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Mrs. Schuyler Burning Her Wheat
This painting by Emanuel Leutze is based on a patriotic story from the American Revolutionary War. |
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Biographical Sarcophagus
The decoration on this sarcophagus tells the life story of a soldier from ancient Rome. |
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Memorial Quilt
Made in 1848, this quilt memorializes an American soldier from the Mexican-American War.
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Indian Wedding
This busy scene painted in 1690 depicts a marriage celebration.
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Family Portrait
Having a portrait—or a picture of yourself—made was a formal event in 1887.
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Pepita
A portrait tells us about the person through clues like details on the face, clothing, and pose as well as through the objects, setting, and colors we see.
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House Group
This clay sculpture of a house, from Nayarit in western Mexico, was made more than two thousand years ago.
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Mother About to Wash Her Sleepy Child
One of Mary Cassatt's favorite subjects was mothers and children in their everyday activities.
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Jizo
A bodhisattva is a being who helps others on their spiritual paths. Jizo is famous for his great compassion and power to help people in difficult situations.
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Chocolate Bowl
This clay bowl for serving a chocolate drink is about 1,600 years old and was made by the Maya people living in Guatemala in Central America.
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Weeping Coconuts
Some people consider this painting by Frida Kahlo to be a self-portrait, in which the artist shows the things that connected to her life.
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An Artist's Retreat
This is just one of many handscrolls artist Xiang Shengmo made to represent his desire to leave behind public life and enjoy a peaceful existence alone.
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Frank Lloyd Wright
American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who designed this lamp, believed that a building, its setting, and everything inside it should all create one look.
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Images from Ancient Egypt
In ancient Egypt, some people asked artists to represent them on a stela so the living would remember them after their deaths.
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The Road to the Studio
As artist David Hockney has said, "I like [bright color] and surround myself with it because I think, frankly, it makes life a bit more joyful."
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Lord of Good Fortune
Ganesha, god of good fortune and destroyer of obstacles, is worshipped by many Hindus before beginning important activities like travel or taking a test.
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Catching Butterflies
Artist Rufino Tamayo came to believe that pre-Columbian and folk art were the truest expressions of Mexican culture.
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The Afterlife in Ancient Egypt
The image shown here is a detail of a sarcophagus, or coffin, decorated with images from the Egyptian Book of the Dead.
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Flowers on a Ledge
Dutch Artist Ambrosius Bosschaert painted this still life nearly four hundred years ago in Holland. How many different types of flowers did the artist include?
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Elements of Nature in Art
Take a close look at this lamp. Louis Comfort Tiffany designed it after a type of plant that he liked known as a pond lily.
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Liberty Enlightening the World
Few sculptures in the world are as famous at this one. We know it as the Statue of Liberty, but its actual name is Liberty Enlightening the World.
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Stained-Glass Panel with Angel
For the faithful, the colored light created by stained-glass windows in Gothic cathedrals symbolized the presence of God.
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Man Jaguar
In ancient Mexico, between 1200 and 400 B.C., a civilization called the Olmec believed their rulers could transform into jaguars and other powerful creatures.
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Aquamanile
Around the time this aquamanile was made, artists in Europe sometimes invented imaginary beasts that were supposed to scare evil away.
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Artworks in Everyday Life
In some cultures, art is part of daily life. Look closely at the stool pictured here. How does it compare to the chairs or stools you use at home or at school?
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Flower Day
In nearly all of his work, Diego Rivera found ways to celebrate Mexican culture and its connection to nature.
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Red-Blue Chair
De Stijl artists made designs that focus on straight lines, right angles, and the primary colors red, blue, and yellow.
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Cliff Dwellers
Artists of the Ashcan School painted realistic scenes of the everyday lives of the working class and the poor in the early 1900s.
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A Place to Store Treasured Objects
The artist who made this reliquary around the year 1510 took great care to create a realistic image of a woman.
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Drawn to the Desert
Horse's Skull with Pink Rose is one of many paintings Georgia O'Keeffe created to define her feelings about the New Mexico desert, which she called "the faraway."
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Star-Shaped Tile
An artist made this colorful tile in Iran a little over five hundred years ago.
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Flags Over Fifth Avenue
See if you can match the flag with the country in this 1918 painting, which the artist Childe Hassam was inspired to make after watching a parade on Fifth Avenue.
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Rustic Ware
Can lizards and slimy fish be the subjects of fine art? French artist Bernard Palissy thought so, and made some very unusual ceramics to prove the point.
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Lord of Obstacles
The Hindu god Ganesha has the head of an elephant, a round belly, and many arms.
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Maiolica Dish
This dish gives us an idea of what the Italian countryside might have looked like in the late 1500s.
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Piazza San Marco
Canaletto combined two views of the piazza, one from the west and one from the south, and the result is a painting that is slightly better than the real thing.
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Thoth: Scribe of Life
The writing of hieroglyphics was considered a sacred act, and Egyptians believed that Thoth presided over the scribes.
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The Enlightened One
A Buddha is someone who has reached a state of complete peacefulness called enlightenment.
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The Young Artist
Have you ever thought about becoming an artist? The painting pictured here was painted in the mid-1800s. What does it tell us about an artist's education at that time?
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