First Dogs in Art?

In Arabia, archaeologists have found what could be the earliest depictions of domesticated dogs...

 Original Article in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology:

  

Pre-Neolithic evidence for dog-assisted hunting strategies in Arabia

National Geographic Article:   

Are These the Oldest Images of Dogs?

Video:  May be world's first images of dogs
- and they're wearing leashes...

Article Text from Video

Agate Sealstone Rewrites the History of Ancient Art

Agate Sealstone recovered from a Warrior's Tomb 
could rewrite the history of ancient art...

Unearthing a Masterpiece

Science Channel Video on the discovery...

Archaeologists Find One Of The "Finest Works Of Prehistoric Greek Art Ever" In Griffin Warrior'

Jack Davis and Sharon Stocker, 

husband-and-wife archaeologists from the University of Cincinnati, discovered the warrior’s grave.

Sharon Stocker in the Warrior`s Tomb

More information on the amazing tomb and its contents...

Secrets of The Griffin Warrior 

Smithsonian Article...

This 3,500-Year-Old Greek Tomb Upended What We Thought We Knew About the Roots of Western Civilization  

National Geographic Article...

Rare Unlooted Grave of Wealthy Warrior Uncovered in Greece

Imaginary Prisons of Piranesi

Carceri d'Invenzione (1745-1761) by Giovanni Battista Piranesi  

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The imaginary prisons of Piranesi have haunted many (even some who had never seen them!) since they were etched in the 18th century. Here is a famous reference to them by Thomas de Quincy: 

   Many years ago, when I was looking over Piranesi's Antiquities of Rome, Mr Coleridge, who was standing by, described to me a set of plates by that artist, called his Dreams, and which record the scenery of his own visions during the delirium of a fever. Some of them (I describe only from memory of Mr Coleridge's account) represented vast Gothic halls: on the floor of which stood all sorts of engines and machinery, wheels, cables, pullies, levers, catapults,.&c. &c. expressive of enormous power put forth and resistance overcome. Creeping along the sides of the walls, you perceive a staircase: and upon it, groping his way upwards, was Piranesi himself: follow the stairs a little further, and you perceive it come to a sudden abrupt termination, without any balustrade, and allowing no step onwards to him who had reached the extremity, except into the depths below. Whatever is to become of poor Piranesi, you suppose, at least, that his labours must in some way terminate here. But raise you eyes, and behold a second flight of stairs still higher: on which again Piranesi is perceived, but this time standing on the very brink of the abyss. Again elevate your eye, and a still more aerial flight of stairs is beheld: and again is poor Piranesi busy on his aspiring labours: and so on, until the unfinished stairs and Piranesi both are lost in the upper gloom of the hall. -- With the same power of endless growth, and self-reproduction did my architecture proceed in dreams.

   Thomas de Quincy in Confessions of an English Opium Eater, 1821, p. 106

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Related Links:
French site with excellent Piranesi images: http://piranesi.free.fr/carceri.htm

Here is an amazing animation by Gregoire Dupond at Factum Arte:

Giovanni Battista Piranesi: A video collection of 1088 etchings:

 

Wander through the Machu Picchu Museum in Cusco, Peru

Use Google Streetview to wander through the Machu Piccu Museum in Cusco, Peru, Home to the largest collection of Machu Picchu artifacts in the world...

Museo Machupicchu - Casa Concha

And then use Google Streetview to explore the Machu Picchu site itself...

Go to Google Streetview at Machu Picchu, Peru

Wander Through the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp

Use Google Streetview to wander Through the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp...

Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp

The Singing and the Silence: Birds in Contemporary Art

The Smithsonian American Art Museum has some terrific online exhibitions.  Here is one of my favorites.  Under each item you will also find a video interview with the artist...

The Singing and the Silence: Birds in Contemporary Art

 

Elim Museum of Chinese Ancient Porcelain Art

Always have found Chinese Porcelain Art fascinating with its intricately detailed pictures of people, creatures and landscapes.

Elim Museum of Chinese Ancient Porcelain Art is a non-profit organization. From a private collector’s prospective, we focus on collecting, preserving, and classifying those “stylish and characteristic” ancient Chinese porcelains from the collectors around the world. By means of on-line display, a portion of our collection that we believed to cherish relatively a higher aesthetic and academic value, will be periodically unveiled to the public in purpose of promoting further research and discussion, as well the general appreciation. We hope our collections (it is currently limited to Song,Yuan, Ming and Qing four dynasties) will be a more broader representation of ancient Chinese porcelain art to demonstrate objectively its historical progression and achievements.

They also have an excellent 3D display exhibition that allows you to rotate items to see all sides...

Elim Museum of Chinese Ancient Porcelain Art

Those Garish Greeks and Romans

Those garish Greeks and Romans! When the great Renaissance sculptors looked at austere Greek and Roman sculpture with awe and admiration, little did they realize that most of those statues were painted in what we would now consider a rather garish manner. Here is a famous statue of Augustus Caesar and behind it what current research suggests it looked like back in Roman times... 

Sheila Hoffman looks at colour in ancient Greek sculpture...

Also check out the excellent University of Kent blog page devoted to the true colors of ancient statues..

 Ancient Statues Show Their True Colors

The MET also provides an interesting web page...

Polychromy of Roman Marble

The Smithsonian has an excellent page about the archaeologist Vinzenz Brinkmann who has done extensive and painstaking research into the painting of Greek Statues...

True Colors of Ancient Greek Sculptures 

 

 

The Getty Museum also has a web page on this subject that includes a fascinating slideshow of examples such as the bust of Caligula below...

Color of Life: Reconstructing Ancient Color

Google Arts and Culture

Google Arts and Culture provides a vast and well documented collection of art from many ages and in a variety of categories...

Collection by Artist

Collection by Art Movements

Mathematics of Islamic Tiling Patterns

 

Girih Tiles: Decagonal Geometry in Seljuq Architecture, Metropolitan Museum of Art lecture...

Check out the post on Islamic Tiling at my Science and Nature Blog...

Mathematics of Islamic Tiling Patterns

Famous Artists Complete Works

A number of websites offer the complete works of individual great artists along with biographical information and more...

Leonardo Da Vinci

 

Raphael

Albrecht Durer

Vincent van Gogh

Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia

The Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia is home to a mind boggling wealth of European Art

Check out the online art collection at the Hermitage

You can narrow your search to cover just the...

 Over 5000 Paintings

National Gallery in London

Explore the collection at the National Gallery in London

Prado Museum in Madrid

Explore art works in the famous Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain

Atlas at the Louvre, Paris

Atlas allows the direct online consultation of 30, 000 works of art exhibited in the Louvre. Online visitors can access the basic information displayed on labels accompanying works in the museum, together with authoritative commentary and analysis by the curators and staff. 

Search the Louvre Collection 

Art Gallery of Ontario

The Art Gallery of Ontario offers some fascinating and informative online exhibits such as...

J.M.W. Turner - Painting Set Free

Alex Coville Exhibit Online 

These exhibits and more in the Past Exhibit Archives

National Gallery of Canada Online

Browse the Collection of the National Gallery of Canada

Rijksmuseum has an ever-growing collection of over 300,000 images

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has an ever-growing collection of over 300,000 images

Search the Rijksmuseum Online  

Met Museum Makes 375,000 Images Free

 The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has made 375,000 art images available online...

Search the MET Collection online

The MET also has an excellent online Timeline of Art History 

Museum of Modern Art Online

The Museum of Modern Art in New York has a wealth of pictures available online...

Artist Index of the Museum of Modern Art