Smarthistory – At the Toledo Museum of Art

Virtually explore the museum with Smarthistory as your guide

videos + essays

When movies were new and lights transformed the darkened city streets.

Jason and the Golden Fleece and the American anti-Slavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin combine to upend our own contemporary myths

Cole, the great American landscape painter looks across the vast history of Western architecture

Politics, experience, and humanity on the streets of 1970s New York.

Museum visitors often mistake this sculpture for a real person

This dazzling, prismatic, brilliant cut glass creates a universe of pattern and reflection.

At this party, everyone has the same face and seems profoundly alone.

In the Dutch Golden Age, investors bet big on tulips. The market tanked, but this hyperreal bouquet held its value.