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…
The Artist Series
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 72: Grant Wood, or How to Paint America So Stiffly It Starts Making Eye Contact
Grant Wood painted America so calmly that the pitchfork became famous and the farmhouse started looking suspicious…
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 70: James McNeill Whistler, or How to Paint So Quietly the Critics Start Yelling
Whistler painted mood, sued a critic, won a farthing, and still changed modern art because of course he…
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 68: Caspar David Friedrich, or How to Paint Fog So Dramatic It Needs Its Own Therapist
He painted fog, cliffs, ruins, and lonely figures so powerfully that nature became the main character and humanity became…
Episode 66: William Blake, or How to See Angels in Trees and Still Get the Printing Done
He saw angels in trees, invented his own mythology, and made poetry look like it had been struck by lightning…
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…