From the elements of art to the great goddess Durga — Smarthistory is adding new content every week.
Prehistoric to contemporary
From the elements of art to the great goddess Durga — Smarthistory is adding new content every week.
Prehistoric to contemporary
Rendered simply in tones of ink, Six Persimmons is a treasure of Zen Buddhist painting.
Painted soldiers decorate this ceramic vessel, marking a period of increased warfare in ancient Mycenae.
Cai Guo-Qiang recreates and recontextualizes the socialist realist sculpture Rent Collection Courtyard.
Funerary reliefs and wall paintings help us to understand the daily lives of women across the Roman world.
A work of non-functional architecture, Aycock’s structure evokes personal memories and associations to the ancient past.
This royal portrait and cape convey the power of the Hawaiian monarchy and the tensions around the momentous historical events of 1898.
Bharat Mata or “Mother India” is a powerful political symbol that has come to embody the idea of the Indian nation and its territory.
Lie portrays man’s dominance over nature in his painting of the construction of the Panama Canal.
Bellini imagines Saint Mark preaching in a collage of different times and places: ancient Alexandria, 16th-century Venice, and the Ottoman Empire.
Jean, duc de Berry spared no expense for this dazzling reliquary containing a thorn from the Crown of Thorns.
Pierced with holes, this architectural sculpture offers both shelter from and exposure to the surrounding elements.