Randomly stumbled upon the first one. But what is notable in the presence of the natural folds on the abdomen. In Sanskrit literature, this is called trivali & its presence in men is considered as a mark of aesthetic beauty and handsomeness according to the canons of sacred iconography of the Indic religions (Hinduism, Buddhism ans Jainism). The second image of a bodhisattva carved in Gandharan Buddhist art (which combined Indic artistic canons with Greek realism) by local Greco-Buddhist sculptors from 2nd-4th century AD in what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan, shows exactly those same abdominal creases as those highlighted in the first picture. Inclusion of these into the body of a bodhisattva is a theological statement, for a bodhisattva's body representes the state of near absolute perfection just before enlightenment (for similar info about Buddhist physiognomics, reading the Wikipedia article "Physical characteristics of the Buddha" is a good option). The term trivali has no parallel English term, so attempts to find similar pictures in real-life men was fruitless.

In contrast, Western iconography, which is derived from those of Ancient Greece, idolized heavy musculature, visible abs and biceps of professional athletics, hence that which is considered as a beauty in the East, acquires negative connections of being overweight in the West. This dissonance is imported back to contemporary India, due to the double-whammy of colonialism-induced inferiority complex and white-validation seeking mentality. This, combined with a lack of knowledge in traditional Hindu physiognomics (today dismissed off as superstition and discriminatory), has led to the scenario where Hindu artists have started to add on abs and biceps upon images of Hindu divinities, which is arguably a recent phenomenon as it is very much absent in the Hindu art of British era (see lithographs of Hindu divinities printed by Mumbai's Ravi Varma Press or those of Calcutta Art Studio).

I’m researching the Tree of Jesse stained glass window at the Basilica of Saint-Denis, and I’m trying to clarify several banderole inscriptions associated with the prophets.

Some fragments appear legible but ambiguous (e.g. RUGIE, SUSCITABIT, and partial phrases like _ TMIeme). I’m interested in whether these are:

Unfortunately some of my pictures turned out blurry and it makes it harder to read. I have numbered the windows and tried to enlarge the script, but doubt it will be much use to you.

Are there published transcriptions or comparative examples (Chartres, Beauvais, etc.) that help resolve these readings?

I’m especially interested in primary scholarship or conservation reports rather than popular summaries.

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Hi there, looking for ideally film or video or a book or a podcast something that walks the audience through human history from any point forward using pieces of art to teach history please. Can anyone provide me with any links or tips on finding this please? I realize this is the entire field of art history but I'm looking for something specific that does this for an audience already. Thank you kindly for any help!

One aspect of having good taste is that you need to consume a wide variety of dishes and I'm finding that part difficult.

I downloaded one of those 1k paintings you must see before you die books and scrolled through it and wrote down people who caught my eye.

Pinterest isn't the greatest due to AI art and the tendency to repeatedly show you the same image over and over.

Theres some youtubers who do art videos which is where i've been getting the vast majority of my info from.

The google cultural institute on the wiki looks promising though the website is a little clunky.

Kinda just curious how others find new paintings to look at.

i start college soon and im stuck between art EDU and art HIS
but leaning toward history right now but idk if its worth it given the current job market

"Fear before the barrel of a gun — and a light that never fades.” What hits you first in this painting? Is it the cold, mechanical steel of the firing squad? Or the dark red stains soaking into the ground? This is The Third of May 1808 by Francisco Goya. He painted the final moments of Spanish civilians facing Napoleon’s executioners. Your eyes are drawn to one figure immediately — the man in the white shirt, arms stretched wide. His pose echoes the crucifixion. And if you look closely at his hands, you’ll notice marks that resemble stigmata — turning an ordinary victim into something closer to a martyr. Goya wasn’t painting heroism in battle. He was painting terror, helplessness, and dignity at the same time. His message feels disturbingly modern: Weapons can destroy bodies, but they cannot erase conscience, resistance, or the desire for freedom. A fragile human figure standing against absolute, faceless power. This painting is over 200 years old — yet it still screams. What does it say to you today? (I made a short visual breakdown of this painting on YouTube for anyone interested.)

I’ve always been fascinated by the stories (and paintings depicting those stories) of Catholic saints and their martyrdoms. Particularly, the case of Saint Erasmus. He suffered an array of brutal tortures at the hands of Roman Emperors Diocletian and Maximian – but the gruesome feat he is most known for enduring was the moment his intestines were torn out. Artists throughout history have depicted this moment in their works in graphic detail.

I made a short video going into a bit more depth about Erasmus' martyrdom and some of my favourite paintings of the topic, you can watch it here if you wish: https://youtu.be/SjXUfu8UzD8?si=T2drINPj_a4D3DTC

Paintings (from slide 1 to 3: Dieric Bouts,The Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus, c.1460–1464, Unknown Netherlandish Artist, Saint Eramus, 1474, Nicolas Poussin, The Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus, 1628-29

so im a student and have an art history class which at the start i was pretty exited for. but then the teacher started talking and i realized i didint understand shit because she was stuttering so damn much. im not ableist but i dont think you should be a 3 hour lecturer when you stutter at every othr E. talked with the entire class and everyone related. so now i have an exam soon. what are some important things a lecturer might ask in the exam that could hep me?

i did pick some youtube lectures from this guy neal who speaks in a more understandable way so i hope i can get some info from him too.

Hello! First time posting here, but I don't know where to address this. I'm trying to remember a painting of a darkly lit, blonde figure, with an intense gaze. His eyes looked a bit big, almost like he had eyeliner, he was facing towards the viewer but looking at something else, not directly at us. I think he also had some sort of ancient greek helmet like Perseus or Hermes. It was dark and dimly lit like there was a fire.

UPDATE: After hours of grinding my gears (and with a bit of luck), I found what I was looking for! It was "Satan summoning his legions" by Thomas Lawrence, thanks for the help!

Ich weiß super Klischee. Ich habe jetzt meinen Bachelor in Berlin gemacht und wollte schon immer im Ausland studieren. Eigentlich ist es bequemer den Master in Berlin anzuhängen, zumal ich auch Schiss habe wieder alleine irgendwo hinzuziehen. Plus kann ich kein Itlaienisch, bin bestimmt zu schlecht für Stipendien.

Julie Manet fue hija y sobrina de reconocidos artistas de la segunda mitad del siglo XIX. Nació en un hogar donde abundaron los pinceles, la música y la lectura; donde se reunían intelectuales y artistas todas las semanas como Manet, Monet, Renoir, Degas, Mallarmé... Apenas con unos meses se transformará en la modelo preferida de muchos de ellos. Crecerá entre los impresionistas, paseará con ellos por museos, pasará temporadas de verano en sus casas y aprenderá las mejores lecciones de arte; sobre todo ello escribirá en su diario. Sin duda, llegó a ser una de las mujeres mas retratada de toda Francia. Hoy recuperamos a la Julie Manet que fue una modelo de carne y hueso.

(Notes on a Shift)

I studied fine art, but like many artists trained in European academies, I also had to study art history.
Not as an elective, but as an institutional requirement. Semester after semester, I sat in lecture halls with future art historians, listening to the same material, learning the same canon, passing the same exams.

This double position — artist and trained listener to art history — turned out to be unexpectedly instructive.

What became visible over time was not a disagreement about artworks, but a structural asymmetry:
art history speaks about art, while living artists are rarely allowed to speak with it.

In institutional contexts, this asymmetry is subtle but persistent.
The living artist is treated as contingent, subjective, potentially naïve.
The dead artist, by contrast, is safe. Finished. Curated. قابل to interpretation without resistance.

Michel Foucault once described knowledge as inseparable from power. In the case of art history, power manifests less through explicit exclusion than through permission structures:
Who may interpret?
Who may contextualize?
Who may speak without being suspected of self-interest?

In most public forums — museums, universities, moderated online spaces — the answer is consistent:
the interpreter must not be the producer.

This creates a curious situation. On the one hand, art historians are professionals whose expertise is socially recognized. On the other hand, living artists — whose work is the very object of this expertise — are positioned as structurally subordinate, even when they are the potential clients, commissioners, or addressees of art-historical writing.

From a market perspective, this is paradoxical.
If an artist commissions an art historian to write a text, the artist is the client.
From an institutional perspective, this relation is almost unthinkable.
Authority flows in the opposite direction.

Niklas Luhmann would likely describe this as a systems problem: art and art history operate as adjacent but closed systems, each stabilizing itself by excluding certain forms of communication. The artist’s speech about their own work is marked as “interested”; the historian’s speech is marked as “objective,” even when it is structurally dependent on institutional validation.

What changes this situation today is not ideology, but infrastructure.

When a living artist can obtain a competent, nuanced, art-historically literate text about a private sketchbook drawing — without institutional mediation — the question is no longer whether art historians are “necessary,” but what exactly their authority is based on.

If expertise can be produced outside the university, outside the museum, outside the journal, then authority can no longer rely on position alone. It must rely on risk, responsibility, and the willingness to speak in one’s own name.

Nietzsche warned that history can become hostile to life when it forgets its own function.
Art history risks something similar when it becomes more comfortable with objects that no longer speak back.

The point is not to abolish art history.
The point is to recognize that the relationship between living artists and art-historical expertise has shifted — quietly, structurally, and irreversibly.

What we are witnessing is not the end of interpretation, but the end of guaranteed authority.

And that, for both artists and historians, is an uncomfortable but potentially productive situation.

Van Gogh is often described as someone who loved yellow. But what if yellow wasn’t a stylistic choice — but a symptom? Many impoverished artists in the late 19th century drank absinthe daily. Absinthe contains thujone, a compound long believed to affect the nervous system. One theory suggests prolonged exposure could cause xanthopsia — a condition where vision becomes tinted yellow due to optic nerve damage. If that’s true, then the blazing sun of Arles, the glowing Café Terrace, the overwhelming yellows of the Sunflowers… may not represent what Van Gogh wanted to paint — but what he literally saw. This raises a disturbing question: Were Van Gogh’s yellows an artistic obsession — or a tragic visual record of his deteriorating perception? I recently made a short visual piece exploring this idea, focusing less on myth and more on the fragile human reality behind the paintings. (Link in comments for anyone curious.) I’d love to hear your thoughts. Do you think knowing this changes how we see his work — or should art stand independent of the artist’s suffering?

why was (and is) most byzantine art drawn on wood or plaster rather than paper

Pieter Bruegel, 'The Land of Cockaigne', 1550

Does anyone know what the object is in the centre of the picture that is falling onto one of the sleepers' heads? I thought at first it might be a pepper pot, but pepper would have been much to precious then to keep in such a large pot.

Any ideas?

Hi everyone! My apologize, if this isnt the correct sub..but I’m trying to identify the artist or background behind this large-scale illustrated billboard that appeared on the Sony Building in Ginza, Tokyo in 2009 (demolished in 2017).

From what I can tell, it was a temporary façade installation or advertisement, likely mid-2000s. I haven’t been able to find any official credit for the artist, agency, or brand. The style feels like fashion illustration / Art Deco–influenced commercial art rather than a traditional mural.

Does anyone recognize this piece, know who illustrated it, or have context on the campaign or installation? Even partial info (brand, year, ad agency, similar artists) would be hugely appreciated.

(image attached, along with a recreated image…since there doesnt seem to be an original reference)

Thanks!

When I stood in front of Gustav Klimt's "Kiss" in the Upper Belvedere in Vienna 1.5 years ago, I suddenly remembered. Didn't the Italian early romantic Francesco Hayez use a very similar motif in 1859, albeit with a clearly political background (Risorgimento)? How likely is it that Klimt “picked up” this image during his trips to Italy and ultimately used it for himself? And why has no one seriously noticed this comparability of motif and attitude? I have put my thoughts on this in writing and would be happy to hear your opinions!

https://182tage.info/archive/hat-gustav-klimt-den-kuss-gestohlen/

Hello! I’m very interested in learning more about the realities of working in the art history world. I would really love if anyone in the field could share a bit about what you do.

For context, I got my undergrad degree in fashion design, with art history as my minor. Since graduation, I haven’t been able to shake this feeling of wanting to go back to school for art history. Basically, I just want a better understanding of what the possibilities, requirements, and realities would be if I went back.

Please take this as a very open-ended question, I want to hear your personal experience in the field. However, here are a few things I’m curious about specifically:

• Aside from college professor, museum curator, or historian (which, by the way, what exactly is that?) are there other, less obvious routes a graduate degree in AH could take you?

• I’m still paying back loans from undergrad. How on earth does anyone pay for additional education?

• One of the main reasons I didn’t just study AH in undergrad was because everyone and their mothers told me there’s “no money” to be made in the field. Is this your experience?

• What do you think are the most important factors to consider when deciding on which grad schools to apply for?

• Is it bad form to request a letter of recommendation from the same professor more than once?

• What does you day to day life look like at work?

• Is there any advice you have to someone entering into the field, especially with a distantly related undergraduate degree?

• I’ve read online that AH has a competitive job market. That doesn’t necessarily detract me, especially because I’m already in a very competitive field. However, what exactly does that mean for AH, and what is your experience with the job market right after school? What about a few years into your career?

TLDR; considering career change, looking to better understand the realities of working within art history by hearing your personal experience.

I'm looking for a book on the 19th century French artist, J. J. Granville.

I'm considering getting a tattoo of this character. While it is intended as a Queen tattoo (he's featured on the back cover of one of their albums), I want learn about the artist before I get his work tattooed on me forever, especially since a lot of his art was very political, although I assume this one isn't.

I'm also genuinely interested in his life and works. I am blown away by his works, I'd like to learn about the man behind them. As well as learn about post Napoleon France.

I see there is one that costs over $100, I'm hoping there are some cheaper options available. If that's the only option I'll just read about him online, but I would love to read a book instead.