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Painting

Artists like Van Gogh took full advantage of the new blue pigments invented in the 18th and 19th centuries, which some art scholars say revolutionized painting.

Creating a Full Palette of Blues

How the discovery of a new metal helped to change painting forever

Barbara Prey's watercolor is a depiction of MASS MoCA's newest wing, which once served as a textile mill.

The Story Behind the World’s Largest Watercolor Painting

The massive artwork marks the opening of the MASS MoCA’s new 130,000-square-foot wing, which makes it the largest contemporary art museum in the U.S.

Firemen March 6 1985 by Donald Sultan, 1985

This Artist’s Worldview Drips With Unending Pessimism

“Man is inherently self-destructive, and whatever is built will be destroyed,” says painter Donald Sultan of his “Disaster Paintings”

Stephen Talty’s Guide to Culture

The detective novelist offers his picks for movies, tv shows and Twitter accounts to follow

The Mona Lisa's sparse setting may help visitors better appreciate its beauty, according to a new psychology study.

New Research

Distraction May Make Us Less Able to Appreciate Beauty

Truly experiencing the beauty of an object could require conscious thought, vindicating the ideas of Immanuel Kant

Field. Oil on panel by PIX18 / Creative Machines Lab at Columbia University

Cool Finds

Check Out This Year’s Entries to the RobotArt Competition

Thirty-eight teams have submitted almost 200 artworks painted by robots, many guided by artsy artificial intelligence

Submerged Beach, 1400 Fathoms, Else Bostelmann, Bermuda, 1931. Watercolor on paper, 11 1/2 x 14 1/2 inches.

Art Meets Science

In the Early 20th Century, the Department of Tropical Research Was Full of Glamorous Adventure

A new exhibition features 60 works by artists the New York Zoological Society department hired to help communicate field biology

New Research

So Is ‘Mona Lisa’ Smiling? A New Study Says Yes

Compared to other similar images, the masterpiece’s mouth registered as happy to almost 100 percent of the participants

Patrick O'Brien, "Dinosaur and Volkswagen," Gigantic, 1998, oil on canvas - How big is “gigantic?” Patrick O'Brien shares his life-long fascination with the illustrations of prehistoric animals in children's books with a new generation of young readers. Other images in Gigantic compare dinosaurs with modern devices such as monster trucks, cherry pickers and tanks. O’Brien lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

Art Meets Science

A New Exhibition Explores the Science and Math in Children’s Book Illustrations

The 29 artworks on display capture the wonder in nature, engineering and discoveries

Left: Matisse's Notre Dame, a Late Afternoon, 1902. Right: Diebenkorn's Ingleside, 1963.

The Lasting Influence Matisse Had on Richard Diebenkorn’s Artwork

The great American painter owed a luminous debt to the French Modernist

The Admiral, 16th century | Giuseppe Arcimboldo

Atlas of Eating

A Brief History of Food as Art

From subject to statement, food has played a role in art for millennia

Whiskey? Check. Man bun? Check. Presidential presence? Check.

Cool Finds

In This New Portrait, George Washington Trades His Curls for a Man Bun

The first president turns hipster at a new D.C. restaurant

Oil portrait of Barack Obama by Kadir Nelson

A Portrait of Obama in the Final Days of His Presidency

Commissioned for Smithsonian magazine, this painting shows a leader at a crossroads

A jar of the world's pinkest pink paint pigment.

Cool Finds

This Artist Is the Only Person Banned From Using the World’s Pinkest Pink

It’s a brightly colored revenge for restricting the world’s blackest black

Sonny Assu Uses Graffiti to Reassert Native Culture

The 41-year-old artist mashes decades-old depictions of indigenous peoples with modern-day style

"Wedding Dance in the Open Air" Pieter Brueghel the Younger 1607-1614, oil on oak panel.

Cool Finds

A Brueghel Painting Long Thought to Be Made by a Copyist Is Going on Display

Vindication for Pieter Brueghel the Younger

"Ginzer" Kiki Smith, 2000 Aquatint, drypoint, and burnishing etching on paper. Smith placed the corpse of her cat on the plate and traced the outline to produce the image of the etching before burying him to create the etching.

Cool Finds

A Massive Collection of Cat Art Is up for Auction

The results of an art teacher’s passion project are for sale

The newly restored "St. John the Baptist," by Leonardo da Vinci.

Trending Today

The Louvre Has Restored “St. John the Baptist”

To clean, or not to clean?

The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh's Inverleith House

Trending Today

Four Stunning Exhibitions From Scotland’s Recently Closed Inverleith House

After 30 years, funding cuts caused one of Edinburgh’s most popular public art galleries to shut its doors

"Bird," 1990, David Hammons, painted metal, wire, basketball and feathers.

This $1.4 Million “Bird” Makes an African-American Art Collection Soar to New Heights

With his first major contemporary acquisition, the Detroit Institute of Arts’ new director is reinvigorating the museum

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