Arts & Culture
Abstract Expressionism
This broad movement in American painting began in the late 1940s and became a dominant trend in Western painting during the 1950s.
Courtesy of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, gift of Seymour H. Knox
© 1985 Universal Pictures
12 Essential Brat Pack Films
Not all the movies in this list feature the typical roster of Brat Packers, but they all capture the spirit of the era.
© 1985 Universal Pictures
Editor's Picks
10 Paintings You Should See at the Met in New York City
Learn before you look.
5 Incredible Native American Artists
Native American artists to know.
Maya Lin
Maya Lin is an American architect and sculptor concerned with environmental themes who is best known for her design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. The daughter of intellectuals who had fled China in 1948, Lin received a bachelor’s degree in 1981 from Yale University in New
Lay, Lie, Lied, Lain: When Do We Use Which?
You may want to lay—er, lie—down for this.
Dada
Dada, nihilistic and antiaesthetic movement in the arts that flourished primarily in Zürich, Switzerland; New York City; Berlin, Cologne, and Hannover, Germany; and Paris in the early 20th century. Several explanations have been given by various members of the movement as to how it received its
Where Does the Concept of a “Grim Reaper” Come From?
Harvester of souls since when?
Ai Weiwei
Ai Weiwei Chinese artist and activist who produced a multifaceted array of creative work, including sculptural installations, architectural projects, photographs, and videos. While Ai’s art was lauded internationally, the frequently provocative and subversive dimension of his art, as well as his
5 African American Designers Who Changed Fashion
Five formidable figures in fashion.
Spotlight: Impressionism
Impressionism comprises the work produced between about 1867 and 1886 by a group of artists, headlined by Claude Monet and Pierre Auguste Renoir, who shared a set of related approaches and techniques. The most conspicuous characteristic was an attempt to accurately and objectively record visual reality in terms of transient effects of light and color.
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
How did opera's greatest soprano lose her voice?
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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 was an 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 is an 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 was an 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
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 culturally
Film
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini was an 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
Ava DuVernay
Ava DuVernay is an American director, producer, and writer whose film and television projects explore the African American experience. Among her best-known works are the film Selma (2014), the documentary 13th (2016), and the miniseries When They See Us (2019). DuVernay was the first African
David Lynch
David Lynch is an American filmmaker and screenwriter who is 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
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