European Art

Design

Architecture or Jewelry? Josef Hoffmann’s Modern Brooches

Josef Hoffmann was the leading architect of the Secession and pupil of Otto Wagner, close friend and collaborator of Gustav Klimt and Koloman Moser,...

Magda Michalska 6 November 2024

Art Nouveau

René Lalique, The Master Jeweler of Art Nouveau

René Lalique (1860-1945) was a French jeweler and one of Art Nouveau’s most renowned craftsmen. Trained in Paris and London, Lalique was unusual...

Europeana 6 November 2024

Design

Wiener Werkstätte: The Viennese Design Brand You’ve Always Dreamt Of

Heard of Bauhaus? Yes. Heard of De Stijl? Yes. Heard of Wiener Werkstätte? No. No?! That’s the problem: I hadn’t heard of Wiener Werkstätte...

Magda Michalska 6 November 2024

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: The Railway by Édouard Manet

In 1873 when this painting was created by the Realist master Édouard Manet, the Gare Saint–Lazare was the largest and busiest train station in...

Zuzanna Stańska 5 November 2024

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: The Train in the Snow by Claude Monet

Claude Monet painted The Train in the Snow in 1875. The work was not shown in the Impressionist exhibition, but it reveals Monet’s attraction to...

Zuzanna Stańska 5 November 2024

Impressionism

Claude Monet and Saint Lazare Train Station

Between 1853 and 1870 Paris has been renovated and modernized by Georges-Eugène Haussmann, commonly known as Baron Haussmann. This prefect of the...

Zuzanna Stańska 5 November 2024

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: The Railway Station by Alf Rolfsen

Steam, breath, and sweat combine into a pulsating cloud filling the railway station with energy and anticipation. Everyone is in motion either...

James W Singer 5 November 2024

Gustave Moreau, Thracian Girl Carrying the Head of Orpheus on His Lyre, 1865, Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France. Detail. Painting

The Most Famous Bard in History: Orpheus in Paintings

According to Greek Mythology, Orpheus was a singer, musician, and poet. Therefore, he was often depicted in paintings and sculptures, singing in...

Anna Ingram 4 November 2024

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Wanderer above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich

Autumn is nipping at the leaves, and summer’s light is waning. Grab your favorite sweater and get ready to introspect like a Romantic because...

Coleman Richards 4 November 2024

Artist Stories

Claude Cahun—A Surrealist Queer Prophet

—Claude Cahun famously said “Masculine? Feminine? It depends on the situation. Neuter is the only gender that always suits me.” Photographer,...

Candy Bedworth 4 November 2024

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Two African Men by Rembrandt van Rijn

In the discourse on the Black presence in Western history, it is taken for granted that Africans in art represented solely enslaved people, and their...

Nicole Ganbold 3 November 2024

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: The African King Caspar by Hendrik Heerschop

White subjects have dominated the Western art tradition for millennia, while people of color have been vastly underrepresented and misrepresented.

James W Singer 3 November 2024