America’s Leonardo
Ginevra de’ Benci is the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in North or South America. It’s a small portrait (it was once a larger one though), painted when Leonardo was still in his early twenties [...]
Great Lovers in Art History
Passion and beauty intertwine in many ways throughout the history of Western art. At times the heart-melting effects of love take center stage, and a fleeting moment of human tenderness remains preserved for the ages [...]
Light it Up!
Today we view some beautiful examples of “luminism” in American art. What to Know Luminism refers to a tendency in later nineteenth-century landscapes toward images of nature suffused with light suggesting a kind of Divine [...]
Turning Color into Light
Today we look at paintings by oil painter and pastelist Wolf Kahn (1927–2020). What You Should Know Wolf Kahn began creating intensely colorful American landscapes in the 1950s, when abstraction was all anyone wanted to [...]
The Lover’s Leap
What You Should Know The legend of the “lover’s leap” is found all over the Americas and the world. It was a particularly popular motif in one form or another during the Victorian period, peaking [...]
Finding Frida
What You Should Know Frida Kahlo is one of the best known 20th century female realists to be rescued from potentially being lost to history. A lengthy series of shows, books, plays, movies, and relentless [...]
Nightfall / Snowfall
The above painting by Ivan Fedorovich Choulste, Nuit de Mars, Russie, is a reprisal from our previous edition. It’s a remarkable painting that bears a closer look. The black pond mirrors the night sky, a [...]
Snow Day!
Like many of his peers, Russian landscapist Ivan Choulste dedicated himself to the rugged natural beauty of his country but he truly excelled at painting snow. He adored the light of the Mediterranean, but his [...]
From the Many to the True
After you’ve been painting a while, you might reach a point where you begin to suspect that you lack a “style” - your work seems all over the place, your processes somewhat random, your paintings, [...]
The Science of Stealing
Good artists imitate; great artists steal. This phrase is variously attributed to Steve Jobs (who misattributed it to Pablo Picasso), and to Lionel Trilling, Igor Stravinsky, T.S. Eliot, and William Faulkner. (Oh, and the less well-known [...]