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Americans in Paris
In the late 19th century, the City of Light beckoned Whistler, Sargent, Cassatt and other young artists. As a new exhibition makes clear, what they experienced would transform American art
January 2007 |
By Arthur Lubow
Doctor Feelgood
Stricken by "vile melancholy," the 18th-century critic and raconteur Samuel Johnson pioneered a modern therapy
January 2007 |
By John Geirland
Pay Dirt
When self-taught archaeologists dug up an 1850s steamboat, they brought to light a slice of American life
December 2006 |
By Fergus M. Bordewich
Time Capsule
A riverboat's telltale contents included 133-year-old pickles. Want one?
December 2006 |
By Fergus M. Bordewich
Rembrandt at 400
Astonishing brushwork, wrinkles-and-all honesty, deep compassion. What's the secret of his enduring genius?
December 2006 |
By Stephanie Dickey
An Almost Mystical Feeling
Master painter Rembrandt was also a talented draftsman and printmaker
December 2006 |
By Stephanie Dickey
Living With Geese
Novelist and gozzard Paul Theroux ruminates about avian misconceptions, anthropomorphism and March of the Penguins as "a travesty of science"
December 2006 |
By Paul Theroux
Marie Antoinette
The teenage queen, now the subject of a new movie, was embraced by France in 1770. Twenty-three years later, she lost her head to the guillotine. (But she never said, "Let them eat cake")
November 2006 |
By Richard Covington
Inventive Abe
In 1849, a future president patented an ingenious addition to transportation technology.
October 2006 |
By Owen Edwards
Encore! Encore!
Lorenzo Da Ponte was a hit in Europe: a courtier, a cad, the librettist for Mozart's finest operas. But the New World truly tested his creative powers.
September 2006 |
By Christopher Porterfield
Through the Mill
Because of a Lewis Hine photograph, Addie Card became the poster child of child labor. But what became of Addie Card?
September 2006 |
By Elizabeth Winthrop
David Hockney and Friends
Though the artist doesn't think of himself as a painter of portraits, a new exhibition makes the case that they are key to his work.
August 2006 |
By Matthew Gurewitsch
Morning In America
Space shuttle-watchers took their place in the sun, not yet awakened to the true risks of exploring the heavens.
August 2006 |
By Henry Allen
Uncovering the History of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
The author behind the authoritative retelling of the 1911 fire describes how he researched the tragedy that killed 146 people
August 2006 |
By David von Drehle
Saving New Orleans
In a new book, "Patriot Fire," the author of "Forrest Gump" paints an uncommonly vivid picture of an overlooked chapter in American history -- and its unlikely hero.
August 2006 |
By Winston Groom
Airmail Letter
Stale Mail: The nation's first hot-air balloon postal deliveries barely got off the ground.
August 2006 |
By Owen Edwards
Camelot
In the mid-1800's, "ships of the desert" reported for duty in the Southwest.
July 2006 |
By Owen Edwards
Wyeth's World
In the wake of his death, controversy still surrounds painter Andrew Wyeth's stature as a major American artist
June 2006 |
By Henry Adams
Time and Again
In 1984, Peter Feldstein set out to photograph every last person in Oxford, Iowa. Two decades later, he's doing it again, creating a unique portrait of heartland America
June 2006 |
By Stephen G. Bloom
