Articles

June 5, 2025

INTERACTIVE ARTICLE

How the Index of American Design Kickstarted Edward Loper’s Art Career

The acclaimed Delaware artist first brought his artistic ambitions to life drawing decorative art objects for the Work Progress Administration project.

By Abby Whitlock

May 15, 2025

INTERACTIVE ARTICLE

The Marvelous Details of Joris Hoefnagel’s Animal and Insect Studies

Scroll to discover tiny brushstrokes, hidden meanings, and the immense impact on our understanding of the natural world.

May 15, 2025

ARTICLE

Seven Highlights from the Index of American Design

Peer into the American past with a collection of Great Depression–era watercolors.

By Abby Foster

May 15, 2025

ARTICLE

Who Is Elizabeth Catlett? 12 Things to Know

Meet a groundbreaking artist who made sculptures and prints for her people.

April 1, 2025

ARTICLE

From Old Car Tires, Chakaia Booker Reveals Beauty and Devastation

Transforming discarded tires into monumental sculptures, the artist reflects on the environmental impact of our daily commutes.

March 17, 2025

INTERACTIVE ARTICLE

Layers of Power in "The Feast of the Gods"

At first glance, this painting looks like a great party. But it’s more complicated than that.

Six women, eight men, two satyrs, and one child gather in pairs and trios in a loose row that spans the width of this nearly square painting. They are set within a landscape with craggy rocks, cliffs, and trees. Most of the people face us, and the men, women, and child have pale skin. The two satyrs have men’s torsos and furry goat’s legs, and they have darker, olive complexions. Most of the men wear voluminous, knee-length togas wrapped in short robes in shades of white, topaz blue, grass green, coral orange, or rose pink. Most of the women wear long, dress-like garments in tones of shell pink, apricot orange, or lapis blue over white sleeves. For all but one woman, their garments have fallen off one shoulder to reveal a round, firm breast. Several objects are strewn on the rocky, dirt ground in front of the group, including a wide, wooden bucket with a piece of paper affixed to its front to our right, a glass goblet, a pitchfork, a large blue and white ceramic dish filled with grapes and small yellow fruits, and an overturned cup near the center. Cliff-like, craggy rocks rise steeply behind the group to our left, filling much of the sky opposite a tall grove of leafy, dark green trees to our right. A few puffy white clouds float across the vivid blue sky. The slip of paper on the barrel has been inscribed, “joannes bellinus venetus p MDXIIII.”

March 17, 2025

INTERACTIVE ARTICLE

Isolation in Pablo Picasso’s "Family of Saltimbanques"

The painting shows us the ambiguity and loneliness of life on the outskirts of society.

March 17, 2025

INTERACTIVE ARTICLE

Art Comes to Life in Joan Miró’s "The Farm"

Joan Miró’s complex and captivating painting is full of life and mystery.

Two angular, cream-white buildings flanking a central, stylized tree are surrounded by brown soil, small animals, and farmhouse objects like watering cans and buckets beneath a clear, azure-blue sky in this square landscape painting. We look straight onto the buildings and slightly down onto the earth in front of us. About a third of the way up the composition, the horizon is lined with trees and mountains in the deep distance. The long, spindly branches of the central tree nearly reach the top edge of the painting and abstracted, sickle-shaped leaves are silhouetted against the sky so no leaves overlap. The far edge of the whitewashed structure to our left is cropped. The façade is pierced by two small rectangular windows and an arched hatch at the top under a winch. The back end of a horse is visible through an open door at the bottom center. Horizontal bands in front of the building suggest furrows in plowed earth, and a single stalk of corn grows up into the scene, seeming close to us. A pen protected by netting stretches out in front of the second structure, to our right of center. That wood-frame building has a triangular peaked roof, and the left half is open, like a lean-to. A goat, rooster, birds, and several rabbits occupy the pen. Watering cans, buckets and pails, a hoe, newspaper, lizard, and snail are spaced around the buildings. A tiny stylized person, perhaps a baby, appears in the distance between the buildings near a well where a woman works. A covered wagon, a round mill, trees, and plants fill the rest of the space between the buildings. A disk-like moon hangs in the sky to the right of the tree. The artist signed and dated the lower left corner, "Miro. 1921-22."

March 14, 2025

INTERACTIVE ARTICLE

Art up Close: Judith Leyster, the Leading Star of Her Time

Her paintings were passed off as the works of her male contemporaries. Get to know 17th century painter Judith Leyster through the hidden details of her lively self-portrait.

Shown from about the waist up, a woman with smooth, pale skin sits in a chair facing our right in front of a canvas on an easel in this vertical portrait. She leans onto her right elbow, which rests on the seat back. She turns her face to look at us, lips slightly parted. Her dress has a black bodice and a deep rose-pink skirt and sleeves. She wears a translucent white cap over her hair, which has been tightly pulled back. A stiff, white, plate-like ruff encircles her neck and reaches to her shoulders. She holds a paintbrush in her right hand and clutches about twenty brushes, a wooden paint palette, and a rag in her left hand, at the bottom right of the canvas. The painting behind her shows a man wearing robin's egg-blue and playing a violin.

March 14, 2025

INTERACTIVE ARTICLE

Art up Close: Jacques-Louis David’s Mythical Napoleon

A magnified look at the details in the imagined portrait of the legendary French emperor.

How the Index of American Design Kickstarted Edward Loper’s Art Career

The Marvelous Details of Joris Hoefnagel’s Animal and Insect Studies

Seven Highlights from the Index of American Design

Who Is Elizabeth Catlett? 12 Things to Know

From Old Car Tires, Chakaia Booker Reveals Beauty and Devastation

Layers of Power in "The Feast of the Gods"

Isolation in Pablo Picasso’s "Family of Saltimbanques"

Art Comes to Life in Joan Miró’s "The Farm"

Art up Close: Judith Leyster, the Leading Star of Her Time

Art up Close: Jacques-Louis David’s Mythical Napoleon

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