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Smart News / Smart News Arts & Culture

A series of brown spots dotting the tomb's wall paintings were thought to be microbes carried by modern visitors, but researchers found that the marks have actually been around since 1922 opening of the crypt

Decade-Long Restoration of Tutankhamun’s Tomb Finally Concludes

Conservators stabilized famed crypt’s wall paintings, introduced viewing platforms and barriers designed to limit visitor access to fragile areas

Macedonia's Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, left, speaks with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras prior to meeting on the sidelines of EU and Western Balkan heads of state at the National Palace of Culture in Sofia, Bulgaria, Thursday, May 17, 2018.

Greek Lawmakers Approve Macedonia’s New Name

The decision brings an end to a 27-year-old conflict and paves the way for the Republic of North Macedonia to join the NATO alliance

"Miss U Already"

Sweethearts Candies Won’t Be Available This Valentine’s Day

Production of the iconic treat ground to a halt after the company that makes them went out of business

The museum is located in the tiny Swiss town of Susch

This New Art Museum Is Housed Inside of a Swiss Cave

The brainchild of Polish art collector Grażyna Kulczyk, Muzeum Susch is a gallery “with a disruptive outlook”

Mock-up of the statue in place alongside the Segovian aqueduct

Why a Smiling Statue of Satan Is Stirring Up Controversy in Spain

Some Segovian locals say the affable bust is “offensive for Catholics, because it constitutes the glorification of evil”

Mary Oliver, a Poet Whose Simple Turns of Phrase Held Mass Appeal, Dies at 83

The Pulitzer Prize-winning writer was known for her straightforward meditations on nature, spirituality and the human experience

Rembrandt Used Unexpected Ingredient to Create His Signature Technique

New analysis shows the Dutch master added lead carbonate plumbonacrite to his impasto mix

A photograph by Hugh Mangum from Photos Day or Night: The Archive of Hugh Mangum, edited by Sarah Stacke with texts by Maurice Wallace and Martha Sumler, Hugh Mangum’s granddaughter.

Photographer’s Innovative Pictures Captured Lesser-Seen Faces of Jim Crow South

Hugh Mangum’s portraits reveal his subjects’ array of emotions and defy stereotypical snapshots

The view in Matera, Italy.

Get to Know 2019’s ‘European Capitals of Culture’

Plovdiv, Bulgaria, and Matera, Italy, have histories that stretch back thousands of years

Walter Gropius' Dessau Bauhaus building

Five Events to Watch For as Germany Celebrates 100 Years of the Bauhaus Movement

Bauhaus 100 looks back—and forward—to the movement that united formal art and craftsmanship in functional, streamlined designs

The painting was donated to the church by a former Belgian senator 16 years ago.

Possible Michelangelo Painting Disappears From a Belgian Church Days Before Authentication

Pastor Jan Van Raemdonck had observed similarities between the canvas and a 1538 sketch by the Old Master

A man walks past the covered Confederate monument in Linn Park on August 18, 2017.

Alabama Judge Overturns Law That Protected Confederate Monuments

The city of Birmingham was sued when it erected plywood around a Confederate memorial in a downtown park

Trending Today

Toto’s ‘Africa’ Will Play Forever—Or at Least Until the Next Windstorm—in the Namib Desert

An art installation is playing an endless loop of the 1982 earworm in an undisclosed location in the desert along Africa’s southwest coast

Coins thrown by tourists into the Trevi Fountain

Rome’s Mayor Says Coins Tossed Into Trevi Fountain Will Still Go to Poor

Controversy erupted earlier this week about who was getting the funds from the 18th-century masterpiece

Wyatt Walker poses for a 3-D scan of the sculpture's missing right arm

Art Meets Science

College Basketball Player Lends a Limb to Armless Roman Statue

The 6-foot-9 forward for North Carolina State University posed for a 3-D reconstruction of the sculpture’s missing arm

Unidentified compiler, "Girlfriends' Album," 1905

Celebrate the Art of Scrapbooking With This New York Exhibition

The show at the Walther Collection Project Space features more than 20 volumes filled with quotidian images, scribbled notes and miscellaneous ephemera

The Vatican’s New Track Team Includes Priests, Nuns and a Scholar

The team dreams of competing in the Olympics, though that might be a ‘long shot,’ says its president

The predator and her prey

Very Naughty Kitty Slashed 17th-Century Portrait

Apparently Padme is not a fan of Baroque artist John Michael Wright

Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro

Brazil Dissolves Its Ministry of Culture

The change is part of a rash of reforms by new Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro

Cromwell is a divisive figure alternately remembered as a heroic leader and a ruthless war criminal

Why British Lawmakers Are Fighting Over a Bust of Oliver Cromwell

It started in the fall of 2017

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