Violette Personified NYPL Collections

Personification Is Your Friend: The Language of Inanimate Objects

Studies have shown that anthropomorphizing not only helps us learn. It also serves a social function, helping us feel connected.
Lions painted in the Chauvet Cave. This is a replica of the painting from the Brno museum Anthropos. The absence of the mane sometimes leads to these paintings being described as portraits of lionesses.

Reinterpreting The Chauvet Cave Paintings

Do France’s Chauvet Cave paintings depict a contemporary volcanic eruption? Recent research argues that they do. 
Artist Faith Ringgold poses for a portrait in front of a painted self-portrait during a press preview of her exhibition, "American People, Black Light: Faith Ringgold’s Paintings of the 1960s" at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington on Wednesday, June 19, 2013. Ringgold explains her "confrontational art" _ vivid paintings whose themes of race, gender, class and civil rights were so intense that for years, no one would buy them. "I didn’t want people to be able to look, and look away, because a lot of people do that with art," Ringgold said. "I want them to look and see. I want to grab their eyes and hold them, because this is America." (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Power in the Painting: Faith Ringgold and her Story Quilts

Through a didactic retelling of history, artist Faith Ringgold uses her story quilts to reframe the past.
Dandy pickpockets, diving published in The caricature magazine, or Hudibrastic mirror, by G.M. Woodward, vol. 5, Folio 75

Bowie, Wilde, and the Fin de Siècle Dandies

Exploring the David Bowie/Oscar Wilde/French bohemian dandies connection.
Le bateau-atelier The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. "Le bateau-atelier (another impression)" New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed March 10, 2016. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/7d3b4edc-0895-16f4-e040-e00a18067a68

Why We Should Preserve Artist Studios

The rich historical and inspirational sites of artists’ studios and homes make them worthy of historical preservation.
Dianna Frid

On Text and Textile with Artist Dianna Frid

Mexican-Canadian artist Dianna Frid explore the ways physical forms shape how we conceive of reality. 
Salaam Reads

The Importance of Publishing Muslim-Themed Children’s Books

Simon & Schuster has established a new imprint of children's books geared towards publishing Muslim characters and stories.
Falling lowercase letters

Do You Even Language, Bro? Understanding Why Nouns Become Verbs

Understanding the phenomenon known as "verbing"--where nouns are turned into verbs. 
satanism

Satanism and Magic in the Age of the Moulin Rouge

How did some of the most illustrious names of fin de siècle French literature end up in a newspaper battle over witchcraft and evil spirits?
Green Island: A novel by Shawna Yang Ryan

“Green Island” Sheds Light on Taiwan’s Tumultuous Past

Shawna Yang Ryan's "Green Island," explores the 2-28 massacre, in which tens of thousands of Taiwanese were killed by Kuomintang troops in 1947.