An Art History Blog
I recently came across a list that I have been compiling a list over the years, which indicate the number of children that artists had. It seems like I am so busy with two kids that it is difficult to get much work done! I can t imagine how some of these artists were able to [ ]
I first came across the book Lost Masterpieces by Michael Collins at the library earlier this year, and I liked it so much that I bought a copy as a birthday present to myself. It is a small little green book and it is divided into four sections, focusing on art that has been either [ ]
I recently found a video of the Australian Aboriginal artist Dorothy Napangardi at work: she is seated on the ground, sitting on top of the canvas, and carefully painting each line and dot. This process of working on a canvas has only existed for roughly about half of a century; before this point, Aboriginal artists [ ]
It s the beginning of the school quarter, and I m interested in knowing what formal elements have an impact on my students. I m really influenced by the composition of a work of art, and I know that this has to do with my own personality. I m an organized and neat person, and so I think a [ ]
I recently returned from helping to co-lead a study abroad program in London. Our group visited the Tate Modern and I became familiar with Anna Bella Geiger s work, Our Daily Bread (O Pão Nosso de Cada Dia). The postcards on display in the museum document a performance in which Geiger ate bread to highlight the poverty in [ ]
Earlier this week I discovered a new(ish) Smarthistory video about Karel Van Mander, an early 17th-century biographer of painters who is sometimes referred to as the Northern Vasari. The video spends some time featuring a print which depicts the painter Jan Van Eyck. This portrait appeared in Van Mander s publication Het Schilderboeck. The video reports [ ]
Earlier last week, I taught my students about Ansel Adams s photography. In preparation for our class discussion, I watched this documentary on Ansel Adams from the Master Photographers series (1980). I learned while watching that Adams had trained to become a concert pianist but ultimately decided to become a photographer. It was interesting to hear him [ ]
This school year I ve been volunteering at my child s elementary school, making videos for the Meet the Masters curriculum and helping out with art projects in a few classrooms. So far we have done the Van Gogh unit as a school, and I ve also created some videos for the Hokusai project coming up in January. [ ]
Yesterday I was watching an episode of Fake or Fortune that discusses a flood of the Thames River in January of 1928 (see 31:05 in the video episode linked above). The flood filled the lower galleries of the Tate up to eight feet of water and many paintings were damaged. One of these paintings was The Execution [ ]
Yesterday I finished listening to an audiobook of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I have loved that story since I was a girl and it was fun for me to revisit the book. While I was looking up some favorite quotes from the text, I came across a Puffin classic collector s series which [ ]