Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History

@smarthistory

Smarthistory, a nonprofit, collaborates with museums, academics, conservators, and knowledge-bearers to make art history accessible and engaging while retaining nuance and the highest academic standards—plus everything is free!

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Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory· 29d

Like Zendaya, we love the Nike of Samothrace but we've probably never looked so good studying it 🫠 smarthistory.org/nike-winged-...

Photo of actor Zendaya in a white feathered (and large winged!) Matières Fécales dress on a runway for The Odyssey NYC premiere #TheOdyssey

Nike of Samothrace statue photographed in the Louvre at the same angle as the Zendaya photograph
Nike (Winged Victory) of Samothrace, Lartos marble (ship) and Parian marble (figure), c. 190 B.C.E. (Hellenistic Period), 3.28 m high (Musée du Louvre, Paris).

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory· Jul 14

David's Portrait of the Lavoisiers was supposed to be shown at the Salon of 1789. But 6 weeks earlier, the storming of the Bastille on July 14 had begun the French Revolution. Rumors grew that Lavoisier had conspired against the Revolution. The painting was pulled. smarthistory.org/jacques-loui...

Large formal oil portrait of a white couple in their well-appointed home interior. He sits writing with a quill at a table filled with scientific glassware; she stands at his shoulder. Artist portfolio in the background. They have casual affectionate familairity.
Jacques-Louis David, Portrait d'Antoine Laurent et Marie Anne Lavoisier, 1788, oil on canvas, 259.7 x 194.6 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) #FrenchRevolution #BastilleDay

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory· Jul 13

If your students hear "parkour!" when you say "partage!," this essay's for you. Dr. Elizabeth Macaulay takes us through the practice of dividing finds from archaeological excavations and the flow of artifacts from the countries where they were found smarthistory.org/partage/

Hexagonal mosaic segment with multiple borders surrounding an allegorical figure of Earth wearing fruit in her hair and regarding a cornucopia. Mosaic pavement: Earth, mid-2nd century C.E., stone, 140 x 140 cm (Princeton University Art Museum; gift of the Committee for the Excavation of Antioch to Princeton University)

The unbelievably elegant bust of a woman wearing an Egyptian crown. Paint is still vibrant. Thutmose, Model Bust of Queen Nefertiti, c. 1340 B.C.E. (18th Dynasty, New Kingdom, Amarna Period), limestone and plaster, 49 x 24.5 x 35 cm (Neues Museum, Berlin)

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory· Jul 10

Smarthistory's back at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art today with Dr. Steven Zucker recording with curator Dr. Javier Ramos in front of Joseph Stella's Tree of My Life (1919)

Two men stand in front of a large framed painting in a museum gallery. One gestures to the painting while speaking with enthusiasm; the other stands with hand on hip and camera at the ready regarding it.

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory· Jul 9

For no particular reason, re: Appalachia, Farisa Khalid's essay on Henry Ossawa Tanner's The Banjo Lesson, painted just 24 years after the end of slavery made after a series of sketches the artist made while visiting the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina smarthistory.org/tanner-banjo/

Painting of a Black man sitting in a chair teaching a young Black boy how to play the banjo in a modest room with wooden floors. Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Banjo Lesson, 1893, oil on canvas, 124.5 × 90.2 cm (Hampton University Museum, Hampton, VA) #AfricanAmericanArt #BlackArt

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory· Jul 9

While the East Coast team is working at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, out on the West Coast we've got our camera out at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco

Photograph of a hand holding a camera showing an Italian Renaissance altarpiece on its review screen that can also be seen in the distance, out of focus, on the gallery wall

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory· Jul 8

Who hasn't been enchanted by the subtle variation of Maria Martinez's black-on-black San Ildefonso ware? She took Pueblo pottery to a new place smarthistory.org/puebloan-mar...

black-on-black vessel San Ildefonso ware, Pueblo, Puebloan ceramics, pottery, Native American, Indigenous

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory· Jul 7

Photographing "Maman," one of Louise Bourgeois's mammoth spiders outside Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas

spider shadow on light colored pavement below

"Maman" spider sculpture photographed from below with legs all around the camera person (not pictured)

Photo of man photographing Louise Bourgois spider "Maman" sculpture from a distance

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory· Jul 6

Can't complain about Monday after a holiday weekend when the office is this pretty! Smarthistory's back to work at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas today 😍

Photograph of a man photographing art museum building across pretty pound in leafy shade on a blue sky day. Summer!

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory· Jul 1

A lot of people who are part of United States history don't appear in some of the most iconic images. There are many histories of the US. Our teaching guide to Jaune Quick-To-See Smith's State Names painting smarthistory.org/teaching-gui...

Map of labelled states of continental US with dripping (weeping?) paint. Jaune Quick-To-See Smith, State Names, 2000 (Smithsonian American Art Museum, image: Dr. Steven Zucker (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory· Jul 1

Essay and video on Emanuel Leutze's famous painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware made in 1851 smarthistory.org/leutze-washi...

Washington (detail of George Washington looking purposeful and visionary), Emanuel Leutze, Washington Crossing the Delaware, 1851, oil on canvas, 378.5 x 647.7 cm (Metropolitan Museum of Art, photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory· Jul 1

The 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence happens this weekend. Smarthistory has resources considering art associated with the founding of the United States of America in 1776: Dr. Bryan Zygmont on American and national identity smarthistory.org/american-and...

detail of top of manuscript "We the People" followed by smaller writing "of the United States..." The Constitution of the United States (detail), 1787 (National Archives)

The Constitution of the United States (detail), 1787 (National Archives)

Detail midsection of heavily beaded and elaborate outfit. Anishinaabe outfit (detail), c. 1790, collected by Lieutenant Andrew Foster, Fort Michilimackinac (British), Michigan, Birchbark, cotton, linen, wool, feathers, silk, silver brooches, porcupine quills, horsehair, hide, sinew; the moccasins were likely made by the Huron–Wendat people (National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution)

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory· Jun 29

It's a busy research day at Smarthistory as we prep for field work. Want to procrastinate with us by reading Dr. Erik Kwakkel on how medieval readers found books? smarthistory.org/finding-books/

Detail of a leather(?) book cover showing handwritten shelfmark tag “Q 2,” BUR MS Q 1, c. 1100, binding 15th century, Netherlands (University Library, Leiden; photo: Erik Kwakkel)

Tiny text over many sheets glued together covering a large expanse. Initials in red.

Wall catalogue from library of Lopsen Abbey, Kloosters 885 Inv. Nr. 208A, Netherlands (wall catalogue, 15th century) (Regionaal Archief, Leiden; photo: Turning Over A New Leaf, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Wooden bookcases with metal fittings holding many books chained to their shelves. Tables below for reading. You're not going to get far.

Bookcases in Hereford Chained Library, Hereford, England

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory· Jun 26

Joel Sternfeld marks the June 28 Stonewall Inn Rebellion in a photograph titled "On This Site: The Stonewall Inn, 53 Christopher Street, New York, February 1994." Smarthistory's essay by Dr. Chris Balaschak: smarthistory.org/joel-sternfe...

$"ternfeld’s image is suffused with the red glow of the bar’s neon sign, a tone that refracts off the fallen snow in the plant box beneath the window, and amplifies the oversized ruffled Valentine’s Day heart, and the reddish-brown brick of the building. The photograph is at once warm and stark: the picture plane runs parallel to the window, flattening the image, and giving it a graphic, almost poster-like quality." Joel Sternfeld, “The Stonewall Inn, 53 Christopher Street, New York, February 1994,” in On This Site, chromogenic print © Joel Sternfeld$

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory· Jun 23

We're known for our single-object essays, but don't sleep on our thematic content. The Renaissance wasn't all putti and polite portraits. Dr. Sherry Lindquist on Power and Violence in the Renaissance Nude. It's fascinating. smarthistory.org/power-violen...

Bronze statuette of Hercules, very muscular, lifting Antaeus by the waist and squeezing him to death aloft. Antico, Hercules and Antaeus, c. 1519, bronze, 17 inches high (KHM-Museumsverband / Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna)

Oil painting of a nude white woman on a bed with an adolescent cupid receiving gold in her lap from a cloud in her bedroom. It's Greek myth; don't worry. Correggio, Danaë, 1530, oil on canvas, 62 3/16 × 74 7/16 inches (Galleria Borghese)

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory· Jun 21

Originally titled "My Father," the painting "Father" depicting a peasant by Luo Zhongli actually depicts someone the artist didn't know. In the 1980, following the Cultural Revolution, the lack of triumphal heroism was greatly surprising in Chinese art smarthistory.org/luo-zhongli-...

Portrait of a man's face, weathered by the sun he now squints in, holding a bowl of broth(?) towards the viewer. A ballpoint pen behind his ear looks incongruous with his modest shirt and head covering.

Luo Zhongli, Father, oil on canvas, 1980, 215 x 150 cm (National Art Museum, Beijing, China)

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory· Jun 19

Unlike many depictions of the U.S. Civil War that focus on white soldiers, Eastman Johnson's painting "A Ride for Liberty" places an enslaved family in the center of the composition. Scott Mestan and Dr. Bryan Zygmont for Smarthistory smarthistory.org/johnson-a-ri... #Juneteenth

Oil painting in a gold frame of Black man, woman, and child on horseback in a fast gallop across a landscape at dusk, sense of urgency.

Eastman Johnson, A Ride for Liberty—The Fugitive Slaves, c. 1862, oil on paper board, 55.8 x 66.4 cm (Brooklyn Museum, New York; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory· Jun 19

Wondering about #Juneteenth? The history is itself complex, the commemoration and memory of the U.S. Civil War even more so. Read Dr. Kimberly Kutz Elliott's essay covering it all from the war to recent controversies over Abraham Lincoln monuments on Smarthistory: smarthistory.org/memory-and-c...

Historic b/w photograph of Abraham Lincoln as emancipator; recent color photograph of workers and a crane removing the same statue. "Statues of Abraham Lincoln have also been sites of recent controversy, both because of Lincoln’s actions towards Indigenous peoples and because many Lincoln statues seem to depict him “granting” emancipation to passive Black people. In fact, U.S. Army and northern monuments as a whole tended to minimize or erase the role of Black people in the war and the importance of emancipation to U.S. victory, focusing instead on the efforts of white generals and white common soldiers."

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory· Jun 18

With Juneteenth coming up tomorrow, you may find our curated guide to the U.S. Civil War in Art useful smarthistory.org/curated-guid...

Screenshot of Smarthistory's guide to the U.S. Civil War in Art

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory· Jun 17

Want to guess our upcoming video? It's the painting in the corner behind our heads 🤫 (Hint: @metmuseum.org) #BTS #ArtHistory

Photo museum interior: A man photographing a Gerard Ter Borch painting stands next to a woman also looking at the same painting. Their heads obscure a small painting in the corner hung next to a Vermeer Portrait of a Young Girl.

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory· Jun 15

The medieval Christian saint Wilgefortis refused to marry a pagan — by growing a Christ-like beard. As a prominent gender queer story, the legend of of the patron saint of women who need leave bad marriages has been adopted as an LGTBQ champion in the modern age. smarthistory.org/saint-wilgef...

Bearded White person with a Christ-like face wearing a distinctively feminine dress and golden shoes tied to a wooden crucifix. Painted, hung on a wall with small devotional paintings in a museum. Saint Wilgefortis, c. 1750–1800, wood, 254 cm high (Museum of the Diocese Graz-Seckau, Graz; photo: Gugganij, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory· Jun 14

"Wojnarowicz understood not only his artwork but his body as a weapon..." Dr. Jon Davies for Smarthistory on an extraordinary prophecy for a young boy in mid-century America. smarthistory.org/david-wojnar... David Wojnarowicz, Untitled (One Day This Kid . . .), 1990. #LGTBQ #Queer #History

Black and white photo illustration of a mid-century American white boy innocently smiling surrounded by text: "One day this kid will get larger. One day this kid will come to know something that causes a sensation equivalent to the separation of the earth from its axis..." It continues to tell us he is gay and men will enact violence on him for acting on it. "All this will begin to happen in one or two years when he discovers he desires to place his naked body on the naked body of another boy."

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory· Jun 13

"Gilbert recounted on several occasions that the idea of making a flag came about during the United States’ bicentennial celebrations of 1976, when the stars and stripes were embraced as a symbol of national unity." "Art, Pride, and the Rainbow Flag" on Smarthistory smarthistory.org/art-pride-an...

Rainbow Pride flag flying against the sun in a blue sky. By Ludovic Bertron from New York City, Usa – https://www.flickr.com/photos/23912576@N05/2942525739, CC BY 2.0, Link

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory· Jun 12

The history of human sexuality and gender identity are inseparable from the history of art. Here Dr. Bryan C. Keene and Rheagan Martin address what we shouldn't overlook in "Coming Out: Queer Erasure and Censorship from the Middle Ages to Modernity" smarthistory.org/coming-out-q...

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory· Jun 11

Only four others like this extremely fragile fritware ceramic ornament still exist in the world today. Iznik ware, right? Learn about its gorgeousness and development in dialogue with Chinese Ming porcelain in Vanessa Troiano's essay smarthistory.org/spherical-ha...

Spherical ornament decorated with Iznik abstracted vegetable patterns on half the sphere. Views of the ornament's bottom half (left) and the ornament upside-down (right). Spherical Hanging Ornament, Iznik, Turkey (Ottoman), c. 1575–85 (Brooklyn Museum)

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory· Jun 11

The Knicks, aka the New York Knickerbockers, share a name with the shorts worn by 19th-century children as discussed by Dr. Ingrid E. Mida in an essay on Renoir's Portrait of Madame Charpentier and Her Children smarthistory.org/renoir-charp...

Carte de visite photograph of two young boys, c. 1870s ( photographer M.E. Robb, author’s collection). undated photo of two young boys. The younger boy is wearing a checked ensemble consisting of a tunic and a skirt trimmed in velvet while his older brother wears a wool suit consisting of a jacket worn with knickerbockers.

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory· Jun 10

If you need a Raphael fix in the meantime, check out our essay on Raphael's Transfiguration by Dr. Letha Ch'ien smarthistory.org/raphael-tran...

Painting, Raphael, Transfiguration, 1516-20, tempera on wood, 405 x 278cm. Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican City. Tall painting with transfiguration scene in upper half (Christ floats gleaming white in night scene) and an excorcism i the lower half with much Renaissance gesticulation and one particularly gorgeous figura serpentinata

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory· Jun 10

Still dizzy from all the beauty at the @metmuseum.org Raphael show yesterday. Stay tuned for Smarthistory-on-Raphael 💫

Man photographs Raphael drawing in dim museum gallery filled with visitors

Photo of people standing in front of Raphael's Alba Madonna painting, a beautifully colorful tondo in a large carved gilded wooden frame

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory· Jun 9

Do you want the house tour? Smarthistory could take you to the first, second, third floor Dr. Elizabeth Macaulay and Dr. Steven Zucker take us to Bayt Farhi, a Jewish Sephardic palace begun c. 1780 in Ottoman Damascus. From our ARCHES: At Risk Cultural Heritage series: smarthistory.org/bayt-farhi/

Screenshot from video showing sunny courtyard with interior location marked on architectural plan superimposed

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory· Jun 8

Louis I. Kahn, Kimbell Art Museum, 1972, Fort Worth, Texas