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
This pair of six-panel screens beautifully captures the richness of a Japanese landscape.
Having the young Wojnarowicz’s face disseminated as a visible queer child was a potent political symbol.
These portraits remain important images of post-revolutionary Haiti and Christophe’s reign, encapsulating the complexities of his ambitions and the path he sought for his country in an international stage as the Americas’ first Black nation
Baldus’s Cloister of St. Trophîme, Arles aspired to use photography to make an imagined reality visible, tangible, and therefore achievable.
Wang Shimin reimagines the past in this Qing dynasty landscape
Peonies, plum blossoms, radishes, and cabbages are all depicted in these calligraphic ink paintings
Painted during Reconstruction, this sentimental watercolor depicts the hope of transformation and possibility
Osiris, Isis, Horus, Ra, Hathor, Seth, Taweret—With more than 1,500 named deities, the Egyptian pantheon was complex and vast
The Abbasid caliphs spared no expense to build a palatial city of grand buildings and sprawling residential complexes
This work of watercolor, ink, silver and gold on paper isn't just brilliantly executed—it's also layered with meaning, capturing the complexity of early 17th-century power politics in Southern Asia
These elaborate ear pendants and headdress were worn by Jewish or Berber women in modern-day Morocco
Bank of America's Masterpiece Moment
Crafted in the 16th century, this pair of six-panel screens is painted in ink on paper and showcases both Yamato-e and Chinese painting styles. The work features pine trees―a typical Japanese motif―and it has beautifully captured the richness of a Japanese landscape.