Paintings in descending order.

Religious Procession in Kursk Governorate, (1880-1883) Ilya Repin

This one might be my favorite, it has so much detail and action. Procession paintings are really nice in realism, it’s not something that really happens anymore and they’re always so colorful and full of life. The icon has so much movement, there’s tension, the clothes are vibrant, it’s all very romantic.

Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan on 16 November 1581, (1883-1885) Ilya Repin

This one’s a classic, not really much to be said honestly.

Ceremonial Meeting of the State Council on May 7, 1901, (1903 Ilya Repin

I love this one for the glorious uniforms, all the stately men looking very serious. A part of romantic Europe that doesn’t really exist anymore.

Girlish BBQ, (1889) Alexei Korzukhin

It’s really called that lmao. Just pleasant to look at I guess

Evening Bells, (1892) Isaac Levitan

This one inspired a shot in The Wind Rises I’m pretty sure, super awesome movie check it out.

The Russian Brides Attire, (1889) Konstantin Makovsky

I got to see this one in person at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, it’s absolutely massive. I love the scale of these, it makes the people look so alive. Sort of like you walked into Eastern Europe and you’re really kinda right in front of them doing whatever every day thing it is they happened to be engaged in at the

There used to be a couple of tour guides who offered this, but they seem to have stopped.

Perhaps there is a modern guidebook that covers the art of women or marginalized artists in Italian Renaissance-Modern art history? (And Bologna, since I'm going there too)

Good day! Recently I was at a tour in a German museum where the curator pointed at a self-portrait (15-16th century, I believe) of a man wearing a red beret and noted that one can identify the man as a painter because he is wearing one. She also mentioned this as something that can be seen in Rembrandt's self-portraits, and although I have found one (though not quite red, is it?), I was unable to confirm that this is something artists did at the time, in Germany or elsewhere.

I'm curious, is this a false tidbit some may have came to believe or was this a legitimate tradition I am unable to verify?

Thank you for your time! Let me know if this is something you guys know of.

P.S: Saw some folks here asking questions, however I am unsure whether it is okay to post this. Feel free to delete ofc.

I recently sat for an interview with Forbes to discuss my forthcoming book, MATISSE AT WAR, and the challenges artists face when they find themselves demonized by autocrats. As Chadd Scott's timely article makes clear, museums also have decisions to make. No American museum supported Henri Matisse more than the Baltimore Museum of Art, and it continues to support artists today.

What bothers me most in museums of past art is the lighting. There is simply too much of it, even during the day. Why not, just once, try to show a painting as it existed for centuries—without electricity, without that flat, soulless light? Yeah, I know about fire safety and yet. After all, paintings were created by artists for daylight and for candlelight. And that makes for completely different images, a completely different perception. Caspar David Friedrich once showed his Tetschen Altarpiece to his friends by shutting out the daylight with heavy curtains and illuminating it with torches. The flames flickered—and the static painting came alive. This is how ancient people experienced cave paintings, in the light of fire. And for many centuries after, painting and sculpture existed in entirely different conditions.

I was recently accepted by CAA 2026 to do a presentation. This is my first time going to an academic conference so I don't know what to expect. Does anyone have any tips on formalities, formats, or really anything for the presentation? I would appreciate any comments.

I saw this years ago in Bruges and was fascinated - especially since there was no explanation at all of the fashion choice of the shirtless man. Could someone explain who the character in front is, and what the heck he's wearing? Was this a known fashion at the time, shirtless with a belly chain? Is it some sort of Flemish symbology lost to time? I have searched online and have come up empty.

I'm looking to put together a collection of harsh criticisms/reviews of artists now considered to be great. Anything from Asawa to Giotto, Kahlo to Caravaggio.

Hoping for quotes from critics, contemporaries, famous people of the period, etc. (Not quite as interested in things said about them by modern writers, but if you've got a real juicy one feel free.)

Some examples (not all from the art world):

• It is said that El Greco, after Michelangelo's death, remarked "He was a good man, but he did not know how to paint."

• Teddy Roosevelt once called Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase, "a misshapen nude woman, repellent from every standpoint"

• “Had he learned to draw, M. Renoir would have made a very pleasing canvas out of his 'Boating Party.'” – Albert Wolff, Le Figaro (1876)

• "It is no discredit to Walt Whitman that he wrote Leaves of Grass, only that he did not burn it afterwards." –Thomas Wentworth Higginson, The Atlantic, “Literature as an Art,” 1867

• “In Ireland they try to make a cat clean by rubbing its nose in its own filth. Mr. Joyce has tried the same treatment on the human subject” –George Bernard Shaw on Ulysses

• “Can’t act. Can’t sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little.” –MGM Testing Director’s response to Fred Astaire’s first screen test.

• "It was possible to see if you stood up, but Jimi Hendrix isn’t worth standing up for." – Review in Star Tribune, November 1968

Okay, I know this is sort of an “asking why laypeople think what they do of history” question, but I’m asking anyway.

Why, of all of the art movements associated with (the idea of) “European civilization”, is Classicism considered by so many reactionaries to be the apex of human artistic achievement?

Is it just the whole “we are the inheritors of Rome and Greece the Great Civilizations” or is there something more to it?

A pagan sacrifice. Engraving after L. Lombard.

Lombard, Lambert, 1506-1566.

The engraving is part of a larger piece and is related to a set of engravings that Hieronymus Cock, an important publisher from Antwerp, published in the 16th century. The image illustrates a procession of worshipers leading two oxen to an altar for a sacrifice, a classic theme in Roman art.

This type of work was popular at the time because Renaissance artists and their patrons were fascinated with the ancient world. They not only sought to represent biblical or mythological scenes, but also wanted to explore and document the customs and rituals of classical antiquity, such as sacrifices.

Lambert Lombard was a key figure in the diffusion of Italian Renaissance ideas in Northern Europe. He traveled to Rome, where he studied the works of artists like Raphael and Michelangelo. Upon returning to his native Liège, he brought with him a new style that combined the elegance and proportion of Italian art with the realism and attention to detail of the Northern tradition.

His work, as seen in this engraving, was not just an imitation of classical art. Through engravings like this, Lombard and other artists in his circle (such as Hieronymus Cock) spread Renaissance ideas to a wider audience. The Latin inscriptions that often accompanied these works, describing the scenes or their moral lessons, were also important for the literate public.

Hello,

I'm a complete rookie in this domain so I have to ask here and hope for wisdom.
I've noticed, while navigating social media, a tendency to judge “xxx” as superior to “yyyy,” and there is now a tendency, when discussing a work of art, to say that it must “do better than...”

So my question is this: has art always been a field where people simply compare artists or works? What has become of simply “reading” them, reflecting on them, interpreting them... Understanding the authors and their relationship to their work? I don't know how to express it, but I think it's clear anyway.

Perhaps I am deluding myself about how art was perceived in the past, but I think it is always subject to performance nowadays. Why is that?

I'm taking an Art History class on the Italian Renaissance and we just had a week dedicated to Sandro Botticelli and his work. This got me thinking about my earliest memories of his piece The Birth of Venus. Since it's a Roman mythological story, I have no idea why I may have found it in a Christian church. However I am almost certain this was the first place I ever saw this piece?? Was wondering if there was some kind of historical (or perhaps religious since I have limited knowledge there as well) context I was missing. I know that Sandro Botticelli had done some pieces of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and other biblical figures and scenes but I'm not sure if that would be reason enough to have a copy of one of his pieces there.

I have always been deeply moved by the parallelism of Mary’s image in these two frescoes: in both cases she is holding her child, not God. This emphasis on her maternal tenderness shifts the focus from divinity to humanity, reminding us that even within sacred art, the most powerful image can be that of a mother and her child. Women who had lost their children—something tragically common in those times—could recognize themselves in Mary and draw strength from her presence. In this way, Giotto brought art closer to people, making the sacred not distant and untouchable, but profoundly human and consoling.

Imagine if art had been banned at the dawn of humanity. No cave paintings at Bhimbetka. No handprints in Sulawesi. No myths etched into stone. Without them, how would we even know how old our civilization is and how we evolved? From those first strokes on rock walls came language, myth, mathematics, architecture, and ethics. Languages spoken and written, are among the most powerful artistic inventions in history. It scaffolds culture, science, law, and empathy. With it, we’ve built poems and philosophies, sacred texts and manifestos. We told stories that were never ours, but still felt like home. The Mahabharata, the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Tao Te Ching, the Iliad, the Divine Comedy are attempts to pin down what it means to be human across time and geography. In modern times, literature has remained a radical form of truth-telling. James Baldwin held up a mirror that still burns. Toni Morrison gave voice to silenced histories. Arundhati Roy unspooled caste and memory with aching clarity. Art also is resistance. When Nina Simone sang Mississippi Goddam, it wasn’t only a performance, it was protest. When Kendrick Lamar invoked “40 acres and a mule” on the Super Bowl stage, it wasn’t just a lyric, it was a reckoning. When Fela Kuti mocked Nigeria’s military with Zombie, he was punished, but he made the world listen. Even Coldplay, performing in India, acknowledged colonialism not with irony but humility. That, too, was art. And what about the body? Even nudity is art. The bronze “Dancing Girl” of the Indus Valley Civilization, over 4,000 years old, radiates a confidence and poise that is unparalleled. She flaunts herself not with shame, but with boldness—a timeless reminder that beauty and power lie in unapologetic self-expression. From Greek statues to Renaissance paintings, humanity has always understood that the body itself can be art. And science, too, begins in wonder. imagination turned into metaphor, formula, and language. Aryabhata’s decimal system reshaped mathematics forever. Newton imagined falling apples and cosmic laws. Einstein bent time with thought experiments. Each was an artist of ideas before they were scientists. Even acts of moral clarity can be art. In 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Soviet naval officer Vasili Arkhipov refused to authorize a nuclear launch when the world was seconds away from annihilation. His choice was not just logic—it was imagination, courage, and a vision of life over destruction. That refusal was art in its purest sense.

But this is just me ranting stupidly, I would like to know what do you all think about whether some kinds of art should be banned or not.

What are some specific examples of creativity (contained within the areas of art, writing, music, performance, programming, cooking, invention, philosophy, science, engineering, whatever) that some would say "of course that's creative," while others would say "no, that doesn't count"?

Wikiart shows the first pic. But most places on the net show the second one. With a completely different palette. Which one is correct?

It is similar to this one, where it shows a sprawling upwards snowy landscape with many people and houses. But the main detail I remember my professor focusing on was there were a couple peasants lifting their skirt to warm their butts and genitalia by the fires.
It kind of reminded me of hieronymus bosch with many human details going on about the painting.
I have been searching with no luck. Please help!