Palermo: The History of its Art
There are cities whose histories read like a single story: a beginning, a rise, and a transformation into the modern world. Then there are cities like Palermo — places where history doesn’t…
Latest Stories
Our growing archive of info about art, design, and culture.
Inspiration: “The Orchard,” by Elizabeth Adela Forbes
In the autumn of 1885, Elizabeth Adela Forbes (still named Armstrong at the time) and her mother moved to Newlyn, Cornwall. She established a studio in Newlyn, sharing the building with a fisherman…
Inspiration: “Rosina,” by John Singer Sargent
Of Greek ancestry, Rosina Ferrara was born in Anacapri on the island of Capri in 1861. She is considered a descendant of Barbarossa, a 16th-century pirate. Beginning in the 1870s, she modeled for European and American artists, including…
Biography: John Constable
John Constable, born on June 11, 1776, in East Bergholt, Suffolk, England, is one of the most celebrated British landscape painters, whose work has come to define English pastoral art. He was…
Slovakia: The History of its Art
The oldest Slovak art lives in the earth—buried in burial mounds, etched into cliff walls, and shaped in the hands of unknown artisans who died thousands of years before “Slovakia” had a…
Romanticism – Emotion, Nature, and the Sublime
Romanticism was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that flourished from c. 1800 to 1850. It emerged as a reaction against the rationalism and order of Neoclassicism (c. 1750–1830) and the industrialization…
Inspiration: “Paysage d’Hiver Le Chemin Neige,” by Robert Antoine Pinchon
The declaration of war in 1914 signaled a major break in European cultural history, and a major break in the life and career of Robert Antoine Pinchon, who was mobilized on 5…
Biography: Julia Margaret Cameron
Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–1879) was a pioneering British photographer known for her powerful and emotive portraits and for her innovative approach to the medium of photography. Born in Calcutta, India, to a…
Inspiration: “Le Crabe,” by William Adolphe Bouguereau
In his own time, Bouguereau was considered to be one of the greatest painters in the world by the academic art community, and simultaneously he was reviled by the avant-garde. He also gained…
Inspiration: “Breton Girl With Jar,” by Amelie Lundahl
Amelie Lundahl was the youngest of eleven children[. Her mother died when she was three months old and her father, Abraham, a Town Representative (public prosecutor) died when she was eight. From…
Inspiration: “A Woodland Nymph,” by Philip Hermogenes Calderon
Calderon was born in Poitiers, France. His father, the Reverend Juan Calderón ( 19 April 1791 in Villafranca de los Caballeros; 28 January 1854 in London) was a professor of Spanish literature…
