Art Blog
Leonardo's 25-year fight over a painting he'd already abandoned
Leonardo's 25-year fight over a painting he'd already abandoned
Leonardo da Vinci is probably the most famous artist in history. He's also one of the worst at finishing what he started. The story of The Virgin of the Rocks... Read more...
Still Life with Meadow Flowers and Roses: Vincent van Gogh's Hidden Wrestlers
Still Life with Meadow Flowers and Roses: Vincent van Gogh's Hidden Wrestlers
In January 1886, Vincent van Gogh was shivering in Antwerp, struggling to pay for coal while surviving on bread and coffee. He had enrolled at the local art academy to... Read more...
The Hidden Portrait Beneath Van Gogh’s Patch of Grass
The Hidden Portrait Beneath Van Gogh’s Patch of Grass
In July 2008, scientists in Hamburg, Germany, fired a high-energy particle accelerator at a small, dark oil painting of a field of grass. The painting, Patch of Grass (originally titled... Read more...
Folk Art vs. Naive Art: What's the Real Difference? (And How to Tell Them Apart)
Folk Art vs. Naive Art: What's the Real Difference? (And How to Tell Them Apart)
Picture two paintings hanging side by side on a museum wall. On the left is an 1830s portrait of a child holding a wooden rattle, painted with flat shadows and... Read more...
The ghost in Picasso's Old Guitarist: the mother and child he painted over
The ghost in Picasso's Old Guitarist: the mother and child he painted over
Most people look at Picasso's The Old Guitarist and see one painting. There are at least four. The one hanging at the Art Institute of Chicago, 122.9 by 82.6 centimeters... Read more...
Picasso's Blue Room: The Hidden Portrait Beneath the Paint
Picasso's Blue Room: The Hidden Portrait Beneath the Paint
In the early summer of 1901, a nineteen-year-old Pablo Picasso stood inside a cramped studio at 130 Boulevard de Clichy in Paris and mixed heavy dabs of Prussian and cobalt... Read more...
The Bayeux Tapestry Is Coming to London (and It Isn't Really a Tapestry)
The Bayeux Tapestry Is Coming to London (and It Isn't Really a Tapestry)
In the early hours of Friday, July 10, 2026, a 68-metre strip of embroidered linen rode a train under the English Channel, packed in a climate-controlled crate sitting on shock-absorbing... Read more...
Who Stole the Mona Lisa? The True Story of the 1911 Heist
Who Stole the Mona Lisa? The True Story of the 1911 Heist
On the morning of Monday, August 21, 1911, the Louvre was nearly empty. Monday was the museum's weekly closing day, so the guards were relaxed and the galleries were quiet.... Read more...
Did Gainsborough Really Paint The Blue Boy to Spite His Rival?
Did Gainsborough Really Paint The Blue Boy to Spite His Rival?
Short answer: no. The most repeated story about Thomas Gainsborough's The Blue Boy, that he built an entire portrait out of blue satin just to embarrass his rival Sir Joshua... Read more...
The Lost Cimabue Masterpiece That Hung Above a French Kitchen Hotplate
The Lost Cimabue Masterpiece That Hung Above a French Kitchen Hotplate
We like to imagine art history happens inside climate-controlled vaults under the watch of museum guards. But old paintings spend their lives in surprisingly ordinary places. Take a small poplar... Read more...
The 150-Year Art Mystery: Why Someone Painted a Whale Out of Hendrick van Anthonissen's Seascape
The 150-Year Art Mystery: Why Someone Painted a Whale Out of Hendrick van Anthonissen's Seascape
In 2014, a student conservator at Cambridge University took a scalpel to a 17th-century Dutch seascape and uncovered a bus-sized sperm whale that someone had deliberately painted out of existence.... Read more...
The painting that hides a skull in plain sight
The painting that hides a skull in plain sight
Room 4 of London's National Gallery holds a portrait that stops people mid-step. Two men in expensive clothes stand beside a table loaded with globes, sundials, and a lute. The... Read more...
Art for wellness spas: what actually belongs on your walls
Art for wellness spas: what actually belongs on your walls
A client lies face-down on a heated massage table, eyes half-closed, pulse slowing. For the next 60 minutes, the only thing in their line of sight is the floor beneath... Read more...
What to hang in a medical waiting room (and what the research actually says)
What to hang in a medical waiting room (and what the research actually says)
In 1984, a researcher named Roger Ulrich published a study of 46 gallbladder surgery patients at a suburban Pennsylvania hospital. Half had rooms facing a stand of deciduous trees. Half... Read more...
Choosing art for your dental clinic (and why the ceiling matters most)
Choosing art for your dental clinic (and why the ceiling matters most)
A 2021 meta-analysis across 28 countries found that roughly 15% of adults report dental fear or anxiety, with about 3% qualifying as genuinely phobic. That puts dental care in a... Read more...
Decorating Your First Apartment From Scratch: Go Slow, Buy Used, Skip the Financing Plan
Decorating Your First Apartment From Scratch: Go Slow, Buy Used, Skip the Financing Plan
Most people furnish a first apartment the same way, and it's the expensive way. They walk into one showroom, get talked into a matching living room set, and sign a... Read more...
How to style a room: start with the three questions a stylist asks first
How to style a room: start with the three questions a stylist asks first
Most guides about decorating hand you a style first. Japandi. Mid-century. Coastal. Pick one, they say, then go shop. But for a stylist the style is the last thing to... Read more...
Art for Therapy Offices: What to Hang, and What to Avoid
Art for Therapy Offices: What to Hang, and What to Avoid
Sigmund Freud's consulting room at Berggasse 19 was not a calm, empty box. By 1938 he had crammed it with more than 2,000 antiquities, oriental rugs, and framed pictures on... Read more...
Art Nouveau vs Art Deco: How to Tell Them Apart (and Why It Matters)
Art Nouveau vs Art Deco: How to Tell Them Apart (and Why It Matters)
The term "Art Deco" didn't exist until the 1960s. The style that now goes by that name was shown to the world at the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs... Read more...
How wall colors actually change your mood (and which art works with them)
How wall colors actually change your mood (and which art works with them)
Clinical studies indexed in the NIH's PubMed Central found that people sitting in rooms painted with cool blue and green hues had measurably lower blood pressure and slower heart rates... Read more...
How to Save Money on Art: Solve the Frame First
How to Save Money on Art: Solve the Frame First
Watch anyone shop for wall art online. They'll flip between five tabs to save $6 on a poster, then add a $180 frame at checkout without comparing a single price.... Read more...
Dorm Room Decor on a Budget: Spend on What Leaves With You
Dorm Room Decor on a Budget: Spend on What Leaves With You
Before you buy a single string light, look up your school's damage price list. Most universities publish one. At the University of Georgia it's $65 to patch a screw-size hole,... Read more...
Matte vs Photo Paper for Art Prints: The Real Difference on Your Wall
Matte vs Photo Paper for Art Prints: The Real Difference on Your Wall
A framed print arrives in a cardboard tube, gets flattened under a stack of books on a dining room table, and finally goes up on a living room wall right... Read more...
The Hudson River School Painted an Empire's Rise and Fall
The Hudson River School Painted an Empire's Rise and Fall
In 1836, an English immigrant named Thomas Cole finished five paintings that show one civilization being born, growing rich, and burning to the ground. He called the series The Course... Read more...