Blog Topic: Highlights

Democritus is primarily remembered for theorizing that all matter consists of particles called atoms, and this stunning quote: “Nothing exists except atoms and space, everything else is opinion.” The Short History of the Atom wiki summarizes Democritus’ theory nicely: All matter consists of invisible particles called atoms. Atoms are indestructible. Atoms are solid but invisible. Atoms […]

To celebrate Artstor’s collaboration with the RISD Museum, our friends at the museum graciously created a lightning-tour of their encyclopedic collection in the Digital Library through twenty notable objects. Part one focuses on decorative and utilitarian artifacts, and part two on artworks. Aphrodite This bronze figure of Aphrodite, now green from oxidation, once would have […]

To celebrate Artstor’s collaboration with the RISD Museum, our friends at the museum graciously created a lightning-tour of their encyclopedic collection in the Digital Library through twenty notable objects. Part one focuses on decorative and utilitarian artifacts, and part two on artworks. Paint Box Only a handful of paint boxes survive from ancient Egypt, and […]

If you’re still trying to adjust to the start of Daylight Saving Time, we’d like to give you a little bit of advice: don’t let the mythological gods of Greece and Rome catch you napping. Seeing mortals sleeping seems to bring out the worst in them. Here are three of the most notorious examples: Endymion […]

As we built our AP® Art History Teaching Resources over the last three years, we found ourselves fascinated by some of the newly required content. The art of the Colonial Americas is represented in the curriculum framework by six distinct objects. One of these is the “Codex Mendoza,” named for the first viceroy of Mexico […]

Frida Kahlo is world-famous for her self-portraits, which were a big part of her relatively small oeuvre (55 out of 144 paintings), while her husband Diego Rivera, despite producing much more work than Kahlo, only painted himself approximately 20 times. Why is that?

No doubt you are familiar with the work of the renowned wildlife artist John James Audubon, most likely his famous prints from The Birds of America. But did you know he wasn’t the only artist in the family? His son, John Woodhouse Audubon, spent much of his career supporting the work of his father, but he made a valuable […]

Kenyon Cox (1856-1919) might now be best remembered for his murals in the Library of Congress, as well as in the state capitol buildings of Des Moines, St. Paul, and Madison, but he was also a respected writer and influential teacher. In 1911, he delivered a series of lectures on painting at the Art Institute of […]

We’ve gathered six examples that illustrate how the images in Artstor can be used to enhance the teaching and learning of architecture and architectural history, along with two case studies, one by a then-doctoral candidate and another by a fine art faculty member. Recent photographs released by the militant group Islamic State in Iraq and […]

There’s hidden sweetness in the stomach’s emptiness. We are lutes, no more, no less. If the sound boxes stuffed full of anything, no music. If the brain and belly are burning clean with fasting, every moment a new song comes out of the fire. – Molana (Rumi), Ghazal No. 1739 from Divan-e Shams-e Tabriz This […]