Latest Stories

Our growing archive of info about art, design, and culture.

  • Julia Prinsep Stephen: Muse of Victorian Art

    Julia Prinsep Stephen: Muse of Victorian Art

    Julia Prinsep Stephen was born Julia Jackson on 7 February 1846 in Calcutta, British India, into the remarkable Prinsep–Pattle family, whose members moved easily between imperial administration, artistic patronage, and literary society.…

  • Ayahuasca and The Arts: Sacred Visions and Influence

    Ayahuasca and The Arts: Sacred Visions and Influence

    Ayahuasca is a sacred Amazonian brew made from the Banisteriopsis caapi vine and the leaves of Psychotria viridis. Indigenous communities in present-day Peru, Brazil, and Colombia have used it for centuries in…

  • White Mountain Art: America’s Landscape Legacy

    White Mountain Art: America’s Landscape Legacy

    The White Mountains of New Hampshire, with their sweeping ridgelines, pristine valleys, and clear mountain light, captured the imagination of 19th-century American artists like few places ever had. These highlands, forming part…

  • Love Story: Édouard Manet and Suzanne Leenhoff

    Love Story: Édouard Manet and Suzanne Leenhoff

    Édouard Manet, one of the most influential figures in modern art, revolutionized painting with his bold vision and unorthodox techniques. Yet, his life and career were profoundly shaped by a quiet yet…

  • How Art Is Transported Between Countries Safely

    How Art Is Transported Between Countries Safely

    Transporting a priceless painting across an ocean is not like shipping a piece of furniture. When people ask how art is transported between countries, they are really asking how civilization moves safely…

  • Arundel Castle Gardens: West Sussex’s Historic Landscape

    Arundel Castle Gardens: West Sussex’s Historic Landscape

    Arundel Castle Gardens in West Sussex, England, are among the country’s most celebrated historic gardens. Stretching across roughly 38–40 acres beside one of England’s longest‑inhabited castles, they blend centuries of horticultural development,…

  • Love Story:  Jean-Léon Gérôme & Marie Goupil

    Love Story: Jean-Léon Gérôme & Marie Goupil

    In Paris during the middle decades of the nineteenth century, love did not float above society—it moved through it. Marriage among the elite art world was rarely just a private matter, and…

  • Belfast: The History of its Art

    Belfast: The History of its Art

    The earliest visual traces of what would become Belfast lie not on canvas or in galleries but carved into stone and inscribed on the pages of manuscripts, the quiet echoes of craftsmanship…