Framing Degas
The French painter Edgar Degas was Impressionism’s most energetic and inventive frame designer.
Restoration Recipes
Need to clean your sixteenth-century distemper painting? Try a piece of bread (at your own risk).
Plant of the Month: Sunflower
With the invasion of Ukraine, it seemed like sunflowers suddenly appeared on the political landscape. Yet they’ve long held symbolic and economic value in Europe.
Who Was the Little Girl in Las Meninas?
A Spanish princess who became a German queen, Margarita Teresa lived a life structured by Catholicism and cut short by consanguinity.
The Princes of Saxony Collected These Kitschy Miniature Mountains
Struck with “Berggeschrey,” or “mountain clamour,” early modern nobles of Saxony dolled up the dirty and dangerous work of the mines with gold and glitter.
Why John Baldessari Burned His Own Art
The artist's "Cremation Project" of 1970 marked a liberation from the tradition of painting and a step toward a more encompassing vision.
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.
Discovering the Real Little Women: Researching The Other Alcott
Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women" is a cultural touchstone. But what about the women behind the "Women," Alcott's real-life sisters on whom she based her characters? An interview with novelist Elise Hooper considers the life of "The Other Alcott."
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.
Richard, Prince of Instagram Appropriation
While recent media debates why and how his Instagram art sucks, Richard Prince’s appropriation has long been a controversial, hot topic.