Persuasive Cartography: An Interview with Map Collector PJ Mode
A collection of rare maps explores their power as visual messengers.
The Controversial Backstory of London’s Most Lavish Room
James McNeill Whistler created the famous "Peacock Room" for a wealthy patron. But the patron never actually wanted it.
Ed Hardy Changed Tattooing Forever
Trained as a printmaker, this artist helped change American tattooing from a fringe behavior into an art form people use to express themselves.
When Posters Went Psychedelic
Posters were originally a method of advertising and promotion, but in the 1960s, a new crop of psychedelic signs became emblematic of the counterculture.
Napoleon Bonaparte’s Personal #Brand
Napoleon didn't like sitting for portraits, and yet artists and mass market prints helped cement his legendary status.
Art Is Good for Your Brain
The field of neuroaesthetics uses neuroscience to understand how art affects our brains, both when we're making it and when we're viewing it.
Subscription Art for the 19th-Century Set
How the American Art-Union brought fine art to the people, via a subscription service, in the 1840s.
![Design 513, Damask, 1956 and Design 104, Printed Silk and Fortisan Casement [curtain fabric], 1955, by Frank Lloyd Wright](https://daily.jstor.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/frank_lloyd_wrights_fraught_attempt_at_mass_production_1050x700-600x400.jpg)
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fraught Attempt at Mass Production
The famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright famously loathed commercialism, and yet he (reluctantly) designed commercial homewares to be mass produced.
The Delicate Science-Art of the Blaschka Invertebrate Collection
The Cornell Collection of Blaschka Invertebrate Models includes hundreds of glass models of sea creatures, making it both a teaching tool and a metaphor.
These Gravity-Defying Sculptures Provoked Accusations of Demonic Possession
Demons and artists, it seems, pull from the same bag of tricks. They take ordinary matter and transform it into something more wondrous, more terrifying.