Altamira Cave’s recognition as the “Sistine Chapel of Quaternary Art” is well deserved, given the cave’s magnificent paintings (and engravings) and importance to our understanding of similarly decorated caverns throughout Europe. Found in 1879 by an intrepid little girl who happened to stumble upon this incredible find, Altamira Cave is located in northern Spain. The cave zigzags through the ground, extending almost 300 meters in total length. The ceiling varies in height to a maximum of 12 meters and in width to 20 meters.  The age of the cave is a story in and of itself. While many scholars […]

Frans Hals the Elder was a Dutch Golden Age painter, chiefly of individual and group portraits and of genre works. Hals played an important role in the evolution of 17th-century group portraiture. He is known for his loose painterly brushwork. His pictures illustrate the various strata of society: banquets or meetings of officers, guildsmen, local councilmen from mayors to clerks, itinerant players and singers, gentlemen, fishwives, and tavern heroes. In his group portraits, such as The Banquet of the Officers of the St Adrian Militia Company in 1627, Hals captures each character in a different manner. The faces are not idealized and are clearly distinguishable, with their personalities revealed in […]

Roelant Savery primarily painted landscapes in the Flemish tradition of Gillis van Coninxloo, often embellished with many meticulously painted animals and plants, regularly with a mythological or biblical theme as background. He also painted multiple flower still lifes; bouquets in stone niches, sometimes with lizards such as Flowers with Two Lizards, insects or fallen petals and regarded as his best work. Savery is famous for being the most prolific and influential illustrator of the extinct dodo, having made at least ten depictions, often showing it in the lower corners. A famous painting of his from 1626, now called Edwards’ Dodo as it was once owned by […]

Frida Kahlo is known for her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by the country’s popular culture, she employed a naïve folk art style to explore questions of identity, postcolonialism, gender, class, and race in Mexican society. Her paintings often had strong autobiographical elements and mixed realism with fantasy. In addition to belonging to the post-revolutionary Mexicayotl movement, which sought to define a Mexican identity, Kahlo has been described as a surrealist or magical realist. She is also known for painting about her experience of chronic pain.

  Francisco Goya was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.  His paintings, drawings, and engravings reflected contemporary historical upheavals and influenced important 19th- and 20th-century painters. Goya is often referred to as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. Goya became a court painter to the Spanish Crown in 1786 and this early portion of his career is marked by portraits of the Spanish aristocracy and royalty, and Rococo-style tapestry cartoons designed for the royal palace. Although Goya’s letters and writings survive, little is known about his thoughts. He had a severe and undiagnosed […]

The Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, Saint Peter, Saint Paul and Saint Swithun,[3] commonly known as Winchester Cathedral, is the cathedral of the city of Winchester, England, and is among the largest of its kind in Northern Europe. The cathedral is the seat of the Bishop of Winchester and is the mother church for the ancient Diocese of Winchester. It is run by a dean and chapter, under the Dean of Winchester.  The cathedral as it stands today was built from 1079 to 1532 and is dedicated to numerous saints, most notably Swithun of Winchester. It has a very long and very wide nave in the Perpendicular Gothic style, an Early […]

December 15, 1675: Dutch master painter and educator Johannes Vermeer died in Delft. Particularly renowned for his masterly treatment and use of light in his work, he painted mostly domestic interior scenes. He was recognized during his lifetime in Delft and The Hague, but his modest celebrity gave way to obscurity after his death. He was rediscovered in the nineteenth century, and he is now acknowledged as one of the greatest painters of the Dutch Golden Age. Music from the times of Johannes Vermeer January–March January 5 – Franco-Dutch War – Battle of Turckheim: The French defeat Austria and Brandenburg. January 29 – John Sassamon, an English-educated Native American Christian, dies […]