How Artemisia Gentileschi, the Pioneering 17th-Century Female Painter, Outdid Caravaggio with the Striking, Violent Judith Beheading Holofernes (c. 1620)

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Today, the name Judith hardly calls to mind a woman capable of great violence. Things seem to have been different in antiquity: “The Biblical story from the Book of Judith tells how the beautiful Israelite widow Judith bravely seduces and then kills the sexually aggressive Assyrian general Holofernes in order to save her people,” says…

Ian Bremmer on The Israel-Hamas War, and What It Means for the World

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In the wake of Hamas’ gruesome attack on Israeli civilians, political scientist Ian Bremmer explains “the historical context of the conflict, how Israel might respond and what it means for Jews, Palestinians and the world at large.” The conversation also covers “how the US may factor into the global response and how to find…

An Introduction to René Magritte, and How the Belgian Artist Used an Ordinary Style to Create Extraordinarily Surreal Paintings

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With his dark suit, neat haircut, and bowler hat, René Magritte embodied early-twentieth-century Belgian normality. Yet the feelings his work stirred in their viewers were very much the opposite of normal. He had various ways of accomplishing this. One was “to combine two familiar objects and make a new one,” says gallerist-Youtuber James Payne…

The Fantastic Women Of Surrealism: An Introduction

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When André Breton, a leader of the Surrealist movement and author of its first manifesto, wrote that “the problem of woman is the most marvelous and disturbing problem in all the world,” he was not alluding to the unfair lack of recognition experienced by his female peers.

Marquee name Surrealists like…

When the US Government Commissioned 7,497 Watercolor Paintings of Every Known Fruit in the World (1886)

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A picture is worth 1000 words, especially when you are a late-19th or early-20th century horticulturist eager to protect intellectual property rights to newly cultivated varieties of fruit.

Or an artistically gifted woman of the same era, looking for a steady, respectable source of income.

In 1886, long before color photography was…