Utilitarian Object or Sculpture?
First of all, let me clarify the use of “utilitarian” or “decorative arts.” These are unfortunately terms art historians are stuck with from the 1800s art history gods in Weste ...
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Curator's Corner
Stories of Ruler Portraits
Since (ugh) election time coming around once again, let’s look at some interesting portraits of people who were never elected (except for the last one). There are always interesting tidbits abou ...
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Curator's Corner
Some Thoughts about Stools
Does furniture have a soul? I sort of think it does. We sit on, lean on, and lie down on furniture for most of our lives. It’s hard to believe that something of our souls does not get infused in ...
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Curator's Corner
Abstraction is Nothing New: Ancient Egypt
I’m making a declaration: artists were inspired to create abstract art thousands of years ago. When one (and by “one” I mean a person reading an art history text) reads about any art ...
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Curator's Corner
Survey No. 12: Abstraction
In our art history survey, we are now at the end with the 1900s. The big “revelation” in Western art starting very late in the 1800s and flowering in the early 1900s was abstraction. Abstr ...
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Curator's Corner
Hierarchical Size
Hierarchy is the level of importance allotted to an object, or, for the sake of this posting, a person. Hierarchical size deals with the principle of design known as proportion. Proportion has to do w ...
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Curator's Corner
My Amenhotep III Excitement
The typical art history dork in me skipped through an imaginary daisy field last week when I read this article about the display of artifacts from the tomb of Amenhotep III (died ca. 1354 bce) in Theb ...
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Curator's Corner
Holy Cats!
I’m always interested in how important of a role domesticated animals have played in the history of art, particularly in the sphere of funerary art. They almost always take on a protective or st ...
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Curator's Corner
You Think You Know Ancient Egypt?
At first glance this small sculpture would lead the viewer to believe that it was firmly within the realm of ancient Egyptian art. It actually belongs to a culture that bordered dynastic Egypt, and tw ...
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Curator's Corner
Cross-Cultural Similarities: Cambodia
I am really not convinced that aliens came to Earth in ancient times and seeded cultures with the same aesthetic ideas, despite programs on NatGeo or TLC that still propose such scenarios, comparing t ...
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