Category: History

What does Intel’s Pentium computer chip have in common with Navajo textiles? More than you might think. For artist Marilou Schultz, the ancestral practice of weaving melds with an unexpected contemporary source of inspiration. Merging analog loom methods with the patterns found on computer processor cores, Schultz entwines the histories […]

In Japan, randoseru are small, high-quality backpacks, typically made of leather, designed to withstand years of use by school children. Manufacturer Murase Kabanko, for one, departed from its typical offerings with a highly detailed nod to a different tradition altogether: samurai. Also known as bushi, samurai were an elite military […]

Dubbed “rats of the skies,” urban pigeons are often viewed as a nuisance today, but these wily birds are in fact feral descendants of esteemed domesticated ancestors. Documented in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and Mesopotamian cuneiform, pigeons have been historically valued as food, holy symbols, pets, and—thanks to a remarkable homing […]

In the 16th century, Italian Renaissance painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo spurred an idiosyncratic trend in portraiture, elaborating on the symbolism of fruits, animals, and objects by arranging them compositionally into human faces. Arcimboldo’s work inspired some European illustrators to portray tradespeople as physical embodiments of their work, such as Nicolas de […]

As a communication designer, Kelli Anderson began her career in information design. “The act of data visualization is all about bringing facts from the abstract and numerical realm into the sphere of perception, so you can see them,” she says in a video on Kickstarter. “And I thought, why stop […]

One could argue that every great painting produces two works of art: the canvas and the surface where the pigments are mixed. The Artist’s Palette, forthcoming from Princeton University Press on November 5, dives deep into a timeless studio tool, exploring the beauty of the process. Compiled by art historian […]

Engulfed in their own finery, the subjects of Volker Hermes’ portraits epitomize a bygone era. From the Italian High Renaissance to French Rococo, his digital reinterpretations playfully hide the faces of wealthy and aristocratic sitters. Hidden Portraits: Old Masters Reimagined, a new book forthcoming this month, gathers a quintessential selection […]

In 1929, sought-after New York fashion model Lee Miller moved to Paris to apprentice with surrealist photographer Man Ray, joining an influential circle of artists. She and Ray worked so closely together, in fact, that many of her photos have been erroneously attributed to him. Like many women, Miller’s work […]

In 2022, we shared news of a monumental discovery at Peru’s Nazca Pampa, a UNESCO World Heritage site once home to pre-Inca Indigenous peoples who were fond of etching gargantuan artworks into the earth’s surface. Discovered in 1927, archaeologists spent nearly a century uncovering 430 figurative glyphs depicting animals, people, […]

The cape penduline tit, found in the sub-tropical shrublands of southern Africa, builds an innovative nest that includes a false chamber to trick predators. And the brown noddy, a tropical seabird, constructs a small platform from its own guano upon which to lay a single egg. Dozens more species feature […]