Gold, glass, and marble dazzle the eye in this 6th-century church. High above us, Emperor Justinian presides.
A-Level: Identity – gender identity
His nudity references classical antiquity, but David embodies the ideals and concerns of 15th-century Florence.
Donatello, David
What’s that dog yapping about? This mischievous woman throws caution—and her slipper—to the wind.
Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Swing
Where’s Goliath? David scans for his enemy. This colossal sculpture is itself a giant of High Renaissance art.
Michelangelo, David
The female nude emerged as a genre in the Renaissance.
Titian, Venus of Urbino
Kruger’s art is characterized by a visual wit sharpened in the trenches of the advertising world.
Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Your gaze hits the ...
Explore the complex power dynamics of images of the female body in the Renaissance
Sex, Power, and Violence in the Renaissance ...
Throughout Europe women’s relegation to the domestic sphere was rooted in Christian tradition that placed blame for humanity’s fall from grace upon Eve, the first woman.
Introduction to gender in renaissance Italy
In the distance, lightning strikes. What does it mean? Poetic and evocative, this painting invites interpretation.
Giorgione, The Tempest
The Conceptionists were founded for elite, pure-blooded Spanish women. This nun just took her vows.
Crowned Nun Portrait of Sor María de ...
A new, modern culture of shopping and ready-made clothes were part of women’s new urban mobility.
When the department store was new: Elizabeth ...
Manet turns the tables—or in this case, the bar—on how we view painting.
Édouard Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère
Virtue, or vice? This seated woman is an icon of domesticity, but the man’s money may tempt her away from work.
Judith Leyster, The Proposition
The subjects appear quiet and austere, yet Hals’s expressive use of paint animates this group portrait.
Frans Hals, The Women Regents
Does a portrait need to be an accurate visual representation of the subject?
Marsden Hartley, Portrait of a German Officer
De Kooning painted image after image on this canvas, continually wiping it down and starting again.
Willem de Kooning, Woman, I
With a complex, multi-figure composition, this monumental sculpture captures a moment from ancient Roman history.
Giambologna, Abduction of a Sabine Woman
Was it a diplomatic gift? Is it even a Rubens? Many questions surround this work; technical analysis can help.
Peter Paul Rubens, Venus, Mars and Cupid
Female painters were rare in sixteenth-century Italy. In self-portraits, Sofonisba made sure to appear virtuous.
Sofonisba Anguissola
Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty, emerges from her bath, but what did her nudity mean to the Greeks?
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