Our growing archive of info about art, design, and culture.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the first conflict extensively documented through photography. Long before combat footage or live news broadcasts, photographers captured haunting images of ruined fields, silent corpses, and solemn…
Chromophobia by David Batchelor is a sharp, thought-provoking exploration of the cultural and aesthetic anxieties surrounding color in Western art, literature, and design. Published in 2000 by Reaktion Books, the book is…
Tassili n’Ajjer is a vast plateau in southeastern Algeria, covering around 28,000 square miles of sandstone cliffs and canyons. Situated near the borders of Libya, Niger, and Mali, the region rises above…
Alice Ernestine Prin, who would later become known to the world as Kiki de Montparnasse, was born on October 2, 1901, in Châtillon-sur-Seine, a modest town in the Burgundy region of France.…
Frederick Arthur Bridgman was born on November 10, 1847, in Tuskegee, Alabama. His father, Dr. Bridgman, practiced medicine and provided a modest but stable life for the family. When Frederick was still…
The 1920s marked an era of bold experimentation and growing financial opportunity for American artists. Following World War I, the U.S. economy boomed, and an expanding class of wealthy patrons fueled the…
Throughout history, religious art and sacred treasures have played a vital role in shaping national identity and cultural continuity—especially in Poland. Warsaw, the spiritual heart of the country, once housed an extraordinary…
When Michelangelo Buonarroti was summoned to Rome in 1505 by Pope Julius II, it wasn’t to paint. The 30-year-old Florentine sculptor had recently completed his celebrated David in Florence (1501–1504), and the…
Han van Meegeren was born on October 10, 1889, in the Dutch town of Deventer. From a young age, he showed a gift for drawing and classical painting, though his father, a…
Everywhere you look, from gas stations to tech startups, companies are relying on logos to tell their story. But here’s the brutal truth: most of them are getting it wrong. A logo…
The first human handprints pressed in ochre across stone walls are more than decoration: they are signals across tens of millennia that red was the first color with which people tried to…
Parking lots are everywhere — often overlooked, hot, dull, and sprawling stretches of asphalt. Yet across the world, people are finding creative ways to transform these utilitarian spaces into beautiful, functional, and…