Monks and peasants once used cobwebs as canvases for painting

The history of iconic pigments used in seven famous paintings

While art paints can be bought by the bucket at any craft store today, pigments throughout history have been difficult to come by. Art historian Kelly Grovier traces the fascinating history of pigments that make up hidden layers in masterpieces from Picasso and Hokusai’s Prussian Blue to Vermeer’s shade of red.

Medieval monasteries preserved ancient knowledge through hand-copied books

Medieval monks and nuns lived in religious communities devoted to work and prayer. Still, their script-copying traditions had a lasting impact: through illuminated manuscripts, monasteries preserved hundreds of ancient texts that might have otherwise been lost.

How did ancient cave painters manage to see what they were doing?

As ancient artists made their way deep into caves and created massive works of art that continue to inspire awe today, they would've required light sources to see what they were doing. This gallery details some of the light sources that cave artists...

The Easter story in paintings from the National Gallery

Walk through the entire narrative of Holy Week, painting by painting, from the "Agony in the Garden" to the "Supper at Emmaus" from masters like Titian and Caravaggio.

Picasso's 'Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' is seen as the start of cubism

The 1907 work rejects many of the art world norms of the time, like linear perspective and realistic depictions of light. Picasso's painting also nods to African masks, demonstrating a willingness to indulge in styles outside the Western canon.

Traditionally, a glut of unused eggs during Lent would be decorated at Easter

That's how the tradition started, at least in the more orthodox (or strict) branches of Christianity, which didn't eat meat, dairy, or eggs the whole period. By the end, there was more than could be eaten, so decorations ensued.

The history of soap and how it forms bathtub scum and white spots in old oil paintings

Soap has been produced since at least 2,200 BCE via a chemical reaction between fats or oils and a base. This creates salts that act as molecular bridges, helping water lift dirt and grease from surfaces. The same chemistry produces scum when metals in hard water bind to soap molecules, as well as white spots in paintings when metal ions in pigments react with fatty acids in the oil binder.

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

A close look at the figures in Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel

The ceiling of the chapel—the site at the Vatican in Rome where the Roman Catholic Church selects the pope—was painted between 1508 and 1512. There are dozens of figures depicted on the ceiling and walls pulled from the Bible's Old Testament, with the centerpiece the nine center panels covering the Creation, Noah's Ark, and more. Explore a rich interpretation of the piece in this video.

Peter Brueghel's 'Hunters in the Snow' depicts winter beauty and hardship

The Dutch painter and printmaker is known for centering ordinary subjects at a time when protestant iconoclasts protested religious images and reduced the Church's role as an arts patron. The famous painting is often viewed as a cozy winter scene, but reveals the difficulties of harsh winters during the Little Ice Age in Europe.

Andy Warhol’s Catholic background influenced his art

Warhol’s life and work hold clear religious through lines, from his Byzantine Catholic upbringing to reexaminations of his catalog, including an unfinished work for the 1968 world’s fair commissioned for the Catholic Church through a local Catholic university.

Sculpting the unrivalled stone, marble

Marble is considered the chief material for sculpture due to its intrinsic beauty, stemming from its white translucence which makes the light appear to come from the stone. In this video, sculptor Simon Smith recreates Donatello's 15th-century Prato Pulpit panel which still hangs on the outside of a church. Watch as he explains the painstaking process and reveals the beautiful final output.

This famous painting was hung upside-down for 77 years

According to a curator at a German museum, an abstract painting by Dutch artist Piet Mondrian has been displayed upside down for seventy-seven years at a number of museums.

Mini-portraits were shared as love tokens in Elizabethan England

Art historians are identifying previously unknown works by Nicholas Hilliard, Elizabeth I's court painter, whose thumb-sized watercolors on vellum served as love tokens, diplomatic currency, and status symbols. They were believed to be passed secretly between courtiers and monarchs.

Fascinating photos of abandoned Italian churches

Whether cloaked in thick moss and debris or almost entirely preserved, the abandoned churches photographed by Roman Robroek document the effects of a changing landscape. At least 1,000 of the religious spaces are left unoccupied in both small towns and cities throughout Italy and stand in varying stages of decay.

The role of textiles in South Asian art

Textiles play an essential role in the religious traditions of the Indian subcontinent, acting as portable shrines that can relay important allegories and depict spiritual iconography. This primer from Smarthistory breaks down how imagery is used on these textiles and helpfully provides high-quality images, allowing you to witness their beauty for yourself.

See these 16 pieces of art evoking phobias of snakes, flying, spiders, and more. 

The oldest recorded ghost drawing comes from ancient Babylon

An ancient Babylonian clay tablet in the British Museum presents a curious image of a ghost being led back to the afterlife. This artifact is believed to be the oldest known drawing of a spirit. According to Dr. Irving Finkel, this image is part of a guide to exorcise ghosts.

The Mona Lisa's celebrity status and repeated restorations have obscured what made the painting so revolutionary for its time

Non-Western performance art developed in its own political context

The medium’s emerging popularity in 1990s China is a perfect example of this. Many Chinese artists incorporated the practice of meditation into their works, combining the Buddhist tradition with various modes of endurance art to comment on divisions within Chinese society and the power of the government.

Revisiting the ornamental hermit craze of the 1700s

One of the more elaborate gardening trends of the 18th century was the placement of a well-designed hermitage within the landscape, a throwback to the more religious antiquity and the Middle Ages. The trend went so far for some that they hired real live hermits, preferably older, bearded, and willing to stay quiet and out of the way. Read about the wild trend here.

Norman Rockwell's 'Freedom of Speech' has become an internet meme

The famous painting, which portrays a man in work clothes speaking up in a crowd of men in suits, has become a companion image for internet users posting unpopular or controversial opinions. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

See 16 art pieces that were inspired by or evoke elements of top phobias

CBC News informally polled readers about their fears and then found works of art either inspired by or nodding to those topics.

The century-long debate over religious images in Byzantium

The iconoclast controversy, which tore Byzantium apart in the eighth and ninth centuries, centered on the use of sacred images (or icons) in Christian worship. The Iconoclasts (literally, “icon smashers”) regarded sacred images as sacrilegious; their opponents, the Iconophiles (“icon lovers”), defended icons as aids to personal devotion. After decades of struggle, the Iconophiles prevailed; their victory ensured that icons, and the brilliant mosaics inspired by them, remained a feature of Byzantine churches.

The claims that Jesus was buried in the Shroud of Turin, preserved since 1578

The 14-foot linen cloth bears a faint image of a crucified man and is the most scientifically studied relic in history. The core dispute hasn't moved much: 1988 radiocarbon dating placed it in the 13th-14th century, while defenders argue the sample was contaminated by medieval repairs. No one disputes that scientists can't explain how the image was formed, which acts like a photographic negative and has no trace of paint or dye.

Philadelphia's Cornbread claims to be the first modern graffiti artist

Darryl McCray began writing his nickname, "Cornbread," across his hometown of Philadelphia in the 1960s. That style was a way of posting a personalized signature across neighborhoods and would become known as "tagging." In time, that style spread to New York, where it took off among other young people.

Mosaic is credited for making the World Wide Web accessible to everyday people—not just scientists—for the first time

Mosaic was a web browser that allowed people to more easily access webpages on the World Wide Web. But unlike previous browsers, Mosaic was a graphical browser, which means it displayed images alongside text. This helped turn the web from a place for scientists into a cultural location that captured people's attention.

In the 1600s, coffee had religious significance

In the 1600s, coffee was important in multiple religious traditions. In Yemen, it was the drink of choice for Sufi mystics to improve their focus and fuel their grueling meditations. Pope Clement VIII's approval spread coffee’s popularity from the Muslim to the Christian world, paving the way for the cappuccino.

The 19th-century painters of the Hudson River School were among the first American romantics, with portraits that displayed the natural beauty of the young country.

Learn more about the history of fireworks, which dates back to an accidental invention during an alchemist's quest for information about immortality.

American short story writer Flannery O'Connor raised 40 peacocks, which became potent symbols for her fiction's elegant violence

Crows are believed to have intelligence on par with a seven-year-old child and demonstrate complex behaviors, from problem-solving with tools to recognizing human faces.

Poison ivy was sent to Europe in the 1600s as an exotic, ornamental oddity, where it was purposefully grown in the English royal gardens at Kew, the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, and a few other locations.

The first horror movie is believed to be George Méliès' 1986 short 'The Haunted Castle,' which pioneered the use of special effects

See photos of Meteora, a mountainous site in central Greece, home to 14th-century monasteries perched atop soaring outcroppings.

NBA superstar Victor Wembanyama spent the 2025 summer training with monks in central China to enhance his body and mind.

Cultural norms about how to handle the bodies of loved ones in communities in West Africa have hampered Ebola responses.

Objects can be 3D printed with light by projecting 2D computerized tomography (CT) scans onto rotating cylinders of resin, which solidify upon exposure.

The use of fungi to detoxify land and water—a process known as mycoremediation—has been used to clean up natural resources affected by the 2025 California wildfires.

A small portion of The Winstons' 'Amen, Brother,' an obscure '60s gospel record, is the basis for thousands of hip-hop tracks, making it one of the most sampled records ever that's informally known as 'the Amen break.'

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight

Scientists can determine Earth's past climate conditions by analyzing air trapped in microscopic bubbles within ice cores—columns of compressed snow layers that build up over hundreds of thousands of years.

Salvador Dalí believed he was his own dead brother, who had died nine months before he was born

Corals are themselves not coral reefs—the term refers to the tiny marine invertebrates that build the rigid reef.

Power lines are dotted with large, brightly colored balls to improve the visibility of these thin wires to helicopters and small planes and help prevent potential crashes.

Sears sold DIY house kits starting at $600 in its famous catalog from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in roughly 10,000 'Sears and Roebuck houses' being built.

English mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer algorithm a century before computers existed and hypothesized that computing devices would one day be able to compose music—foreseeing the generative AI systems of today.

Some coin denominations have ridges etched on their sides, partly to prevent counterfeiting, in a practice called 'reeding.'

Hotels in Cannes, the glamorous city on the French Riviera, hire hawks to ward off seagulls during the city's famous film festival.