In 1817, the French novelist Marie-Henri Beyle — better known by his pen name Stendhal — visited the Basilica of...
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,...
Rembrandt’s Etchings and Intaglio: The Other Half of a Genius
When people think of Rembrandt van Rijn, they think of paintings — of The Night Watch, The Anatomy Lesson, the...
The Life of Rembrandt van Rijn: A Biography
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was born on July 15, 1606, in Leiden, in the Dutch Republic, the son of a...
Was Van Gogh Religious?
The short answer is yes — but the longer answer is more interesting, and more complicated, than a simple yes....