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Art History

Kent Monkman, a Canadian artist of Cree ancestry, poses with one of his large-scale history paintings, The Scream.

At the Met, Two New Monumental Paintings Foreground the Indigenous Experience

Cree artist Kent Monkman borrows from European artists while reframing problematic narratives about indigenous people

"Raphael in Berlin" at the Gemäldegalerie

Raphael’s Madonnas Come Together in Berlin Exhibition

Seven artworks on display at the Gemäldegalerie museum highlight the unique sensibilities Raphael brought to an iconic devotional scene

Nature Morte, Pablo Picasso, 1921

This Picasso Could Be Yours for Just Over $100

A charity raffle is selling the 1921 painting “Nature Morte” for a bonafide bargain

A 1997 photograph submitted by Andrea Ekins

See 150 Years of Stonehenge Family Photos

The collection offers a glimpse into humans’ engagement with the monument

The blue monkey fresco at Akrotiri, an ancient settlement on the Aegean island of Thera, or modern-day Santorini

Cool Finds

Painted Bronze Age Monkeys Hint at the Interconnectedness of the Ancient World

The fascinating “tail” of how Indian monkeys might have ended up in a Minoan painting

The Wedding Dance by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1566

Art Meets Science

Detroit Exhibit Celebrates Bruegel’s ‘The Wedding Dance’ and Its Controversial Codpieces

The painting’s frank depiction of drunk frivolity—and male anatomy—didn’t sit well with some viewers

Six humanoid figures with animal features surround an anoa, a small type of buffalo, in a 44,000-year-old Indonesian cave mural.

Cool Finds

Newly Discovered Indonesian Cave Art May Represent World’s Oldest Known Hunting Scene

The finding bolsters the idea that even 44,000 years ago, artistic ingenuity was shaping cultures across the Eurasian continent

The Elgin cast, seen on right, reveals sculptural details lost today.

New Research

3-D Imaging Reveals Toll of Parthenon Marbles’ Deterioration

A new study of 19th-century plaster casts of the controversial sculptures highlight details lost over the past 200 years

El Quitasol (The Parasol) by Francisco del Goya, digitally doctored into a scene that portrays the consequences of climate change

Art Meets Science

See Four Spanish Masterpieces Updated to Reflect the Consequences of Climate Change

Timed to coincide with the ongoing U.N. Climate Change Conference, the campaign is a digital effort to warn the world

Boy Viewing Mount Fuji by Katsushika Hokusai, 1839

A Great Wave of Hokusai

The Freer Gallery—home to the largest collection of the popular Japanese artist’s paintings—unveils 120 rarely seen works

Brooklyn by Mario Martinez (Pascua Yaqui), 2004

Long Sidelined, Native Artists Finally Receive Their Due

At the American Indian Museum in NYC, curators paint eight decades of American Indian artwork back into the picture

The Ten Best Children’s Books of 2019

This year’s top titles deliver strange animals, mouth-watering foods and biographies of unsung heroes

More than 30 tattoos are scattered across this female mummy's skin.

Cool Finds

Infrared Reveals Egyptian Mummies’ Hidden Tattoos

The mummies of seven women found at Egypt’s Deir el-Medina site bear tattoos including crosses, baboons and hieroglyphics

Marcel Duchamp by Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1968

Marcel Duchamp Played With the Definition of Art and Now the Public Can, Too

Art connoisseurs Aaron and Barbara Levine amassed a formidable body of the artist’s works; they’d like nothing better than for you to see it

Indian Roller on Sandalwood Branch, by Shaikh Zain ud-Din, Impey Album, Calcutta, 1780.

Art Meets Science

London Exhibit Celebrates Indian Artists Who Captured Natural History for the East India Company

Paintings once anonymized as “company art” will finally be labeled with the names of their creators

A portrait (by Juan Carreño de Miranda) of Charles II, the last of the Spanish Habsburg kings, and his father, Philip IV (painted by Diego Velázquez, of whom the king was a patron). Both men had prominent jaws, which a new study concludes is most likely the result of the family's inbreeding.

The Distinctive ‘Habsburg Jaw’ Was Likely the Result of the Royal Family’s Inbreeding

New research finds correlation between how inbred rulers of a notoriously intermarrying dynasty were and the prominence of their jutting jaw

Pieter de Hooch, Cardplayers in a Sunlit Room, 1658, detail with fingerprint

New Exhibition Leads to Discovery of Dutch Painter’s Signature and Fingerprint

In advance of a retrospective at Museum Prinsenhof Delft, experts took a closer look at three works by Pieter de Hooch

Michelangelo was dissatisfied with his work and actually attempted to destroy the sculpture.

Trending Today

Visitors Can Watch the Restoration of Michelangelo’s ‘Bandini Pietà’

The artist once took a sledgehammer to the sculpture, which is now housed at a museum in Florence

The scan captures every detail that made the bust so iconic, including Nefertiti’s delicate neck, painted headdress, high cheekbones and sharp eyeliner.

3-D Scans of the Bust of Nefertiti Are Now Available Online

A German museum released the digital data to artist Cosmo Wenman after a hoax heist and lengthy legal battle

This carving is the first Nazca Line to be identified by artificial intelligence.

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Identify 143 New Nazca Lines

The trove of newly documented geoglyphs includes a humanoid figure identified by artificial intelligence

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