Art Blog
Glasgow School of Art Says £265m Mackintosh Rebuild Is Unaffordable
Glasgow School of Art Says £265m Mackintosh Rebuild Is Unaffordable
In January 1895, the Bellahouston Trustees purchased a plot of land on Renfrew Street in Glasgow for £6,000. That purchase paved the way for an architectural competition in 1896, won... Read more...
Richard Dadd: Beyond Bedlam and the Royal Academy Retrospective
Richard Dadd: Beyond Bedlam and the Royal Academy Retrospective
Museum retrospectives often celebrate an artist's arc across studios, salons, and public commissions. The Royal Academy of Arts takes a very different path with its landmark exhibition Richard Dadd: Beyond... Read more...
Odysseus in Art: How Homer's Hero Driven Painters for Centuries
Odysseus in Art: How Homer's Hero Driven Painters for Centuries
Christopher Nolan's announcement of a cinematic adaptation of Homer's Odyssey sent a sudden jolt through the cultural landscape. Museum halls are reporting renewed curiosity around ancient Greek artifacts, and classical... Read more...
Manet’s Bar at the Folies-Bergère: The Mirror Mystery Explained
Manet’s Bar at the Folies-Bergère: The Mirror Mystery Explained
When Édouard Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère debuted at the Paris Salon in May 1882, critics were convinced the 50-year-old artist had lost his grasp of basic geometry. Looking... Read more...
How Jacques-Louis David Turned a Violent Murder into History’s Most Famous Propaganda Canvas
How Jacques-Louis David Turned a Violent Murder into History’s Most Famous Propaganda Canvas
On July 13, 1793, twenty-four-year-old Charlotte Corday bought a cheap two-franc kitchen knife at the Palais-Royal in Paris. Hours later, she slipped into the apartment of radical journalist Jean-Paul Marat... Read more...
Decoding The Arnolfini Portrait: The Microscopic Mirror and Signature
Decoding The Arnolfini Portrait: The Microscopic Mirror and Signature
Jan van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait (1434). Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Step inside Room 28 at the National Gallery in London, and you'll find a crowd gathered around a... Read more...
Netherlandish Proverbs: Bruegel's 1559 Masterpiece of Everyday Absurdities
Netherlandish Proverbs: Bruegel's 1559 Masterpiece of Everyday Absurdities
People love playing visual search games on crowded pages. We look for hidden figures tucked into chaotic scenes, amused whenever we spot a clever detail tucked in a corner. In... Read more...
How a Debilitating Stroke and a German Chemical Pigment Saved Hokusai's Great Wave
How a Debilitating Stroke and a German Chemical Pigment Saved Hokusai's Great Wave
When most people look at Under the Wave off Kanagawa (commonly known as The Great Wave), they assume it was created by an artist floating at the serene, comfortable height... Read more...
The 500-Year-Old Butt Music Hidden inside Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights
The 500-Year-Old Butt Music Hidden inside Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights
In February 2014, Amelia Hamrick, an undergraduate student at Oklahoma Christian University, was pulling a late-night study session for her art history class. She zoomed in on a high-resolution digital... Read more...
Why Grant Wood’s American Gothic Sparked Backlash and Threats in 1930 Iowa
Why Grant Wood’s American Gothic Sparked Backlash and Threats in 1930 Iowa
In August 1930, 39-year-old Iowa painter Grant Wood was riding through the small town of Eldon, Iowa, when a modest white cottage caught his eye. Perched in the attic gable... Read more...
The Hidden Self-Portrait Inside Seurat’s Young Woman Powdering Herself
The Hidden Self-Portrait Inside Seurat’s Young Woman Powdering Herself
In 1889, French Post-Impressionist Georges Seurat began work on an unusually intimate portrait titled Young Woman Powdering Herself (Jeune femme se poudrant). Known for his cold, scientific precision and thousands... Read more...
How Cataracts and World War I Shaped Monet's Water Lilies
How Cataracts and World War I Shaped Monet's Water Lilies
In the quiet of his Giverny studio, 72-year-old Claude Monet stood over his palette, reading the fine print on small metal paint tubes. He had to. He could no longer... Read more...
Jessica Morgan Appointed Next Director of the Tate
Jessica Morgan Appointed Next Director of the Tate
In one of the most high-profile appointments in institutional art leadership, British curator Jessica Morgan has been named the next director of the UK's Tate museum network. Morgan, who has... Read more...
The 1884 Paris Salon Scandal Behind Sargent's Madame X
The 1884 Paris Salon Scandal Behind Sargent's Madame X
Before it became one of the most famous vertical wall art portraits hanging in New York, a single slipped dress strap destroyed a socialite's reputation and chased an ambitious 28-year-old... Read more...
The Day a Suffragette Slashed Velázquez's Venus with a Meat Cleaver
The Day a Suffragette Slashed Velázquez's Venus with a Meat Cleaver
On the morning of March 10, 1914, a quiet woman in a heavy winter coat walked into Room 19 of London’s National Gallery. She stopped right in front of Diego... Read more...
Gagosian London Plots Blockbuster René Magritte Survey as Surrealism Hits Market Highs
Gagosian London Plots Blockbuster René Magritte Survey as Surrealism Hits Market Highs
Gagosian London has announced an ambitious autumn exhibition dedicated to Belgian Surrealist René Magritte. Running from September 24 to December 12, 2026, at the gallery's Grosvenor Hill space, the survey... Read more...
Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son: The Nightmare Painted on a Dining Room Wall
Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son: The Nightmare Painted on a Dining Room Wall
In February 1819, seventy-three-year-old Francisco Goya bought a quiet two-story farmhouse across the Manzanares River from Madrid. The locals called it the Quinta del Sordo (Villa of the Deaf Man).... Read more...
Artemisia Gentileschi: Judith Slaying Holofernes and the Physics of Baroque Revenge
Artemisia Gentileschi: Judith Slaying Holofernes and the Physics of Baroque Revenge
In 1620, Artemisia Gentileschi completed her masterpiece Judith Slaying Holofernes, turning raw personal trauma into one of Baroque art's most formidable visual statements. Painted eight years after surviving a brutal... Read more...
How an Art Forger Escaped the Death Penalty by Painting a "Vermeer" in Prison
How an Art Forger Escaped the Death Penalty by Painting a "Vermeer" in Prison
In May 1945, Allied military investigators in Amsterdam arrested a 56-year-old Dutch painter named Han van Meegeren for high treason. The charge: selling a 17th-century masterpiece by Johannes Vermeer, Christ... Read more...
The Morbid Studio Secrets Behind Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa
The Morbid Studio Secrets Behind Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa
What does it take to paint genuine human terror? In 1818, 27-year-old French artist Théodore Géricault decided that comfortable studio sketches and classical statues were not enough. To capture the... Read more...
The Red Spot That Fired a Gun: How Turner Upstaged Constable in 1832
The Red Spot That Fired a Gun: How Turner Upstaged Constable in 1832
In May 1832, two middle-aged painters walked into Somerset House in London for Varnishing Day at the Royal Academy. J.M.W. Turner was 57. John Constable was 56. They were Britain's... Read more...
How Ghana’s Hand-Painted Movie Posters Built a Folk Art Revolution
How Ghana’s Hand-Painted Movie Posters Built a Folk Art Revolution
Sitting on a shaded porch in Teshie, near Accra, the artist Heavy J dips his brush into crimson oil paint. He dabs a fresh layer of blood onto a knife... Read more...
60 Years Later at The Broad: Why Yoko Ono's 'Cut Piece' Still Matters
60 Years Later at The Broad: Why Yoko Ono's 'Cut Piece' Still Matters
On July 20, 1964, Yoko Ono walked onto a stage at Yamaichi Concert Hall in Kyoto, placed a pair of metal scissors on the floor in front of her folded... Read more...
How Enid Marx Turned Daily Commutes Into Art History (And Why Block-Printed Patterns Work So Well on Your Wall)
How Enid Marx Turned Daily Commutes Into Art History (And Why Block-Printed Patterns Work So Well on Your Wall)
Most people treat geometric pattern as background filler: a safe, repetitive design meant to cover up drywall without starting an argument. Enid Marx proved that pattern is piece of precision... Read more...