The earliest photographs—often associated with small, faded, sepia-toned images—may seem to belong to a bygone era, but many of the conventions established during photography’s earliest years persist ...

One of the greatest challenges faced today by those responsible for ancient cultural sites is that of maintaining the delicate balance between conserving these fragile resources and making them ...

Ancient Iran, historically known as Persia, was the dominant nation of western Asia for over a millennium (about 550 BC–AD 650), with three native dynasties controlling an empire of unprecedented size ...

For nearly 3,000 years a series of kingdoms flourished in ancient Nubia (present-day southern Egypt and northern Sudan). The region was rich in sought-after resources such as gold and ivory and its ...

Renaissance artists transformed the course of western art history by making the nude central to their art. Drawing inspiration from classical sculpture and the study of the live model, these artists ...

If Walter Gropius’s 1919 manifesto had proposed a radical vision for a new institution that would erode distinctions between artists and artisans, it was the school’s unprecedented pedagogy, ...

Manuscripts known as “books of hours” were among the most widely produced and used during the Middle Ages. These decorated prayer books not only structured time for their readers (over a day, a year, ...

Among their rigorous preparations for eternity, ancient Egyptians developed an intricate set of religious writings to help the deceased achieve a blessed afterlife in union with the solar god Re and ...

The 16 th-century German artist Hans Holbein the Younger created portraits for a wide range of patrons, including scholars, statesmen, and courtiers, in Switzerland and England. Holbein’s drawings and ...

One of the most spectacular archaeological discoveries of recent times is a nearly life-size gold bust of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius found at Aventicum (present-day Avenches, Switzerland), an ...

The Chimaera of Arezzo (detail), Etruscan, about 400 B.C. Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici della Toscana—Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Firenze. Photo by Ferdinando Guerrini The Chimaera of ...

Michelangelo Merisi, better known as Caravaggio (Italian, 1571—1610), forged a new path in the history of European painting. His bold, naturalistic style, which emphasized the common humanity of the ...