In 1817, the French novelist Marie-Henri Beyle — better known by his pen name Stendhal — visited the Basilica of...
What Did Friedrich Nietzsche Think About Art?
Nietzsche thought art was not decoration, not entertainment, and not a pleasant supplement to real life. He thought it was...
Art that Heals the Human Being: What Is Catharsis?
Catharsis is one of those words that everyone uses and almost no one can define precisely — which is appropriate,...
What Did Philosophers Think About Art?
The question "what is art?" sounds simple. It has occupied some of the sharpest minds in Western history for over...
Where to View Art in High Quality for Free on the Internet
The idea that you need to travel to Florence or Amsterdam or New York to see the world's greatest paintings...
Michelangelo Buonarroti: Biography
Daniele da Volterra (Daniele Ricciarelli) (Italian, Volterra 1509–1566 Rome)Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564), probably ca. 1544Oil on wood; 34 3/4 x 25...
Claude Monet: Biography
Claude Monet was born Oscar-Claude Monet on November 14, 1840, in the ninth arrondissement of Paris, the second son of...
Cubism: The Movement That Broke Five Centuries of Western Art
Perspective is so embedded in Western painting that most people experience it not as a convention but as a fact...
Artists Like Matisse: Who Painted in His Orbit and His Shadow
Henri Matisse did not work in isolation. He was a catalyst — a painter whose ideas about color, flatness, and...
Matisse and the Bathers: A Subject That Took Eight Years to Finish
Henri Matisse is best known as a painter of pleasure — of color, pattern, open windows, odalisques in patterned interiors,...