Episode 75: José Clemente Orozco, or How to Paint Humanity Like It Just Walked Through Fire and Forgot Its Shoes
Orozco did not paint history politely. He painted it like the wall had seen everything and finally decided to speak…
Art History
Episode 73: Thomas Hart Benton, or How to Paint America Like It Just Drank Three Cups of Coffee and Joined a Parade
Thomas Hart Benton painted America like it had muscles, music, gossip, and a wagon wheel loose in the best possible way…
Episode 71: Edward Hopper, or How to Paint Loneliness So Well the Room Starts Avoiding Eye Contact
A lonely diner, a brutal beam of light, and the painter who made silence feel louder than…
Episode 69: John Singer Sargent, or How to Paint Velvet So Hard It Files a Tax Return
He painted velvet, scandal, status, and side-eye so well that society needed a fainting couch…
Episode 65: Odilon Redon, or How to Paint a Floating Eyeball and Still Look Deeply Spiritual
A floating eye, haunted flowers, and one of art history’s dreamiest weirdos walk into a Symbolist garden and then…
Episode 64: Gustave Moreau, or How to Paint a Mythological Fever Dream and Still Look Academically Respectable
Gustave Moreau painted myths like jeweled fever dreams, and the results are stranger, richer, and shinier than expected…
Episode 62: Piet Mondrian, or How to Make a Painting So Balanced It Looks Like It Pays Its Bills Early
He made rectangles famous, argued with diagonals, loved jazz, and somehow turned strict geometry into…
Episode 56: Dorothea Tanning, or How to Make a Hallway Feel More Emotionally Complicated Than Most Novels
Dorothea Tanning turned dream logic into art so elegant and eerie that even the wallpaper feels emotionally complicated…
How I Did the Impossible and Built a 53-Episode Artist Series Table of Contents for a Site That Clearly Did Not Want Me To
Fifty-three artist episodes, one impossible table of contents, and the gloriously ridiculous detective story required to build it.
Baroque and Loaded: The 1600s Get Dramatic
Welcome to the 1600s, the century where artists decided that if a painting didn’t have divine light, flying drapery, or a bit of theatrical flair, it simply wasn’t trying hard enough. This was the Baroque era — a time when art went full drama queen, and we loved it. Let’s dim the lights (for mood), cue the … Read more