In Brief
You might call Henricus Martellus's 1491 world map — which many believe Christopher Columbus consulted before setting out on his voyage — a symbol of the limits of human knowledge.
Art
In late 18th-century Britain, etched cartoons and caricatures abounded, poking fun at kings, noblemen, society ladies, French revolutionaries, the institution of marriage, and countless other people and things.
In Brief
While Vincent van Gogh's self-portraits were a significant part of his painting career, no confirmed photographs of the artist as an adult are known to exist.
News
This morning in Berlin, a small crowd gathered around an open cemetery grave to pay their respects to a 60-year-old Syrian refugee.
Books
When searching for a book to give his five-year-old son in 1945, Italian artist Bruno Munari was frustrated by the standard fairytale narratives and structured plots available.
News
This week in art news: The British Library provided free online access to all 239 issues of feminist zine Spare Rib (1972–93), Vice hired Pussy Riot's Nadezhda Tolokonnikova as a columnist, and Israel's first museum devoted to contemporary Arab art opened.
Books
For three weeks in the fall of 2013, a 25-acre heritage village in Ontario was transformed by over 30 artists into a small city of installations questioning lines between rural and urban, past and future.
Performance
This is the year of the robot, starting with the movie Ex Machina and filtering down to the performing arts, which have seen a spate of humans dancing with robots in touching pas de deux.
Art
"Anything becomes interesting if you look at it long enough," Gustave Flaubert wrote in a letter.
Art
Number of international art fairs now held each year = 180 (compared to 55 in 2000)
Interview
Leaving New York City so your kids can have more green space doesn't sound like a promising start to an artistic career, but Tina Barney isn't typical.
Art
I suspect that those in the flow of the globalized 1% who advocate art for money’s sake are purposefully ignorant of Ursula Meyer’s key 1972 proposition.