It looks like a gentle scene of a seaside vacation. But this painting by Berthe Morisot, perhaps the most underrated Impressionist, is a layered vision of a dawning modern age.
Crosscurrents of religion and culture shaped this stunningly detailed portrait of the 17th-century Mughal emperor who built the Taj Mahal.
What a masterpiece of Japanese printmaking teaches us about the way images circulate.
Now it seems self-evident that pictures can represent who you “really” are. That conviction began with Albrecht Dürer, five centuries ago.
The greatest breakthrough of 20th-century art was something you probably did in elementary school.
How, in a single photograph, Robert Frank captured the ongoing story of a divided nation.
This painting is strange, unfinished and not to everyone’s liking. But it’s got style.
With world war looming, W.H. Auden stood in a museum and was inspired to write. The resulting poem is one of the most famous ever written about art.
This austere work by Jasper Johns doesn’t seem to invite much of a close read. But its cool surface belies a depth of feeling, which shows us all the power of artistic restraint.
What is a day, a month, a year? Science, religion and art coalesce in an invaluable 15th-century book of hours.
Frank O’Hara’s “Having a Coke With You” makes a charming first impression, and right away you want to get to know it better.
Dutch still life paintings like this one do more than depict luxurious objects. They narrate history on a global scale.
I’ve become obsessed with Thomas Eakins’s “The Gross Clinic.” Let me show you why.
Elizabeth Bishop was a master at containing and concealing emotion, but her extraordinary poem “One Art” is a moving testament to loss.
How Benjamin West remade a bloody battle as a founding romance.
The lessons of Rita Dove’s “American Smooth,” one of the best-loved poems of the last two decades.
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