News
The history of artistic expression got stretched back a few hundred thousand years this week with the identification of an engraved shell believed to have been carved by Homo erectus. That early human ancestor could rattle the long-held belief that the use of deliberate visual expression is specific
Art
In her infamous speech at the British Museum last year, writer Hilary Mantel described Kate Middleton, future queen of England, as a “shop-window mannequin” whose sole purpose was to look pretty and give birth.
Art
When the Harvard Art Museums reopen this Sunday after a six-year expansion project, historic pigments foundational to the field of art conservation in the United States will be on public view.
Interview
Most accounts of the history of graffiti have the art form really taking off in the 1970s, but art historian Charlotte Guichard dates its emergence to slightly earlier — the 16th century.
Art
In one region of Russia, the consistency of the earth is just right that manuscripts dating back centuries emerge almost perfectly preserved. Over the past year, more than 1,000 of these birch bark artifacts from the 11th to 14th centuries have been exhumed from the soil of Novgorod, adding to a gro
Art
What did John Frederick Kensett, a 19th-century artist who was part of the Hudson River School, have in common with Thomas Matteson, a blanket chest-maker from Vermont?
News
New dating of rock art in Indonesia shows that at the same time stampedes of bulls and horses were appearing in the Ardèche caves in France, similar art was being made in the Pacific region.
In Brief
A paper released earlier this month by a group of Rutgers University researchers applies computer vision and machine learning to the question of artistic influence.
Art
Monet and Renoir drenched their canvases in colors that until that point had been prohibitively expensive for most artists, yet during their lifetimes became available synthetically in mass production.
Art
In The Power of Poison, currently at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, the history of poison as a natural defense, a murderous weapon, and even a cure is explored in detail.
Opinion
US President Obama's apology to University of Texas at Austin art history professor Ann Collins Johns has created a frenzy of media coverage but also some inexplicably strange responses.
News
Speaking on the floor of a General Electric plant just outside Milwaukee, Wisconsin, today, President Obama made some remarks on the state of education and employment in the US, bringing up art history degrees in the process.