The Greek Island That Taught Me the Art of Living
Chronicling the disappearance of the old ways in a village where I was raised
Art
Look Closer: This Lizard Tells a Story
Maria Sibylla Merian’s pioneering nature painting captured animals as they were.
The Marriage That Captures a High Point of American Art
An ambitious retrospective examines the life and work of Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner—to brilliant effect.
The Vanity of Kings
How the ancient pharaohs attempted to preserve their legacies for eternity
The Artist Who Ripped Up the Rules of Drawing
Willem de Kooning was the best draftsman of his generation of postwar American artists. He had to unlearn everything he knew.
Look Closer: Edward Steichen’s Sunflower
Before the photographer left painting behind forever, he attempted to refocus it on nature.
The Painter Who Shaped Rothko
The usual story is that Milton Avery mentored, then was eclipsed by, the famed abstract expressionist. But it was more complicated than that.
Look Closer: David Hockney’s Rules of Beauty
What the artist found in a corner of the Louvre
How the Elite See Rome
Need the Colosseum to yourself? Want to see a privately owned masterpiece by Caravaggio? For the tourism fixer Fulvio De Bonis, there’s no such thing as a closed door.
Look Closer: Pieter De Hooch’s Puzzle Box
What the painter, a contemporary of Vermeer, revealed and concealed in a beguiling 1663 work