“Medieval artists were experts of the monstrous. From dragons, unicorns, and other fabled beasts, to hybrid creations that combined wings, tails, and limbs in effortlessly inventive ways, the craftsmen and illuminators of the Middle Ages drew on an encyclopedic knowledge of monstrosities to fill the… Read More
“The Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, one of the great autograph collectors of the twentieth century, once begged Rainer Maria Rilke for a precious gift: the manuscript of one of Rilke’s own poems. “I realize it is a lot to ask,” Zweig told his friend, “for… Read More
“Best known for his rich, colorful paintings of cakes, ice cream cones, and candy counters, California artist Wayne Thiebaud (b. 1920) has been an avid and prolific draftsman since he began his career as an illustrator and cartoonist. Featuring subjects that range from deli counters… Read More
“The Thaw Collection is considered among the foremost private collections of drawings assembled over the last half century. It was first promised to the Morgan in 1975 by Eugene V. Thaw, now a Life Trustee, and the museum received the full collection of 424 works… Read More
“The French refer to the seventeenth century—especially the reigns of Louis XIII (r. 1610–43) and Louis XIV (r. 1643–1715)—as the Grand Siècle, or the Great Century. During this time, France reached a peak of political power and cultural richness. Artists born in France or the… Read More
Photographs by Corrado Serra. The analogy between the art of the painter and the art of the novelist is, so far as I am able to see, complete. Their inspiration is the same, their process (allowing for the different quality of the vehicle), is the same, their success… Read More
“Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) occupies a lofty place in American cultural history. He spent two years in a cabin by Walden Pond and a single night in jail, and out of those experiences grew two of this country’s most influential works: his book Walden and the essay known as “Civil Disobedience.”… Read More
“The Nationalmuseum, Sweden’s largest and most distinguished art institution, collaborated with the Morgan Library & Museum to bring more than seventy-five masterpieces from its renowned collections to New York in an extraordinary new exhibition. The Nationalmuseum’s core holdings were assembled by Count Carl Gustaf Tessin (1696–1770), a diplomat and… Read More
“Emily Dickinson, long acknowledged as one of the most important poets of the nineteenth century, remains an enigmatic figure. Often remembered as a reclusive genius, Dickinson was in fact deeply connected to her world. Her reputation for solitude stands in sharp contrast to the evidence… Read More
“The Symbolist movement coalesced during the second half of the nineteenth century amidst the era’s artistic emphasis on representing objective reality. Writers in France and Belgium sought a new form of art—one that invoked the visible world purely as symbols that correlate to the ineffable… Read More
“Five hundred years ago a monk in a backwater town at the edge of Germany took on the most powerful men in Europe—the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope—and he won. Martin Luther’s Reformation ranks among the most successful religious movements in history, altering western society and culture forever, and… Read More
“In the mid-1940s, French artist Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985) shocked the art establishment with his paintings inspired by children’s drawings, graffiti, and the art of psychiatric patients. Rejecting conventional notions of beauty and good taste, Dubuffet asserted that invention and creativity could only be found outside traditional cultural channels.… Read More
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