Smarthistory posts all of our high-res high-quality edited photographs of art for teaching under a creative commons license on Flickr at www.flickr.com/photos/profz... They're really gorgeous. No more worrying about vitrine reflections under bad museum lighting. We've taken care of it.

New art history students sign up for a survey course and get a bunch of vocab dropped on their laps the first week. Help them understand iconography and iconographic analysis with our essay that brilliantly uses Wonder Woman to explain smarthistory.org/introduction...

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory.bsky.social · yesterday

Hi professors, feeling that late summer syllabus stress? We got you. Smarthistory has The Basics explainer essays, syllabi, thematic series, an open access textbook, and a bunch of object videos and essays you can slot into your courses. Good for art history and all other courses ✅

Need to explain how visual analysis works to your students? We've got a video made in the National Gallery London in front of Giovanni Bellini's gorgeous Madonna of the Meadow. N.B. All of our videos have spell-checked accurate transcripts to aid studying 📚

How to do visual (formal) analysis in art history

YouTube video by Smarthistory

youtube.com

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory.bsky.social · yesterday

Hi professors, feeling that late summer syllabus stress? We got you. Smarthistory has The Basics explainer essays, syllabi, thematic series, an open access textbook, and a bunch of object videos and essays you can slot into your courses. Good for art history and all other courses ✅

A highly useful essay: "Common questions about dates" to explain B.C.E./C.E. vs. B.C./A.D., what "circa" means and that there was no year 0 smarthistory.org/common-quest...

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory.bsky.social · yesterday

Hi professors, feeling that late summer syllabus stress? We got you. Smarthistory has The Basics explainer essays, syllabi, thematic series, an open access textbook, and a bunch of object videos and essays you can slot into your courses. Good for art history and all other courses ✅

Hi professors, feeling that late summer syllabus stress? We got you. Smarthistory has The Basics explainer essays, syllabi, thematic series, an open access textbook, and a bunch of object videos and essays you can slot into your courses. Good for art history and all other courses ✅

Another artist named #August: Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres smarthistory.org/ingres-portr...

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory.bsky.social · 3d ago

It's August. And no other month quite lets us get quite so silly about artist names, so here we go: #August Our artist page for Auguste Rodin, the French sculptor known for his powerful human figures possessing emotive hands smarthistory.org/artist/augus...

We're very excited to announce Smarthistory videos are now part of AP Classroom. We've teamed up with The College Board to bring our content directly to AP Art History teachers and students — same expert-led videos, now built right into the course.

We're very excited to announce Smarthistory videos are now part of AP Classroom. We've teamed up with The College Board to bring our content directly to AP Art History teachers and students — same expert-led videos, now built right into the course.

It's August. And no other month quite lets us get quite so silly about artist names, so here we go: #August Our artist page for Auguste Rodin, the French sculptor known for his powerful human figures possessing emotive hands smarthistory.org/artist/augus...

"studded with thousands of pearls and gems, the shimmering gold and raised surfaces of the Pala catch and reflect the light inside the church" 😍😍😍

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory.bsky.social · 6d ago

Nothing in Venice is straightforward, but the Pala d'Oro makes the rest of the city look simple. Dr. Lara Frentrop takes us through the relationship between Venice and the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire that plays out on its golden bejeweled surface smarthistory.org/pala-doro-ba...

"While this representational strategy might seem unusual in the post-modern world, in the waning days of the Roman Republic it was an effective means of competing in an ever more complex socio-political arena." By Dr. Jeffrey Becker (@serviliusahala.bsky.social) smarthistory.org/head-of-a-ro...

Nothing in Venice is straightforward, but the Pala d'Oro makes the rest of the city look simple. Dr. Lara Frentrop takes us through the relationship between Venice and the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire that plays out on its golden bejeweled surface smarthistory.org/pala-doro-ba...

For @artologica.net, @mlobelart.bsky.social, and @apearlma.bsky.social: an egg painted in egg tempera, Piero della Francesca's lovely 15th-century sacra conversazione (Madonna and Child with Saints, Angels, and Federico da Montefeltro) #Renaissance #yum(?)

Piero della Francesca, Madonna and Child with Saints, Angels, and Federico da Montefeltro

YouTube video by Smarthistory

youtube.com

A deer in repose held ever so lightly by a nude human woman with a grave expression. "If you take the time to look at her carefully, all these different stories come to life": Kiki Smith’s "Her" realizes the language of the myth in sculptural form #Sculpture #ContemporaryArt #WomenArtists

Kiki Smith, Her

YouTube video by Smarthistory

youtube.com

"Sometimes art and architecture calls on us to reimagine what we think was possible in the past, and what ancestors were able to achieve." It's said great birds or giants moved the basalt rocks into place. The 13–17th c. megalithic capital, Nan Madol, in Micronesia smarthistory.org/nan-madol/

Betye Saar (1926–2026) created a wealth of unforgettable art with clever multi-faceted imagery. The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, one of her most famous works, owned by @bampfa.bsky.social, can be found on Smarthistory here: smarthistory.org/betye-saar-l...

It's got 3 bullet holes. It lives on top of the Pisa Cathedral roof. It was made in Islamic Spain and originally had internal pipes to make a roaring noise. This is not a riddle. This is the Pisa Griffin and Dr. Courtney Lesoon has the explanation: smarthistory.org/pisa-griffin/

Mass produced and widely circulated, the print "The Law and the Gospel" was one of the most important images of the Protestant Reformation.

Smarthistory: the Center for Public Art History@smarthistory.bsky.social · 2w ago

[Enter quip here about the law coming after you with a spear]. We're pleased to announce Dr. Rachel M. Carlisle's essay on the Reformation-era woodcut "The Law and the Gospel" just published at smarthistory.org/law-gospel-w...

Dyed in brilliant colors and woven in fine silk fibers, this Nasrid textile likely took thousands of hours to complete — and it's survived since the 15th century! New Smarthistory essay by Dr. Courtney Lesoon just published smarthistory.org/nasrid-texti...

[Enter quip here about the law coming after you with a spear]. We're pleased to announce Dr. Rachel M. Carlisle's essay on the Reformation-era woodcut "The Law and the Gospel" just published at smarthistory.org/law-gospel-w...

Wow oh wow! Dr. Ariel Fein's essay on the minarets of al-Hākim, not only for their funky history (Why would a ruler invest a fortune in elaborate carved decoration, only to hide it almost immediately?) but also the gorgeous photography. When can we go to Cairo? smarthistory.org/minarets-al-...

Larger than expected, unrelentingly present, Fritz Scholder's Dartmouth Portrait #15, 1973, 72 x 60 in (Art Bridges), a 5-minute conversation with Julia Mun, Assistant Curator, Art Bridges Foundation and Beth Harris, Smarthistory #NativeAmerican #Indigeneous

Fritz Scholder, Dartmouth Portrait #15

YouTube video by Smarthistory

youtube.com

Long before Christopher Nolan, people were imagining what Homer's Odyssey might have looked like. Come see these first century BCE frescos with Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris of Smarthistory #TheOdyssey #Odyssey

Homer's Odyssey, an ancient fresco cycle

YouTube video by Smarthistory

youtube.com

Like Zendaya, we love the Nike of Samothrace but we've probably never looked so good studying it 🫠 smarthistory.org/nike-winged-...

A wearable codex to be performed in a @gettymuseum.bsky.social exhibition of European images of the Americas to include an Indigenous perspective. Our new video with Dr. Idurree Alonso, Head of Modern and Contemporary Collections

Beatriz Cortez and rafa esparza, Wearable Codex

YouTube video by Smarthistory

youtube.com

Check out Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank's essay and Smarthistory's video on Hans Holbein's The Ambassadors #Reformation

Dr. Peter Paul Rubens@peterpaulrubens.bsky.social · 3w ago

Two French ambassadors, Jean de Dinteville & Georges de Selve, pose w/ science, art, & death, along with faith at the edge. Entirely brilliant painting by Hans Holbein, 1533. Today is his day.

David's Portrait of the Lavoisiers was supposed to be shown at the Salon of 1789. But 6 weeks earlier, the storming of the Bastille on July 14 had begun the French Revolution. Rumors grew that Lavoisier had conspired against the Revolution. The painting was pulled. smarthistory.org/jacques-loui...

If your students hear "parkour!" when you say "partage!," this essay's for you. Dr. Elizabeth Macaulay takes us through the practice of dividing finds from archaeological excavations and the flow of artifacts from the countries where they were found smarthistory.org/partage/

Smarthistory's back at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art today with Dr. Steven Zucker recording with curator Dr. Javier Ramos in front of Joseph Stella's Tree of My Life (1919)

For more on Louis Sullivan's architecture, our artist page is up here (until someone throws it in a lake) smarthistory.org/artist/louis...

Zach Mortice @zachmortice.bsky.social · 4w ago

In no other place on earth would you run into world-historical architectural artifacts tossed into the water as rip-rap flooding buffers, and this speaks to both Chicago's embarrassment of riches and tragically late blooming preservation movement blockclubchicago.org/2026/07/08/a...