Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Smart News / Smart News Arts & Culture

The original Frankenstein didn't create a bride for his creature–and with good scientific reason.

New Research

Scientists Find That Frankenstein’s Monster Could Have Wiped Out Humanity

Thank goodness his creator never finished his proposed girlfriend

Cool Finds

Retro-Futuristic “House of Tomorrow” Declared a National Treasure

The property in Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore is seeking $2 million to return it to its 1933 World’s Fair glory

Trending Today

Five Things to Know About Evangelical Cartoonist Jack Chick

The controversial artist died after 50 years of publishing comics

Trending Today

National Geographic’s Iconic “Afghan Girl” Arrested in Pakistan

Sharbat Gula was recently detained on charges of having a fake I.D.

Harry and the Potters live in concert in 2007.

Cool Finds

A Brief History of Wizard Rock

This Halloween, check out a genre devoted to Harry Potter’s Wizarding World

A Pearl Harbor Survivor Liaison scatters the ashes of Ed Chappell, who requested that his remains be scattered where his fallen shipmates died in 1941.

Trending Today

The Vatican Just Banned Scattering Ashes

A new doctrinal rule requires Roman Catholics to store cremains at cemeteries

Portrait thought to be Christopher Marlowe

Cool Finds

What to Know About Shakespeare’s Newly Credited Collaborator Christopher Marlowe

Textual analysis convinced the editors of The New Oxford Shakespeare to make Marlowe a co-author on the “Henry VI” plays, parts 1, 2 and 3

A collapsed building in Amatrice, Italy.

Trending Today

Italian Preservationists Save 900 Artworks From the Ruins of Earthquake-Struck Amatrice

The “Blue Helmets” spent months scouring rubble for priceless pieces

Ray Bolger's widow, Gwendolyn, donated the costume to the Smithsonian Institution after the comedian's death in 1987.

Smithsonian Will Stretch to Save Scarecrow’s Costume, Too

Turns out the Ruby Slippers were just the beginning of an epic journey of cultural preservation

Girls are saying "let it go" to princess costumes in favor of superheroes.

Trending Today

Kids Ditch Princess Costumes in Favor of Superheroes This Halloween

For the first time in over a decade, princesses falter on the charts

Trending Today

If You Want to Adopt a Black Cat, You May Have to Wait Until Halloween Is Over

Why some adoption centers wait till after the spooky season to give some kitties a home

Christopher Isherwood and poet W.H. Auden (right) were romantic partners, but their sexual relationship in the 1930s was punishable by criminal prosecution in England.

Trending Today

New U.K. Law That Would Pardon Gay Men Once Convicted of Sex Crimes Fails in Parliament

The private member’s bill will not go ahead

Iggy Pop Life Class by Jeremy Deller

Iggy Pop Bares More Than Abs in New Art Exhibition About Masculinity

Punk meets pencil in an art show that examines the portrayal of masculinity throughout the centuries

Weeping Window will travel throughout the U.K. through 2018.

Europe

How the Poppy Came to Symbolize World War I

Red blooms help the world commemorate a bloody war

A four-day-old zebrafish embryo captured by Dr. Oscar
Ruiz at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. 10x magnification, confocal

Art Meets Science

Prize-Winning Photos Capture the Big Beauty of a Microscopic World

Nikon’s Small World Photography Competition celebrates the gorgeous details of nature

Sumando Ausencias (2016)
Doris Salcedo

Trending Today

An Artist Blanketed Bogota’s Bolívar Square With the Names of Victims of Colombia’s Civil War

Remembering the dead as the country struggles to make peace

The Great Hall of the People in Beijing is now on a 20th-century cultural preservation list in China.

Trending Today

China Now Has a 20th-Century Architectural Heritage List

A country with an uneasy relationship to its past will preserve 98 buildings of the 20th century for future generations

"The Kiss"
Gustav Klimt,

Cool Finds

Reach Out And Touch This Version of Klimt’s “Kiss”

A 3-D printed version of the classic painting lets blind people appreciate the artwork

Lion’s Head

Historic Syria, 9th–8th centuries BCE

Ivory, carved


Cool Finds

New Art Exhibition Celebrates 5,000 Years of Syria’s History

Syria is more than just a refugee crisis

Bhumibol Adulyadej, also known as King Rama IX of the Chakri Dynasty

Trending Today

What to Know Now That the King of Thailand Has Died

Political uncertainty and potential unrest follows the death of the beloved Bhumibol Adulyadej

Page 217 of 290