Jan van der Heyden and the Dawn of Efficient Street Lights
17th-century Amsterdam was the first city in Europe to have an efficient system of street lighting—thanks to a Golden Age painter called Jan van der Heyden.
Shakespeare, Rembrandt, and the Real “Twelfth Night”
"Twelfth Night" was more than a Shakespeare play; for a very long time it was an extremely popular European winter feast.
The Scottish Sisters Who Pioneered Art Nouveau
Margaret and Frances Macdonald and their Glasgow School of Art classmates Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Harold MacNair were Art Nouveau's Glasgow Four.
The Surprising History of the Kimono
The kimono that the world associates with Japan was actually created in the late-nineteenth century as a cultural identifier.
Are You Wearing Seaweed?
Are you wearing seaweed? People have been for hundreds of years, in sizing, patterns and fibers, although they might not have known it.
Should Banksy be on the West Bank?
Who is Bansky better serving with his artwork in Gaza? Those living on the bank itself or his personal brand?
The Jewish-American Writer Who Transformed U.S.-Mexico Relations
How did Anita Brenner, a Mexican-born, American Jewish writer and journalist use art to try to bridge the gap between the United States and Mexico?
Louis XIV, Napoleon, and Macron: The Choreography of Portraits
Official portraits have been a means of communicating intention and creating image throughout history. Consider three of France's iconic leaders.
A Natural History of the Wedding Dress
The history of the wedding dress is shorter than the history of weddings, and even shorter still than the history of marriage.
Mexico’s Radical Women Artists
Art by Mexican "Radical Women" artists capture the turbulent times of the feminist movement in Mexico in the 1970s and still ring true today.