Named for the city in Greece where they were first discovered in the 1870s, Tanagra statuettes are an elegant example of ancient Greek terra-cotta sculpture from the fourth and third centuries BC. Mainly found in tombs in this city, the small statuet...

For Claude Monet (1840-1926), the founder of French Impressionist painting, these words are a fitting testament to his lifelong relationship with the female muse, most notably – and most hauntingly – with his first wife, the model Camille Doncieux....

Guided by photographer Jeff Jones's sure and well-developed vision, "Arctic Sanctuary" leads the reader on a remarkable journey that few of us will ever take in real life: a trek deep into Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. By turns celebrator...

In "Believing and Seeing", Roland Recht argues that preoccupation with vision as a key to religious knowledge profoundly affected a broad range of late medieval works. In addition to the great cathedrals of France, Recht explores key religious buildi...

Contemporary artist Allison Smith's diverse creative practice critically engages with popular forms of historical reenactment through a variety of media, including sculpture, textiles, ceramics, and photography. Focusing on the handmade and performat...

The image of a tortured genius working in near isolation has long dominated our conceptions of the artist's studio. Examples abound: think Jackson Pollock dripping resin on a cicada carcass in his shed in the Hamptons. But times have changed; ever si...

In this lucid and insightful essay, renowned linguist Roy Harris reflects on the early nineteenth-century doctrine of "art for art's sake". This was attacked by Proudhon and Nietzsche, but defended by Theophile Gautier and E. M. Forster. It influence...

In Giuseppe Arcimboldo's most famous paintings, grapes, fish, and even the beaks of birds form human hair. A pear stands in for a man's chin. Citrus fruits sprout from a tree trunk that doubles as a neck. All sorts of natural phenomena come together...

Paul Scheerbart (1863-1915) was a visionary German novelist, theorist, poet, and artist who made a lasting impression on such icons of modernism as Walter Benjamin, Bruno Taut, and Walter Gropius. Fascinated with the potential of glass architecture,...

Clement Greenberg (1909-1994), champion of abstract expressionism and modernism – of Pollock, Miro, and Matisse – has been esteemed by many as the greatest art critic of the second half of the twentieth century, and possibly the greatest art critic o...