Ancient Mesopotamia, centered in present-day Iraq, occupies a unique place in the history of human culture. It is there, around 3400–3000 BC, that all the key elements of urban civilization first ...

Imprint/Program Getty Conservation Institute Getty Research Institute J. Paul Getty Museum Getty Publications ...

Individuals working in and across the fields of visual art, music, poetry, theater, and dance in the mid–twentieth century began to use experimental scores in ways that revolutionized artistic ...

Blue paper has been a popular artist material since the fifteenth century. Crafted from blue rags formed into sheets, this humble material that required expert knowledge to produce and had a profound ...

The Ecce Homo altarpiece, Maerten van Heemskerck, 1544. Oil on panel, 74 1/4 x 102 3/8 x 5 3/16 in. (open, framed). Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie Originally scheduled to close on January 13, this ...

Still life derives from the Dutch word stilleven, coined in the 17th century when paintings of objects enjoyed immense popularity throughout Europe. The impetus for this term came as artists created ...

Painting in a distinctive sensuous style, German artist Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472–1553) interpreted biblical subjects with humorous insight and flair. His striking portrayals of Adam and Eve ...

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 ...

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, ...

Featuring whimsical marginal decorations, vivid narratives, and the lavish use of gold leaf, Gothic illumination is among the most innovative and beautiful art forms of the Middle Ages. Gothic was a ...

Born into poverty and largely self-taught, Mario Giacomelli became one of Italy’s leading photographers. After purchasing his first camera in 1953, he began creating humanistic portrayals of people in ...

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 ...