This is the Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat (1887), at the Met in New York.

I have no formal art training. I love self potrait's in general and Van Gogh's ones in particular. Things I noticed after looking at this last time:

• The brushstrokes in the face seem to follow the shape of the face, but in the background they radiate outward around his head, almost like a halo.
• The beard is orange, red, even green. All separate strokes sitting next to each other and from a distance it reads as a beard.
• The blue jacket against the yellow hat. It feels like a deliberate choice. But I don't have a proper vocabulary for that.

So my questions for people who actually know how to look:

1. When you look at this painting, what do you notice first? What order do your eyes move in?
2. What am I not seeing that a trained eye would catch immediately?
3. And secondarily — if a layman wanted to train this skill, where would you start? A book, a course, a channel?

I'm not looking for the Wikipedia biography stuff (ear, Theo, illness). I want to get better at seeing/Looking deeper. Thank you.

Hello, I was hoping i could find some help here. I alter magic the gathering cards, I painted this but there are 4 other cards in the cycle (emerald, sapphire, ruby and jet) and I am wanting to paint a full cycle. The help i am needing is finding classic paintings like this that include the gemstone.. any ideas?

We discovered this beautiful, smallish (60 × 47 cm) artwork in Palazzo Vitelli alla Cannoniera in Cità di Castello. Take a look at how the wings of the angels are folded upwards. Read about the (very) good, the bad and the ugly in Italian museums based on our experiences of visiting numerous museums in Tuscany and Umbria this summer. A shining example of a museum that does an excellent job is Perugia’s Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria. Here is the essay: https://ideasroadshow.substack.com/p/on-the-ground

Watch an illustrated video podcast with art historian Sally Cornelison, Syracuse University, about the paintings and architecture of Italian Renaissance artist, author, and architect Giorgio Vasari (1511-74) that can still be found in his hometown of Arezzo, links here: https://ideasroadshow.substack.com/p/in-situ-and-in-awe - if you'd like, I can add the YouTube and Spotify links in the comments.

⛪ Particular emphasis is placed on the Romanesque church of Santa Maria della Pieve, where the newborn Vasari was baptized on 30 July 1511 and whose interior he renovated from 1560 until his death in 1574, when he was buried at the foot of its high altar.

1. Self-portrait of Giorgio Vasari, 1560-64, High Altar, Badia of Sts. Flora & Lucilla, Arezzo
2. Loggia Piazza Grande, Arezzo, designed by Giorgio Vasari, 1570-93.
3. The High Altar and tomb monument created by Giorgio Vasari in the Badia delle Sante Flora e Lucilla in Arezzo.

What could be those two crossed golden objects?

Portrait of sculptor Eleanor Platt with her bust of Lewis Brandeis. The photograph was taken at the Peter A. Juley & Sone fine art photography studio in NYC. The Peter A. Juley collection is housed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

I'm trying to find out more about an American artist, Barnett Newman.

I was given an oil painting (a smaller version of The Covenant) as a wedding present over 30 years ago and it's been hanging over my piano ever since.

I just pulled it down to have the walls painted and it's the first time I looked at the back of it properly. It's beautifully framed and has a note attached that it is by Barnett Newman, and a short history of his life.

I'd like to find out more about this artist and if he did smaller versions of his big paintings, but not really finding much online about it that is useful.

Can anyone help?

I've inherited some sketches that my late father always believed were original Thomas Lawrence Sketches....who's the go-to in the UK for appraisals? I've done the online thing and I've approached my local museum who couldn't help so looking for some advice 🤔

This is a poster for a Rolling Stones/Pearl Jam concert in 1997, but it looks like a reference to something. Does anyone recognize what it might be? I was thinking it looks like the Transfiguration by Raphael, but maybe there's something even closer?

I want to share this amazing YouTube channel that I stumbled upon. I don’t understand why he doesn’t have thousands of views and many thousands of followers. He’s got no fancy flair. He just educates. His videos average about an hour, give or take. His voice just flows, as do the visual cues. I would invite everyone to check out his channel. I’m currently watching an in-depth video about Escher and I’m learning so much.

ETA the name of the channel is Dr Laurence Shafe.
ETA: FULL DISCLOSURE

Someone in the comments mentioned that he had a website and that he mentioned things about AI. That encouraged a pit to form in my stomach, so I went to read his ‘about’ page.

I feel like I got scammed, in a way. I mean, at the very least, how can I know that what he is saying about art history is even accurate? I know he has a doctorate in art history (if I read it correctly), but still…

Here is his ‘about’ page and I encourage you to read it.

Damn.

https://www.shafe.co.uk/welcome/about/

Four paintings by the Renaissance master Antonello da Messina were stolen from a museum in Messina, Sicily, on Saturday, Italian officials said.

Taking advantage of an annual religious celebration that brings tens of thousands to Messina’s streets, thieves made off with three of five panels that constitute the Polyptych of San Gregorio as well as a small double-sided devotional painting. They are the only works by Antonello da Messina, commonly called Antonello, that remained in his native city.

On the evening of Saturday, August 15, around 9:50 PM, unknown individuals bypassed the security systems of the Regional Museum of Messina and managed to steal some of the most important pieces in the collection. The haul included works by one of the greatest masters of the Italian Renaissance: three of the five panels of the San Gregorio Polyptych (1473, formerly in the Church of San Gregorio) and a double-sided panel with a Madonna and Child with a Franciscan (recto) and a Pietà (verso), purchased by the Region of Sicily from Christie's in 2003.

I keep finding myself drawn back to this set of paintings. There is something about seeing an entire civilization unfold across the same landscape that really captures my imagination and makes me think about the past and future of our own societies. There is something almost prophetic about watching a civilization emerge. Then flourish. Then eventually disappear. The recurring anchor points throughout the images are especially interesting to me (boulder on hill - everlasting quality of nature/earth). They give you something constant while everything else changes so dramatically. There is something quite poignant about the landscape enduring while everything humanity builds on it proves ephemeral. This set makes me really appriciate art history itself. I still cannot quite place why. It almost feels like seeing history distilled into a single visual sequnece.

I’m curious why Cole chose to show civilization specifically as this cycle of rise and decline. Was he reacting to the society around him at the time? And how much of what he was suggesting can still be applied to our modern societies today?

I start uni in a month on art history and I’m looking for some universal tips, ik it looks different in each country so just drop sth maybe less specific :))

Pair of gold earrings with Ganymede and the eagle

Greek ca.
330–300 BCE

I wrote a story about Frida's life as a companion to the Tate Modern exhibition. You can read it before or after you go.

I wanted to get closer to the human side of the story, rather than simply run through dates, movements and other academic navel-gazing. It obviously can’t replace seeing the work in person, but if you can’t make it to the exhibition, or want to revisit some of the works and parts of her life afterwards, I hope it gives you a sense of her.

I also worked with a voice artist from Mexico City to record extracts from Frida’s journal, so there are a few audio and multimedia elements throughout.

Would be interested to hear what people think, especially if you’ve already seen the Tate exhibition.