Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Smart News / Smart News Arts & Culture

Why This Year’s Royal Wedding Cake Won’t Be a Disgusting Fruitcake

Wedding guests of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry can have their cake – and this time they’ll want to eat it, too

Trending Today

Why There’s a Japanese Whisky Shortage

There’s surging demand and limited supply of the most popular of the Japanese libations

“Part of [Wolfe’s] skewering of society was to also be absolutely his own man,” says National Portrait Gallery curator Brandon Brame Fortune. “For him, that meant wearing this white vanilla colored three-piece suit wherever he went.”

Five Things to Know About Tom Wolfe

The late author had an undeniable influence on American writing

None

Inside Contemporary Native Artist Rick Bartow’s First Major Retrospective

‘Rick Bartow: Things You Know But Cannot Explain’ arrives at the Autry Museum of the American West

New Research

Study Looks at Why We All Spew So Much BS

The social pressure to have an opinion and a lack of accountability are what lead to the mix of truth, half-truth and outright falsehood known as bullshit

Future of Art

New Court at the Hague Will Deal Exclusively with Art Disputes

Cases brought before the Court of Arbitration for Art will be decided by specialist art lawyers

Louise Brooks

Cool Finds

Rare Technicolor Snippets of Lost Films Discovered

The fragments from the 1920s films were found taped to the beginnings and ends of other movies

Archaeologists in Alexandria, Virginia, have unearthed three 18th-century ships that were buried to extend the city's land.

Three 18th-Century Ships Found in Old Town Alexandria Tell a Story of Colonial-Era Virginia

Another intentionally buried ship was found just a block away from the newly discovered finds in 2015

Cool Finds

Meet Freddy, the Runaway Bison Who Inspired a Choral Arrangement

The piece references Manitoban history, a small town’s celebrity animal and includes distorted bison noises

Ramin Haerizadeh, He Came, He Left, He Left, He Came, 2010, mixed media and collage on canvas, The Farook Collection, Dubai.

Future of Art

Exhibition Shows How Iran’s Present and Past Merge Through Art

The new show at LACMA features 125 works of art from more than 50 artists, some of whom couldn’t make it to the opening because of the travel ban

Fort Collins, Colorado, has been named No. 1 in a new list by People for Bikes ranking U.S. cities on bike safety, infrastructure and improvement.

New System Ranks America’s “Bicycle-Friendly” Cities

Fort Collins, Colorado, was crowned No. 1 in PeopleForBikes’ inaugural list

Scanning Tut's tomb

Trending Today

Sorry, There Are No Secret Chambers in King Tut’s Tomb

After two contradictory radar scans, Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities commissioned a third comprehensive survey that revealed no voids beyond the tomb walls

A photo taken outside of "Hamilton: An American Musical" in Chicago. The new exhibition will join the musical in the Windy City in the fall of 2018.

Future of Art

Hamilfans, Rejoice: Exhibition on the Revolutionary Musical Is Slated to Open This Fall

‘Hamilton: The Exhibition’ is coming to Chicago in November

Future of Art

Digital Forensics Reconstructs Seven Lost Masterpieces

Artwork by Van Gogh, Klimt, Monet and more have been painstakingly remade by Factum Arte for a new television series

Tasty kimchi

Cool Finds

Vegan Kimchi Is Microbially Pretty Close to the Original

A comparison between kimchi made with miso and kimchi made with fish sauce revealed that fermentation equalizes the bacterial communities

A view of the interior of the Temperate House during a press preview of its reopening at Kew Gardens.

Europe

World’s Largest Victorian Glasshouse Opens Doors After Five-Year Restoration Project

London’s Kew Gardens’ Temperate House is home to some of the world’s rarest plants

Robert Bly, one of the poets who scored in the top ten for dynamism.

New Research

Analysis Breaks Down the Annoying “Poet Voice”

It’s not just you; poets also read their works aloud with long pauses, weird cadences and almost no emotion

Stephen Towns. Birth of a Nation. 2014. Private Collection.

Cool Finds

Artist’s Quilts Pay Tribute to African-American Women

Artist Stephen Towns’ first museum exhibition showcases his painterly skill through traditional textile art

An example from a collection of drawings made by Sioux artists living in Fort Yates, North Dakota, in 1913.

Newberry Library Digitizes Trove of Lakota Drawings

The art is part of a larger digitization project of early American history by the Chicago-based research library

Cool Finds

No, the Bone of Saint Clement Was Probably Not Just Found in London’s Trash

A waste hauler found the bone fragment in a case sealed with red wax and tied with red cords. It included a faded label reading: “Ex Oss. S Clementis PM”

Page 161 of 286