Featured Image Attribute Jackson Pollock-CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication Description of Lecture What caused American painting to take off as it did in the mid-20th century? The painter Willem de Kooning attributed its initial success to the work of his friend Jackson Pollock whom he credited with ‘breaking the ice’. My talk...

Featured Image Attribute Netherlandish Proverbs (The Blue Cloak) by Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1526/1530–1569) Description of Lecture In 1565, Pieter Bruegel the Elder was commissioned to create a series of paintings for a dining room in Antwerp. The images, charting the course of a year, changed the way we view the world through art. Landscape...

Featured Image Attribute The Entry of Alexander into Babylon, about 1665–probably by 1676, made at the Royal Factory of Furniture to the Crown at the Gobelins Manufactory. Design by Charles Le Brun; cartoon for the vertical-warp loom by Henri Testelin; weaving by Jean Jans the Elder, Jean Jans the Younger, or Jean Lefebvre. Wool, silk,...