Exploring Art History

How does someone become the head of one of the largest and most influential cultural institutions on the planet?   For Kaywin Feldman, Director of the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, the path was a fascinatingly wide-ranging one, passing through Fresno, Memphis and Minneapolis but effectively launched many years before, through an intriguingly influential combination of her electric engi...

Art historian Christopher Marshall, University of Melbourne, talks passionately about Artemisia Gentileschi's remarkable success as a painter which resulted not only from her enormous talent but also her ability to respond astutely to the continuously evolving trends and challenges of the Italian Baroque art world. Artemisia Gentileschi built a successful four-decade career in a male-dominated fie...

Art historian Sally Cornelison, Syracuse University, talks with author and filmmaker Howard Burton about the paintings and architecture of Italian Renaissance artist, author, and architect Giorgio Vasari (1511-74) that can still be found in his hometown of Arezzo. Particular emphasis is placed on the Romanesque church of Santa Maria della Pieve, where the newborn Vasari was baptized on 30 July 151...

Carina Popovici is the founder of Art Recognition, a global leader in AI art authentication . In this wide-ranging conversation Carina talks about how the very public art forgery scandal of Wolfgang Beltracchi, who spent years successfully passing off his paintings for lost creations of famous artists, pointed her towards a way to significantly improve artistic authentication practices by harnessi...

Professor Linda Merrill, Director of Undergraduate Studies in Art History at Emory University, talks about the witty, provocative “Ten O’Clock” lecture in which Whistler attacked conventional taste and asserted art’s independence from public opinion. Find out about the role Oscar Wilde played and how fashionable London society received this event. Linda Merrill has closely analyzed “Ten O’Clock” a...

Jill Burke, Professor of Renaissance Visual and Material Cultures at The University of Edinburgh, discusses her extensive research on the development of the nude in the Italian Renaissance from both an art-historical and a socio-cultural perspective. Find out about how many artists of the time found men more beautiful and proportional to model for them than women and how that affected the art we a...

Ancient Greek architectural historian Sam Holzman, Princeton University, discusses his personal journey through the world of ancient Greek architecture and the many wonderful experiences it offers him while also presenting him with lots of challenges. This conversation provides you with captivating details of the numerous architectural details hiding in plain sight – from 'bilingual' capit...

Illustrator, writer and scholar D.B. Dowd, Washington University, discusses fascinating aspects of the historical development of illustration as an integral part of the reading experience, often serving to visualize, enhance, or respond to a text. This richly illustrated conversation begins with an examination of relief prints and woodcuts in ancient China and Japan before moving to printing and p...

Renaissance artist Michelangelo was both influenced by, and strongly influenced, other great artists from his contemporary world. In this illustrated video podcast Michelangelo scholar Bill Wallace, Washington University in St. Louis, discusses his research on the artistic relationship between Michelangelo and the great Venetian master Titian and how we can use the power of imagination in combinat...

Watch a short trailer about the new Exploring Art History video podcast.

In this illustrated video podcast Michelangelo scholar Bill Wallace, Washington University in St. Louis, discusses fascinating and often surprising aspects of how Michelangelo created his masterpieces and the materials he used. Being an internationally recognized authority on Michelangelo, Bill Wallace is able to break down the many stereotypes that exist and provide us with a deep sense of Michel...

In this illustrated video podcast art historian Jessica Maier, Mount Holyoke College, talks passionately about her extensive research into the history of Rome through the eyes of mapmakers and artists who have reimagined, reconstructed, and represented Rome and its landmarks over the course of the past three millennia, as The Eternal City changed on the ground. Host: author and filmmaker Howard Bu...

In this illustrated video podcast UCLA print specialist Susan Dackerman and host Howard Burton discuss Dürer's most enigmatic print projects - The Sea Monster, The Knots, and Landscape with Cannon - which all feature Muslim subjects, figures and artifacts. Rather than looking through the mirror of conflict and war, Dackerman places those artworks within a broader historical context that reflec...