art history blog
Portraits, Paintings & Provenance: Quick reads on the famous, and infamous, artists of history.
Fragonard’s Swing: It’s all those Little Things!
You have to wonder if the artist Gabriel-François Doyen (1726–1806), who had just made his name at the 1767 Salon, had any idea he...
Vigée LeBrun’s Countess Kinsky: A Portrait of Endurance
Idealized visions of young women seated in or strolling through the gardens were a standard motif of aristocratic portraiture. It is easy to see...
How to Paint a Revolution (Without Losing Your Head)
Adélaïde Labille-Guiard painted the king's aunts. Then she painted Robespierre. Somehow, she also kept her head. Literally.
Watteau’s Fête Fantastique
Exploring the fantastical birth of a decidedly new genre of painting
Goncharova’s Archangel: Between Icon and Revolution
A jewel of the LACMA's collection, Goncharova's modernist vision of the Byzantine tradition
A Vision of Hell: Delacroix’s Debut
Because sometimes the best commentary on the present is a medieval poet screaming from the afterlife.
Mary Cassatt: That’s so tea!
On the first day of class, as we turned our attention to the witty and whimsical world of Rococo, a student exclaimed, “That’s so...
The Agitator: How Hogarth Shaped British Art
William Hogarth is best known today for his satirical prints—the cautionary tale of A Harlot’s Progress (1731-32), the doomed aristocratic marriage of Marriage A-la-Mode...
Rachel Ruysch’s “Nosegay on a Marble Plinth”
on view at the Norton Simon Museum of Art in Pasadena, CA
Mary, Mary not contrary
Mary Moser, founding Royal Academician and celebrated flower painter, carved space for her talent to flourish within a system designed to exclude her.