#history

Literature

Best Books for Little Art Historians

Can you remember what your first experience with art was? Books can be an easy and fun way to stimulate children’s abilities and interests. We...

Dévra Taboada 1 June 2023

Painting

A Tribute to Medical Services: Doctors in Paintings

During the Covid-19 pandemic, we have heard a lot about doctors and healthcare workers, thinking of them as present-day heroes facing up to death.

Camilla de Laurentis 7 April 2023

Neoclassicism

Portraits of Catherine the Great, Empress of all the Russias

Catherine the Great (1729-1796) ruled almost the entire second half of the 18th century. Her reign was very successful on the world arena and gave...

Elizaveta Ermakova 25 March 2022

Spellbound by Marcel cover Review

Spellbound by Marcel, But Not Really About Him

Ruth Branden’s Spellbound by Marcel: Duchamp, Love, and Art (New York: Pegasus Books, Ltd., 2022) is a new book about the New York City-based...

Alexandra Kiely 21 March 2022

Architecture

The Symbol of Sagittarius on the Tile Spandrels of Qaysariya Gate of Isfahan

The Qaysariya bazaar is located in the north of Naqsh-Jahan square of Isfahan. It was founded by Shah Abbas in the Safavid period. On the tile...

Guest Profile 14 March 2022

actionism in russia: Anatoly Osmalovsky, Necesiudik's Journey to Brombdingnag Land, 1993, Moscow, Russia. Contemporary Art

Why Political Actionism Is So Popular in Russia

The sources of Russian political actionism are in the unofficial art of the 1960s. Nonconformism emerged in a country where kitschy socialist realism...

Diana Sadretdinova 7 March 2022

Ilya Repin, Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, 1880–1891, State Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg WTF Art History

Want to Insult Your Enemy? Get Inspired by the Badass Zaporozhian Cossacks!

There are dozens if not hundreds of forged documents in the history of the world. They weren’t forged just for fun. Some of them were the basis...

Zuzanna Stańska 5 March 2022

Female Art Patrons: Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney by Robert Henri Art State of Mind

Five Great Female Art Patrons in History

It’s high time to celebrate the many women who have made their mark on art history. Here, we’ll meet five female art patrons with impeccable...

Alexandra Kiely 4 March 2022

Women Artists

Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? 50 Years Later

The well-known essay Why have there been no great women artists by Linda Nochlin was originally published in ARTnews in January 1971. It is an essay...

Errika Gerakiti 1 March 2022

Architecture

An Urban Gesamtkunstwerk: The Ringstrasse in Vienna

We all associate the city of Vienna with Mozart – Europe’s greatest composer – Austrian Empress Sissi and its magnificent architecture...

Nicole Ganbold 21 February 2022

Museum Stories

The Story of Hitler’s Unrealized Art Museum in Linz

The Hitler’s Museum – originally in German called Das Führermuseum, was luckily an unrealized art museum within a cultural complex planned...

Zuzanna Stańska 19 February 2022

WTF Art History

Fifty Shades of Dr. Pozzi

There he is, a handsome gynecologist in a portrait entitled Dr. Pozzi at Home painted by John Singer Sargent. Pozzi was a dandy, a gynecologist, and...

Zuzanna Stańska 13 February 2022