Free Republic

Dutch photographer and digital artist Bas Uterwijk shines a light on what iconic figures from history might have looked like in real life. By using various digital manipulation tools, he is able to create photorealistic portraits of famous artists, leaders, mummies, philosophical thinkers, and even the models of paintings. Based in Amsterdam, Uterwijk has a background in computer graphics, 3D animation, and special effects. He uses a well-known image of each subject to transform them into a photographic portrait. For instance, the enigmatic Mona Lisa is reimagined as a real person with barely-there brows, luminescent skin, and bright eyes. Even...

If you or one of your children are heading off to get a degree from Yale, you’ve missed out on the last chance to enroll in their course called “Introduction to Art History: Renaissance to the Present” because this semester is the last time it will be offered. It’s not that the course wasn’t popular. It was always full. Unfortunately, the curriculum was simply too full of the work of straight, white, European men. Katherine Timpf at National Review has the details. According to an article in the Yale Daily News, “Introduction to Art History: Renaissance to the Present”...

Yale will stop teaching a storied introductory survey course in art history, citing the impossibility of adequately covering the entire field — and its varied cultural backgrounds — in one course. Decades old and once taught by famous Yale professors like Vincent Scully, “Introduction to Art History: Renaissance to the Present” was once touted to be one of Yale College’s quintessential classes. But this change is the latest response to student uneasiness over an idealized Western “canon” — a product of an overwhelmingly white, straight, European and male cadre of artists. This spring, the final rendition of the course will...

Kaywin Feldman Becomes the First Woman to Direct the National Gallery of Art in Washington Feldman is the fifth director to lead the venerable 77-year old institution. The National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, has named Kaywin Feldman as its new director. She will be the fifth director—and the first ever female director—of the venerable 77-year-old institution. Feldman, who has been director of the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) since 2008, will take up the new position in March 2019. The seasoned museum administrator takes the helm from longtime director Earl “Rusty” Powell III, who has led the National...

After more than 35 years as a teacher of art history in the Catholic school system, I am convinced that the study of art history is an integral part of a well-defined and superior Catholic high school education. I believe that when students study art history, they become closer to the church on an intellectual and cultural level that greatly enhances their relationship with God. I have already alluded to the important role that the church had in the development of Western art. Investigating that role in a study of art history, from medieval to modern times, enhances spiritual and...

In a speech in Wisconsin on Thursday, President Barack Obama insulted perhaps the most fervent members of his political base: art history majors. The politically clumsy moment occurred during the president’s remarks at General Electric’s Waukesha Gas Engines facility. After extolling his own economic policies at some length, Obama observed that “manufacturing jobs typically pay well” in the United States. “We want to encourage more of them,” he said. Then, he began to speak — apparently extemporaneously — about the benefits of working in America’s ever-diminishing manufacturing sector.

You are probably here because you looked closely at the Starbucks logo and were a little confused about what is depicted on it. Is it a mermaid? What are those things that she is holding up with her hands? Wasn't the logo different before? What's the history of it? I asked those questions myself and did a little bit of digging. My research started with a book that I had, called A Dictionary of Symbols by J.E. Cirlot. In it there was a chapter about Sirens. Basically, from what I gathered from different sources, including that book, there is a...

National Gallery, LondonWhistler's portrait of his mother is not included in the new "Janson's History of Art." Top, Tate, London; bequeathed by Arthur Studd, 1919; above, Dawoud Bey/"Janson’s History of Art," Seventh Edition THEY MADE IT Now appearing in "Janson's History of Art": Whistler's "Symphony in White No. 2," top, which replaces the portrait of his mother and shows the Japanese influence on his art; and David Hammon's "Higher Goals," above. In some ways, art history is like an episode of "The Sopranos." A relatively small number of artists are welcomed into the family of the famous, their works...

HIS drawings, diagrams and maps have excited and inspired us for half a millennium. Now once more Leonardo da Vinci has proved that he was far ahead of his time — and ours. A leading heart and lung specialist has been inspired by anatomical discoveries made by Leonardo 500 years ago to change the way he conducts certain operations. Francis Wells, consultant cardiac surgeon at Papworth Hospital in Cambridge, said yesterday that he had had a “eureka moment” as he pored over drawings and notes by the artist in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle. Mr Wells was studying Leonardo’s...

FLORENCE, Italy, Jan. 14 - Researchers at a military geography institute here say they have discovered - hiding practically in plain sight in their building - what might have been a workshop for Leonardo da Vinci. They have also homed in on fading frescoes that they think might have been painted by Leonardo or by a workshop student 500 years ago, although that hypothesis has not been put to the test by art historians or by scientific analysis. Italian museum officials are hoping that the discovery of the frescoes and five small rooms where Leonardo might have lived and worked,...

HAMLET: Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel? POLONIUS: By th’ mass and ’tis—like a camel indeed. HAMLET: Methinks it is like a weasel. POLONIUS: It is backed like a weasel. HAMLET: Or like a whale. POLONIUS: Very like a whale. [W]here art history is concerned, in the beginning was the eye, not the word. —Otto Pächt Why do we teach and study art history? A question that elicits a complicated answer. To learn about art, yes, but also to learn about the cultural setting in which art unfolds; in addition, to learn about—what to...