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Smart News / Smart News Arts & Culture

Representatives of the American Library Association deliver a petition protesting new e-book limitations to Macmillan Publishers.

Why New Restrictions on Library E-Book Access Are Generating Controversy

Macmillan Publishers will only allow libraries to purchase one copy of an e-book during the first eight weeks following publication

Officials hope to complete work on the new museum by the Jefferson Memorial's 80th anniversary in 2023

Trending Today

Philanthropist Donates $10 Million to Jefferson Memorial Museum

David Rubenstein’s donation will fund the creation of a new education center at the D.C. monument

Patriots toppled the statue in July 1776, but British Loyalists rescued and hid some of the fragments

You Could Own an Amputated Arm From the George III Statue Toppled at Bowling Green

The 18th-century lead fragment was unearthed in a Connecticut resident’s garden in 1991

It’s Death By A Million Cuts on This Slasher Planet!

Trending Today

NASA Celebrates Halloween With These Interstellar Horror Posters

The artwork highlights the weird world of exoplanets where it rains glass and planets circle zombie stars

The creepiest doll in all the land

A Minnesota Museum’s Creepy Doll Contest Is Here to Haunt Your Dreams

“The doll I disdain handling is the one with human hair,” says curator Dan Nowakowski

Sandro Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" finds its subject striking a contrapposto pose

New Research

Why Viewers Are Drawn to Renaissance Artists’ Go-To Pose

A new study finds that the contrapposto stance reduces the waist-to-hip ratio, an attribute popularly associated with attractiveness

The painting, expected to sell for upwards of $6 million, will be auctioned October 27

Cool Finds

Lost Renaissance Masterpiece Found Hanging Above Woman’s Hot Plate Sells for $26.8 Million

Experts say the panel painting was created by Florentine artist Cimabue around 1280

The Nazis seized Winter, an early 20th-century painting by American artist Gari Melchers, in 1933.

Trending Today

F.B.I. Recovers Nazi-Looted Painting From New York Museum

The Arkell Museum had no inkling of the early 20th-century canvas’ dark past

If participants successfully complete the program, the district attorney’s office declines to prosecute their case, and the arrest record is sealed

Low-Level Offenders in NYC Can Now Take an Art Class Instead of Appearing in Court

“It’s about holding people accountable, but doing it in ways that promote human dignity,” Brooklyn’s district attorney said

The original Monuments Men remove the Madonna of Bruges from the Altaussee Salt Mine where the Nazi regime stored looted art treasures.

Trending Today

The Smithsonian and the Army Join Forces to Revive the Monuments Men

A new force of cultural specialists will advise the military on protecting cultural treasures from bombing and looting

A rendering of Kusama's design.

Artist Yayoi Kusama Is Creating a Whimsical Balloon for Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

The artist’s studio collaborated with ‘balloon specialists’ to create the inflatable artwork

J.D. Salinger (center left with his hand on his chin) on the deck of the M.S. Kungsholm, 1941

Get a Rare Peek Into the Life of Reclusive Writer J.D. Salinger

A new exhibition at the New York Public Library includes never-before-seen photographs, letters and manuscripts

Leonardo da Vinci's "Vitruvian Man" will make an appearance in the Louvre's upcoming blockbuster exhibition

Leonardo’s ‘Vitruvian Man’ Is Headed to the Louvre Despite Italian Scholars’ Protests

Some researchers say the roughly 530-year-old drawing is too fragile, light-sensitive to travel

A sculpture depicting Irish author James Joyce is seen behind his grave in Fluntern cemetery in Zurich

Trending Today

Dublin Wants to Reclaim James Joyce’s Body Before the Centenary of ‘Ulysses’

Critics question whether the author, who died in Zurich after a 30-year exile, ever wanted to return home, even in death

For the first time in some 450 years, Nelli’s "Last Supper" is finally on public view

Renaissance Nun’s ‘Last Supper’ Painting Makes Public Debut After 450 Years in Hiding

The 21-foot canvas, created by self-taught artist and nun Plautilla Nelli, is now on view in Florence

On a cold day in early spring in China’s Qilian Mountains National Nature Reserve, photographer Yongqing Bao watched a fox and marmot tango for about an hour before they finally clashed. Minutes later, the fox trotted away with a delicious meal.

See a Fox Spook a Marmot and More Award-Winning Wildlife Photographs

The London National History Museum’s 55th annual contest garnered more than 48,000 entries from 100 different countries

The team hypothesized that works published during the so-called “good old days” would be more uplifting than those penned during times of hardship

What Millions of Books Reveal About 200 Years of Happiness

Researchers analyzed eight million texts to gauge how lifespan, warfare and the economy affect national well-being

Joint winners Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo attend the 2019 Booker Prize Winner Announcement at the Guildhall in London

Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo Win the 2019 Booker Prize

Some critics are lamenting that Evaristo, the first black woman to receive the award, has to share it

Violet King, an usherette at the London Coliseum, pocketed the half-smoked cigar and safeguarded it for the rest of her life

Cool Finds

A Cigar Puffed by Winston Churchill Is Set to Go on Auction

The British prime minister smoked the cigar while attending a movie premiere in 1953

This inverted cross was likely carved on the inn's hearth stone in hopes of discouraging witches from flying down the chimney

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Find Shot Glass Shards, Anti-Witch Carving at Centuries-Old Scottish Pub

At the time of its construction, the Wilkhouse Inn was considered a “statement of modernity and affluence”

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