The Story of an Excessively Electric Friendship Between Van Gogh and Gauguin

People say that you shouldn’t live with your friends because your friendship may deteriorate. The story of the friendship between Vincent van...

Magda Michalska 7 August 2023

The Devonshire Hunting Tapestry: Boar and Bear Hunt (detail) Medieval Art

The Devonshire Hunting Tapestries

The Devonshire Hunting Tapestries consist of four large tapestries depicting scenes of hunting various animals. They were made between 1430 and 1450...

Anna Ingram 3 August 2023

Pablo Picasso, Self Portrait, 1901, Musée Picasso, Paris, France. Cubism

Pablo Picasso in 8 Periods: Everything You Need to Know

2023 is the 50th anniversary of the death of Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). A prolific producer of paintings, prints, ceramics, and sculpture, his work...

Catriona Miller 3 August 2023

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Two Sisters (On the Terrace) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

This beautiful painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir is known under two titles. The first one – Two Sisters (in French: Les Deux Sœurs) was given to...

Zuzanna Stańska 1 August 2023

Masterpiece Stories

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 1 August 2023

Dadaism

Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain and Why It Matters

Few artists have been as versatile and as bold as Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968). He was a painter, a sculptor, and a photographer; he was a seminal...

Guest Profile 31 July 2023

Piet Mondrian, The Gray Tree, 1912, Kunstmuseum Den Haag, Hague, Netherlands. Painting

5 Paintings by Piet Mondrian You Wouldn’t Believe Were His

Piet Mondrian, one of the founders of the Dutch modern movement De Stijl, is mostly known for his pure abstractions from the 1920s, reduced to lines,...

Zuzanna Stańska, Aniela Rybak 30 July 2023