When I lived in Minneapolis, I had easy access to several great museums. I lived within walking distance of both the Walker Art Center and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (which is free!). One of my favorite things to do in the snowy season was trek over to one of these museums, which would transport … Continue reading The Best Museum You’ve Never Heard Of
Okay. I wasn’t going to step into this “Renoir Sucks at Painting” debate, but it doesn’t seem to be going away as quickly as I thought it would, and I’ve got some opinions on the matter. In case you haven’t been following the story, a guy named Max Geller has started a movement decrying the … Continue reading In (Moderate) Defense of Renoir
(Note that some of the images and links below are slightly NSFW, insofar as watercolor images of breasts are NSFW.) “Sexting:” Defined by Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary as: “The sending of sexually explicit messages or images by cell phone.” It’s such a distinctly early twenty-first century phenomenon. After all, it’s only within the last decade or … Continue reading Nineteenth-Century Sexting
Headed by Professor Maurizio Ghelardi of the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, a team of scholars has recently made hundreds of letters written to Jacob Burckhardt freely available in a digital library. Head over to burckhardtsource.org to view the correspondence. It is currently divided into six categories: 1. "Potnia" includes letters that shed light on … Continue reading Burckhardt Source
It is very trendy for art historians to talk about “cultural interaction” and the hybrid works created during a given period of interaction. My research focuses on the interaction between Muscovy (Russia) and northern Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, so I’m definitely a part of this trend. Most scholars of early modern art … Continue reading The Beauty and Brutality of Interaction: Art Far from Home
Thank you to Smarthistory for sharing this! Source: Manar-al-Athar — Free resource for the study of the Middle East (by Dr. Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis)
After more than a month as an official Seattleite, life is finally starting to take on a rhythm and things are beginning to feel normal. Still, there are things that are taking some getting used to. There are wonderful things that I’m not sure I’ll ever take for granted, and less wonderful things that I’m … Continue reading Swapping Bruegel for Altdorfer
I'm too busy to be writing this blog post. (Read: I just moved and am still working out daycare and unpacking and have lots of unexpected work to do!) But I've really fallen off the radar, and wanted to prove that I'm still here and working and thinking and wanting to share with you, my loyal … Continue reading Beauteous Botanical Lithographs, Just Because
While the worlds of art and history keep rolling along, and while I learn about interesting arts-related topics that would be great to write about, my life is in a state of upheaval as I try to juggle work, caring for a toddler, and a cross-country move. As of next week, I will no longer … Continue reading Westward Ho!
A few days ago, The Guardian published an article about the discovery of prehistoric rock paintings in a remote part of the Colombian jungle. Filmmaker Mike Slee was working on a film about the country’s natural wonders when he stumbled onto the heretofore un-photographed reddish-hued paintings on cliff walls in the Chiribiquete National Park. The … Continue reading Colombia’s Jungle of Forgotten Tears
Ellen A. Hurst 