From the elements of art to the great goddess Durga — Smarthistory is adding new content every week.
Prehistoric to contemporary
videos + essays
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Portrait of Madame Charpentier and Her Children
Viewers are often surprised to learn that one of the children is a boy, since both children are dressed alike.
Superman, World War II, and Japanese-American experience
Superman makes an appearance in what looks (at first sight) like a Japanese print.
Masaccio, Holy Trinity
This painting blends deep piety with scientific observation. Both its architecture and figures were radically new.
Rembrandt, Self-Portrait with Two Circles
Rembrandt's enigmatic self-portrait at Kenwood House is an apt example of the artist's long career in self-exploration.
Stéphane Couturier, Fenetre, Eastlake Greens, San Diego
Building the American dream in the California desert.
Millard Sheets, Tenement Flats
Cats, gossip, and laundry — a view of Los Angeles during the Great Depression.
Abstract art and Theosophy
The traditional naturalistic style, which merely imitates the surface appearances of nature, is inadequate to elucidate the deep underlying mysteries of the universe. There are truths inaccessible to the scientific method, and a meta-reality beyond the reach of human perception.
The Bauhaus, an Introduction
Today, Bauhaus designs are so familiar and so simple that they don’t seem to have required a designer, but they were as radical in their time as they are commonplace now.
The Bauhaus: Marianne Brandt
When female applicants at the Bauhaus threatened to equal or even outnumber male applicants, the masters at the school agreed to channel women into the pottery, bookbinding, and weaving workshops.
Constructivism, Part I
The Constructivists worked to establish a new social role for art and the artist in the communist society of 1920s Soviet Russia.