Concert of Apollo and the Muses on Mount Helicon by Maerten van Heemskerck

A Brief History of the Muses

Scholar Alison Habens tells us more about the Greek goddesses who provided divine inspiration for ancient poets.
A detail from Ophelia by John Everett Millais, c. 1851

JSTOR Daily’s Archives of Art History

Our editors have rounded up a collection of stories about art, artists, museums, and the way (and why) we study them.
Surrealist artists at the first Surrealist Exhibition to be held in London. Back row, from left, are Rupert Lee, Ruthven Todd, Salvador Dali, Paul Eluard, Roland Penrose, Herbert Read, E LT Mesens, George Reavey and Hugh Sykes-Davies. Front row, from left, Diana Lee, Nusch Eluard, Eileen Agar, Sheila Legge and unknown.

Surrealism at 100: A Reading List

On the centennial of the founding of Surrealism, this reading list examines its radical beginnings, its mass popularity, and its continued evolution.
Madonna and Child with Saint Jerome and Saint John the Baptist

How Renaissance Art Found Its Way to American Museums

We take for granted the Titians and Botticellis that hang in galleries across the United States, little aware of the appetites and inclinations of those who acquired them.
A quilt made by Rebecca Davis

From Folkway to Art: The Transformation of Quilts

In the late twentieth century, the image of the American quilt shifted from one of practicality and handicraft to a celebration of modernist abstraction.
Charlotte Cushman, 1843

The Long Shadow of the Jolly Bachelors

More than a century ago, Charlotte Cushman presided over a group of queer female artists who supported one another’s creativity and left a pioneering, if overlooked, legacy.
Maud Lewis

Remembering Maud Lewis

A symbol of resilience and resourcefulness, Lewis remains one of Canada’s best-loved and most-celebrated folk artists.
Impression, Sunrise by Claude Monet

The Art of Impressionism: A Reading List

The first exhibition of paintings that would come to be described as Impressionism opened in Paris on April 15, 1874.
Georgette Chen, Self Portrait, c. 1946

The Genius of Georgette Chen

Little known outside of Singapore and Malaysia, Georgette Chen was an iconic artist of the Nanyang Style.
Embroidery of a ginger cat with a mouse on a chequered floor made by Mary, Queen of Scots

Prisoners’ Pastimes

Isabella Rosner’s Stitching Freedom showcases embroidered works made by the incarcerated and examines this craft’s historical popularity behind bars.