Arts & Culture
Why Is the Salvator Mundi Called the World’s Most Controversial Painting?
Plenty of paintings have been called the “most controversial,” and the Salvator Mundi (produced after 1500; “Savior of the World”) is only the latest to be given that title.
© Geoff Pugh—REX/Shutterstock.com
"Behind the Scenes," by Elizbeth Keckley
5 African American Designers Who Changed Fashion
Black fashion designers are responsible for some of the most iconic garments in fashion history.
"Behind the Scenes," by Elizbeth Keckley
Editor's Picks
Six Fascinating Festivals from Around the World
Cryogenic Norwegians and 100,000 oranges? Sign me up!
Nutritional Powerhouses: 8 Foods That Pack a Nutritional Punch
Are you eating these?
Did academia kill jazz?
Academia may have had a role in the decline in popularity of jazz music by trying to elevate the genre to the ivory tower, however, today’s artists are proving that the spirit of jazz is alive and well.
29 Paintings You Can Visit Only at the Louvre
Learn before you look.
Street Photography: How a Single Camera Brought About a Genre
The invention of the Leica camera allowed photographers to move through the streets and capture moments that come and go in the blink of an eye.
Rita Dove
Rita Dove, American poet, writer, and teacher who was the first African American to serve as poet laureate of the United States (1993–95). Dove was ranked one of the top hundred high-school students in the country in 1970, and she was named a Presidential Scholar. She graduated summa cum laude from
Did Mozart Write “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”?
How I wonder if he did.
7 Unsportsmanlike Sportsmen
Athletes behaving badly.
Spotlight: Greek Mythology
The myths of ancient Greece are known today primarily from such classics as Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the dramas of Sophocles, and Euripides. Some of Greek mythology's most enduring stories concern the Trojan War, the voyage of Odysseus, Jason's search for the Golden Fleece, and the tragedy of Oedipus.
Quizzes
Name That Hat! Quiz
Time to put on your thinking cap.
Famous Novels, Last Lines Quiz
Needless to say, spoiler alert.
Guess the Game Quiz
Roll the dice and go all in.
Iconic Pop Culture Villains Quiz
Do you know what famous villain’s costume was inspired by samurai? What bad guy’s middle name is Marvolo? Test your knowledge about pop culture’s dark side with this quiz about iconic villains!
Videos
Michelangelo's The Last Judgment, explained
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Galleries
Vincent van Gogh
Paris
Leonardo da Vinci
Featured Categories
Art
5 Revealing Paintings by Caravaggio
Learn before you look.
The Group of Seven Remembered
In the 1910s and ’20s, Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven created Canada’s first important national art movement with their landscape paintings.
5 Incredible Native American Artists
Native American artists to know.
10 Modernist Art Movements
Is this high art, or could your kid do that?
Dance
Katherine Dunham
Katherine Dunham, American dancer and choreographer who was a pioneer in the field of dance anthropology. Her fieldwork inspired her innovative interpretations of dance in the Caribbean, South America, and Africa. Dunham early became interested in dance. While a student at the University of
Savion Glover
Savion Glover, American dancer and choreographer who became known for his unique pounding style of tap dancing, called “hitting.” He brought renewed interest in dance, particularly among youths and minorities. As a young child, Glover displayed an affinity for rhythms, and at age four he began
Agnes de Mille
Agnes de Mille, American dancer and choreographer who further developed the narrative aspect of dance and made innovative use of American themes, folk dances, and physical idioms in her choreography of musical plays and ballets. Her father was the playwright William Churchill DeMille, her mother
Mallika Sarabhai
Mallika Sarabhai, Indian classical dancer and choreographer, actress, writer, and social activist known for her promotion of the arts as a vehicle for social change. The daughter of renowned physicist Vikram Sarabhai and dancer and choreographer Mrinalini Sarabhai, she was brought up in a
Film
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini, Italian film director who was one of the most celebrated and singular filmmakers of the period after World War II. Influenced early in his career by the Neorealist movement, he developed his own distinctive methods that superimposed dreamlike or hallucinatory imagery upon ordinary
Ava DuVernay
Ava DuVernay, American director, producer, and writer whose best-known works explore the African American experience. DuVernay graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1995 with bachelor’s degrees in English and African American studies. After working for a few years in film
David Lynch
David Lynch, American filmmaker and screenwriter who was known for his uniquely disturbing and mind-bending visual work. His films juxtapose the cheerfully mundane with the shockingly macabre and often defy explanation. Lynch’s father was a research scientist with the U.S. Forest Service, and the
Sofia Coppola
Sofia Coppola, American film director, producer, screenwriter, and fashion designer known best for her films The Virgin Suicides (1999) and Lost in Translation (2003). In 2004 she was the first American woman to be nominated for an Academy Award in the category of best director. Coppola is the