art
Meaningful pictures are assembled from meaningless noise.
Successful forgers are remembered as great conmen, not artists. This is strange, considering their forgeries fooled even the most seasoned critics.
Perfectionism is on the rise, and its consequences for mental health can be devastating. The Japanese philosophy of “wabi sabi” can help.
To be successful at bonsai cultivation, you must acquire the perseverance and unconditional kindness normally reserved for devout monks.
Who should be compensated?
Break into London Zoo? Illegal, but it would improve the London Circle Walk
Some artifacts drown in shipwrecks, others are taken by the tide. Many others will vanish as a result of climate change and rising sea levels.
Rock art in northern Australia depicts marsupial lions, giant kangaroos, and other megafauna that populated the Land Down Under long ago.
Rare and costly paints have shaped art history in unforeseen ways. Mummy brown caused one artist to bury his paint.
Is “The Garden of Earthly Delights” by Hieronymus Bosch a condemnation of sin or a celebration of hedonism? Art historians still aren’t sure.
When you’re a genius, how do you make ends meet?
Nikolaas Tinbergen’s concept of “supernormal stimulus” explains why humans are attracted to a heightened version of reality.
An analogy explains the greater fool theory: You don’t have to run faster than the bear to get away; you just have to run faster than the other guy.
Like some cold poison creeping up our veins, there’s a frisson in the stories and poems of Edgar Allan Poe.
Bernini created art for 8 different popes. In the process, he helped reinforce and redefine Christianity’s visual culture.
Paintings played an important role in these ancient civilizations. Unfortunately, pigment is not nearly as durable as marble.
The so-called “court painter of Silicon Valley” was shaped by her youth in communist Poland but looks forward to a future ruled by celebrity robots.
Independent of cultural background, people seem to share a sense of what makes certain color combinations aesthetically pleasing.
Frank Slater’s book “Practical Portrait Painting” reveals the secrets of masters old and new, from Leonardo da Vinci to Augustus John.
From Brahms to Tchaikovsky, here’s a curated list of composers whose music has shaped the classical canon.
Da Vinci dreamed up a helicopter 400 years before they actually existed. Now, engineers have brought his design to life, but with a twist.
For a long time, important events could only be visualized retroactively through paintings. Photography allowed us to capture history as — or sometimes even before — it happened.
Flow occurs when a task’s challenge is balanced with one’s skill.
Most things in the world can be seen in surprisingly different ways.
People who visit Florence seem strangely susceptible to Stendhal syndrome, which is blamed on an overwhelming sense of awe.
With a new telescope on the horizon, we reflect on the best pictures of space that came before.
Just as storylines make sense only when you have the context of the beginning and the end, listeners need to understand the impetus for why the album was even made.
The most technically impressive feats of animation often strike us as eerie instead of impressive, and it’s all thanks to the uncanny valley.
The singer-songwriter distilled the essence of the holidays into a hit song, and for her efforts she was crowned the Queen of Christmas.