The works of Gauguin and the Russian avant-garde of the early 20th Century have a great deal in common, but until a recent exhibit, few people had paid attention to the myriad links between the two.  In this article, we sum up some of those connections, and provide links...

Johannes Vermeer’s fame did not blossom till nearly two hundred years after his death, when he was rediscovered by a French art critic in 1866. Since then, Vermeer has been considered one of the greatest Dutch painters, even though other artists from the Netherlands in Vermeer’s day were much...

The Renaissance was a period of scientific, technological, and artistic innovation that affected nearly all of Europe by the 16th century.  Italy was the center of this roughly 200-year period of rapid advancement (where it had started as early as the 1300s), as names of the great Renaissance artists...

Claude Monet is considered one of the great Impressionists, and the specific approach to painting developed in his native France in the latter half of the 19th century. The style draws its inspiration from the overall impression of a scene created by the interplay of light and color, attempting...

The famous Roman architect Vitruvius Pollio wrote in his Ten Books on Architecture that “In all matters, but particularly in architecture, there are these two points: the thing signified, and that which gives it its significance” (1.3). The impressive architectural achievements of the Roman Republic, and later Empire, are...

In her lifetime, Frida Kahlo was fêted by the French surrealists, a heroine of the Latin American left, and an integral part of the new wave of painters emerging in post-revolutionary Mexico.  Her life and works fell into obscurity after she died, but they wouldn't be forgotten.  In the...

Merging styles from both India and the Roman Empire with a unique Islamic sensibility, architecture became one area of particular artistic excellence during the Golden Age of Islam. And as Islam has spread throughout the world, countless unique, local forms of Islamic architecture have emerged. In this introductory students'...

"Architecture is a very good test of the true strength of a society, for the most valuable things in a human state are the irrevocable things... And architecture approaches nearer than any other art to being irrevocable, because it is so difficult to get rid of. You can turn...

The need to produce greener technologies and adapt environmentally friendly practices is becoming greater and greater. In few disciplines is this need as present as in architecture. Currently, the discipline is largely informed by sustainable practices. The Guide to Architecture Resources provides valuable references for further learning about the...

Combining arts and sciences, the transcendentally beautiful and the completely pragmatic, architecture is an all-encompassing art. Architects determine the spaces we inhabit, and in doing so, control the way we perceive this guide. In this brief introduction to architecture resources, we quickly examine the history and concept of architecture,...

Russian painter and art theorist Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (1866-1944) is known as the world’s first abstract artist and a leader in abstract art theory. With a previous and successful career in law and economics, he did not begin his pursuit of painting studies until the age of 30 years....

More than perhaps any other body of work, the contributions of Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519) represent an almost incalculable advancement to western society.  Although popularly remembered for his iconic works of art like the Last Supper and Mona Lisa, Da Vinci’s genius extended well beyond the realm of painting....

At the outset of the 20th century the art world was experiencing a monumental shift as the styles of Modernism were incorporated into culture. Picasso, Kandinsky and van Gogh paved the way for the abstract and representational style that would define half a century of art. One of the...

To an outsider, the idea of “reading” a painting might seem preposterous. After all, you read words, not pictures. How can a painting, then, be “read”? But in the field of art appreciation, “reading” a painting is an everyday activity, and it comes as naturally as reading a book...

What do you do after you have taken care of all of life’s necessities? Sometimes the urge to create something just for the sake of its aesthetic value arises, either to capture what the creator of the artist sees or project subjective qualities onto the work. As art has...

In 1800s France, art was a purely academic past time. There were rules about everything, from use of light and color to subject matter to composition. Critics dominated the art scene, particularly those belonging to the Salon, which was an organization of elected critics who determined the great contemporary...

Though Ireland’s contributions to the arts are primarily considered to be literary, Ireland has a rich and enduring architectural legacy. Some of the first structures in Ireland have been dated to a range between 4000-2000 BCE. Ireland’s relative isolation also impacted the early development of its architecture, creating distinctive...

According to the foundation named after the man (see below), the architect Frank Lloyd Wright devoted over 70 years of his life designing some of the most recognizable buildings and residences in the world: the Guggenheim Museum, Fallingwater in Pennsylvania, and many others. Of those that were actually constructed,...

The revival of classicism during the Renaissance was largely spearheaded by developments in architecture. By bringing back ancient Greek and Roman forms, Renaissance architects pushed for a new humanism in buildings and cityscapes, paving the way for later Baroque forms and the eventual rise of modernism. In this non-experts'...