From the elements of art to the great goddess Durga — Smarthistory is adding new content every week.
Prehistoric to contemporary
videos + essays
Wifredo Lam, The Eternal Presence (An Homage to Alejandro García Caturia)
This complex and haunting work fuses Lam’s Cuban, Chinese, and Congolese heritage together with humans, plants, and animals into dream-like beings
Van Mander, Het Schilder-Boeck
Van Mander rewrites art history in this book of "celebrity" artists from the Netherlands
Anthony van Dyck, Self-Portrait as Icarus with Daedalus
Van Dyck paints himself as Icarus, a boy whose wings melted when he flew too close to the sun
Mario Merz, Giap’s Igloo
Giap’s Igloo by Mario Merz invites you to consider your actions, and how those actions contribute to our larger existence.
Rembrandt, The Artist in His Studio
Rembrandt makes a case for painting and art-making as an intellectual endeavor, rather than a craft
Fashioning luxury from a coconut cup
From Indonesia to the Netherlands, this coconut encased in silver features a fish tail, a mermaid, and a chimp
Madrasa and Friday Mosque of Sultan Hasan, Cairo
The madrasa-mosque of Sultan Hasan remains one of the most ingeniously designed mosques in the history of Islamic architecture.
The Great Atlas, Dutch edition
A very expensive Atlas from Amsterdam attempts to map the known world to Dutch viewers
Burnham and Root, Reliance Building
How Chicago architecture sprung up thanks to new technology at the turn of the century
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