This work shows what the modern touches of Meiji-era aesthetics added to the woodblock print craft… (photo: Hiroaki Takahashi, “The Foothills of Mount Ashitaka, Summer,” 1931-32; www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=...)

This work won the Grand Prix at the 1911 Turin International Exhibition. Her art graced homes, buildings and churches around the world... (photo: Florence Camm, “Dante and Beatrice,” 1911, stained-class window, at the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery collection; www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=...)

Founder of the Canadian Group of Seven, Johnston worked as a commercial artist in Toronto while traveling up country to Algoma… (photo: Frank Johnston, “Sunset in the Bush,” ca. 1918, oil on canvas, in the McMichael Canadian Art Collection; www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=...)

A pioneer in Frankfurt’s women’s art, Eugenie Bendell captured here the summer light and shade at the Wilhelmsbad in Hanau… (photo: Eugenie Bandell, “Sun at Noon (Wilhelmsbad),” 1913, oil on canvas, in the Städel Museum collection in Frankfurt, Germany; commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eu...

The animated quality of Marin’s watercolors of coastal Maine and New York seem to be the perfect kind of summer art. You can feel the motion of the waves… (photo: John Marin, “Lobster Smack,” 1922, watercolor and charcoal on paper; crystalbridges.org/artworks/asc...)

The “Samurai to the Imperial Court” exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Art showcases 500 years of Japanese metalworking… (photo: Unknown artist, “Dragon King Presenting a Jewel to Fujiwara no Hidesato,” 1879-81, bronze and silver, in the Dallas Museum of Art collection; dma.org/art/collecti...)

Herrán was a modern art promoter, a muralist, book illustrator, draughtsman, and stained glass colorist… (photo: Saturnino Herrán, “Girl with Pumpkin,” 1917, colored pencil and watercolor, in the Colección Andrés Blaisten in Mexico; museoblaisten.com/en/Obra/2019...)

During the Greek independence war, Count Palatiano, a Greek aristocrat, often posed in military attire for Parisian artists... (photo: Unknown painter, “Count Demetrius de Palatiano in Suliot Costume,” n.d., oil on fabric, in The Cleveland Museum of Art collection; www.clevelandart.org/art/1973.33)

“Glass contains light. When I depict a person from the past in glass it has a three dimensional depth that I could never achieve with paint.” Angela Babby (photo: Angela Babby, “Melt: Prayers for the People and the Planet,” 2019, vitreous enamel on glass mosaic; chrysler.org/exhibition/c...)

It’s George E. Ohr’s birthday (b. 1857). He was known for abstract expressionist works almost 50 years before the movement was founded… (photo: George E. Ohr, “Bowl,” ca. 1898-1910, earthenware, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection; www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti...)

This work is part of a Cleveland Museum of Art exhibition, showcasing 20 artworks from Wu Hufan’s collection of Shanghai paintings… (photo: Xiao Yuncong, “Album of Seasonal Landscapes, Leaf H,” 1668, ink and light color on paper, in the CMA collection; www.clevelandart.org/exhibitions/...)

There is a major North American retrospective of this Czech artist, who was a key figure in the Art Nouveau movement… (photo: Alphonse Mucha, “The Arts: Dance,” 1898, lithograph print; www.phillipscollection.org/press/philli...)

It’s Saturnino Herrán’s birthday (b. 1887). Herrán was a modernist Mexican painter, who was highly influential in Latin American art… (photo: Saturnino Herrán, “The Offering,” 1913, oil on canvas, in the Museo Nacional de Arte collection, in Mexico City; commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sa...)

Ivory-carved Qing Dynasty boxes are masterfully crafted. They were frequently produced in bustling trading ports like Canton (Guangzhou)… (photo: Unknown Artist, “Covered box,” China, Qing dynasty, late 19th century, in the San Antonio Museum of Art collection)

Celebrating the US 250th with Code Talker art at the “Stars, Stripes, and First Americans” exhibition in Santa Fe, New Mexico… (photo: Kee Yazzie (Diné), “Diné Code Talker,” 2000, Acrylic on canvas, in the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture collection; www.indianartsandculture.org/current&even...)

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is marking the US 250th anniversary with "A Nation of Artists" exhibition of more than 1,000 works. This is one of them… (photo: Thomas Moran, “Mists in the Yellowstone,” 1908, oil on canvas, in The Middleton Family Collection; www.pafa.org/museum/exhib...)

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is marking the US 250th anniversary with "A Nation of Artists" exhibition of more than 1,000 works. This is one of them… (photo: Fritz Scholder, “Bicentennial Indian,” 1975, in the National Gallery of Art collection; www.nga.gov/artworks/183...)

The Declaration of Independence set the tone for no kings in America. It was adopted on July 4, 1776... (photo: Jean Leon Gerome Ferris, “Writing the Declaration of Independence, 1776,” 1932, in the Virginia Historical Society collection; www.monticello.org/the-art-of-c...)

It is hard to find civic art that avoids hagiographic, flattering depiction. Yet Childe Hassam resisted that urge, creating this elegant, evocative work… (photo: Childe Hassam, “Flags, Fifth Avenue,” 1918, watercolor on paper, in the Dallas Museum of Art collection; blog.dma.org/2012/07/04/r...)

The fleet from the French navy defeated the British fleet at this battle, to gain control over local sea lanes, and support America’s final battle for independence… (photo: V. Zveg, “1781 Battle of the Virginia Capes/Chesapeake,” 1969; warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/fren...)

The things we do to blow off steam, as we prepare for comprehensive exams in grad school… (photo: H.B. Cavalcanti, “Portland Head Light, in Maine,” India ink, 1985)

The “Back from the Underworld: MIA’s Dante Tapestry Restored” exhibition opens at MIA in July… (photo: Francesco Salviati, “The Meeting of Dante and Virgil” [detail], 1546–49, tapestry, in the Minneapolis Institute of Art collection; new.artsmia.org/exhibition/b...)

“Seven years ago, I [thought]… I can't do what I want to, so I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to.” Georgia O’Keeffe (photo: Georgia O’Keeffe, “White Rose with Larkspur No. 2,” 1927, in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston collection; www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...)

This painting evokes the art of the past (the boy is posed as if for an Italian 16th-century portrait) only to break boldly with its conventions… (photo: Paul Cezanne, “Boy in a Red Waistcoat,” 1888-90, in the National Gallery collection, in Washington, DC; www.nga.gov/artworks/930...)

The “Self, Made” exhibition opens today at the Art Institute of Chicago, highlighting stories of self-invention. This artwork will be on it… (photo: Luke Pelletier, “An Opportunity to Be in a Room with the Greats, Executed in Earnest,” 2022; www.artic.edu/exhibitions/...)

Bellotto was 16 years old when he painted this work. At the time, he was working in his uncle Canaletto’s studio in Venice… (photo: Bernardo Bellotto, “Venice, The Grand Canal Facing Santa Croce,” ca. 1738, in the National Gallery collection in London; www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/be...)

I grew up swimming in the Atlantic, negotiating its currents and swells. Summers make me turn to Hopper’s works… (photo: Edward Hopper, “Ground Swell,” 1939, oil on canvas, in the National Gallery of Art collection, in Washington, DC; www.nga.gov/artworks/131...)

“I want people to escape inside the world of the work. In that way the work is pre-Modernist,” says Tomaselli… (photo: Fred Tomaselli, “Natural Selection,” 2000, photo collage, acrylic and resin on wood panel, in the Smithsonian American Art Museum collection; americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/...)

The Seattle Art Museum’s “Beyond Mysticism: The Modern Northwest” exhibition will last from Mar 5 to Aug 2 this year. This work is in it… (photo: Charles Sheeler, “Composition Around White,” 1957, tempera on plexiglass, in private collection; www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...)

Celebrating the solstice with a celestial globe which demonstrates the apparent motion of the heavens. This one is engraved with 52 constellations… (photo: Gerhard Emmoser, “Celestial Globe with Clockwork,” 1579, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection; www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=...)