Film Review
The Renaissance, but Make It Game of Thrones
A new documentary emphasizes the political intrigues of Da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo.
Renaissance
Art Review
Will the Real Cimabue Please Stand Up?
The Louvre’s conservation of two Cimabue paintings led its curators to reassess the artist not as a predecessor to the Renaissance masters but on his own merits.
News
Painting in Pompeii “Rediscovered” as Andrea Mantegna Original
Now on view in the Vatican Museums, the work was newly attributed to the Renaissance master after flying under the radar for centuries.
Art
How Friars Changed the Art of the Renaissance
A changing contemplative theology of flesh led by friars throughout Italy inspired Sienese artists to imbue their figures with more dimensionality and emotion.
Art
Holbein the Younger Looked Death in the Eye
Death, in the artist’s imagination, is the oblivion that spares no one, regardless of what you have or haven’t done, regardless of who you are.
Art
Lavinia Fontana, the Self-Fashioned Painter
The first woman to make her living from painting captured herself and other women in the ways they wished to be perceived.
News
Flemish Renaissance Painting of Virgin and Child Kissing Heads to Auction
The restoration of Quinten Massys’s “Madonna of the Cherries” reveals exquisite details of an endearing (and maaaybe a little creepy) family moment.
Art
Before Lockets, There Were Hidden Renaissance Portraits
Hidden Faces: Covered Portraits of the Renaissance explores the paintings concealed behind mirrors, in folded diptychs, and on the backs of other works.
Art
Matthias Grünewald’s Gruesome Good Friday
The 16th-century “Isenheim Altarpiece” confronts us with the reality of suffering, violence, and death in a century where violence is both omnipresent and obscured.
Art
How Giuseppe Arcimboldo Made the Familiar Bizarre
The artist’s perplexing paintings should be viewed not as mere visual puzzles, but instantiations of an occult philosophy.
Art
Albrecht Dürer, a Humanist Messiah
He believed, and demonstrated, that individuals could ascend to divine realms of knowledge.
Art
The Temptations of Pieter Bruegel the Elder
His 1559 masterpiece “The Fight Between Carnival and Lent” is an argument in paint for moral and spiritual ambivalence.