#northern renaissance

Masterpiece Stories

Pieter Bruegel’s Children’s Games Explained

Children’s Games is one of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s most famous paintings. Just like in other works of his, it is debatable whether it was just...

Irina Diana Calu 20 November 2023

Jan van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait (detail), 1434, The National Gallery, London, England. Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: The Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck

The Arnolfini Portrait is as enigmatic as it is iconic. Painted by Jan van Eyck in 1434, it spawns a lot of speculation – over half a millennium...

Vithória Konzen Dill 14 October 2023

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 14 October 2023

WTF Art History

6 Creatures by Hieronymus Bosch That Could Be Pokémon

Did you ever think where the ideas for Pokémon could be coming from? Here are six examples proving that in the 16th century, Hieronymus Bosch caught...

Zuzanna Stańska 4 October 2023

WTF Art History

Listen to the Butt Music on Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights

Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights is a three-part altarpiece showing the Garden of Eden on the left and a vision of hell on the right.

Zuzanna Stańska 15 September 2023

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Self-Portrait at 28 by Albrecht Dürer

Albrecht Dürer loved self-portraits. In the first half of his life, he made a series of them. The earliest is from 1484, when the artist was a...

Zuzanna Stańska 14 September 2023

Animals

7 Images of Dürer’s Animals That Are Better Than Trip to a Zoo

Albrecht Dürer’s keen interest in nature was a typical manifestation of Renaissance curiosity. Animals were not generally considered to be...

Zuzanna Stańska 14 September 2023

Dürer Magic Square Bizarre

The Mystery of Dürer’s Magic Square

Many 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 14 September 2023

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels by Jean Fouquet

Gazing at this 15th-century masterpiece, you might mistake it for a contemporary creation. Vivid bursts of deep blue and red cherubs compose the...

Rachel Witte 15 August 2023

Art History 101

10 Things You Need To Know About Jan van Eyck

Flemish painter Jan van Eyck (1390 – 1441) was one of the key artists of the Early Northern Renaissance. His technical brilliance and mastery...

Zuzanna Stańska 21 July 2023

François Clouet (School), Portrait of Louise de Lorraine, ca. 1575, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, USA. Detail. Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Louise de Lorraine by François Clouet (School)

Portrait of Louise de Lorraine is a French Renaissance painting that exudes the artistic ideas of its time and captures the queen’s personal and...

James W Singer 29 June 2023

Museum Stories

Vase of Flowers: The WWII Theft of a Dutch Still Life

What happens to artworks and cultural treasures as a nation prepares for war? In the case of Jan van Huysum’s Vase of Flowers, the Dutch still...

Natalia Iacobelli 17 April 2023