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arthistory.bsky.social
Art Viewer
@arthistory.bsky.social
1.6K followers 1.1K following 2.7K posts
art historian with eclectic interests
early modernist & medievalist, believe it or not
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arthistory.bsky.social
"It’s not that traditional liberal learning is out of step with student demand. Instead, it’s out of step with the priorities, values and desires of a powerful board of trustees with no apparent commitment to liberal education, and an administrative class that won’t fight for the liberal arts..."
An unpleasant truth has emerged in Tulsa over the years. It’s not that traditional liberal learning is out of step with student demand. Instead, it’s out of step with the priorities, values and desires of a powerful board of trustees with no apparent commitment to liberal education, and an administrative class that won’t fight for the liberal arts even when it attracts both students and major financial gifts. The tragedy of the contemporary academy is that even when traditional liberal learning clearly wins with students and donors, it loses with those in power.
December 15, 2025 at 9:25 PM
arthistory.bsky.social
Did I become an Italian Renaissance specialist because I saw Filippo Lippi's Madonnas as an impressionable tween and wanted her hairdo for myself? Quite probably.

Fra Filippo Lippi, Madonna and Child with two Angels, c. 1460–65, tempera on panel, 95 x 63.5 cm. Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi.
Virgin and Child painting with White blond Madonna serene, but her updo is anything but. Translucent veil flounced and tucked, interwoven between her hair with jewels and lightly floating down the back of her neck. Just OTT beyond but everybody acts like it's totally normal, like the two putti holding the Christ Child aloft. The Renaissance. It was extra.
December 15, 2025 at 4:52 PM
arthistory.bsky.social
Happy #Caturday
Cutie pie little black cat wrapped in a soft blanket; only the cat's face pokes out. Cozy.
December 13, 2025 at 3:35 PM
arthistory.bsky.social
Ghiberti, Nativity from North Doors. Florence Baptistry, early 15th c.
Bronze relief figural scene in quatrefoil with traces of gilding. Mary recumbent gazes at sleeping Christ child. Joseph leans on hand, sleepily. In the edge two shepherds receive the angel's announcement. Fairly high relief, beautiful elegance, rocky outcroppings.
December 11, 2025 at 3:37 PM
arthistory.bsky.social
It's the Feast Day of the Immaculate Conception and I'm writing about Marian dogmas, yay
The best Assumption of the Virgin Mary Renaissance painting ever. Titian, Assumption of the Virgin, 1516–18, oil on panel, 690 x 360 cm (Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, Venice)
December 8, 2025 at 7:23 PM
arthistory.bsky.social
Happy #Caturday
Black cat with yellow eyes stares closely at camera up close only top half of head visible investigatory
December 6, 2025 at 4:39 PM
arthistory.bsky.social
Flipping pages this fine December afternoon, appreciating the brilliance of the invention of the codex and that sweet sweet pagination on the top of every page, ohhhhhh
December 4, 2025 at 10:30 PM
arthistory.bsky.social
Et tu, Pantone?

Following last year's sad brown "Mocha Mousse," we're going with "don't shoot us white." Oh excuse me, "Cloud Dancer."

Enjoy the "billowy balanced white" shade as you stare at the asylum walls contemplating the death of human creativity.
a swatch of Pantone "Cloud Dancer," an incredibly boring nondescript white on a background of, you guessed it, more white.
December 4, 2025 at 5:40 PM
arthistory.bsky.social
World AIDS Day, not marked by the US government this year, reminds us of US gov silence at the beginning of the AIDS crisis. Refusal to acknowledge does not eliminate; it only increases death. Eternal gratitude to the doctors, scientists, and activists who refused silence and brought back life.
Robert Mapplethorpe black and white photograph "Two Men Dancing" 1984. Two shirtless white males wearing golden crowns and dancing closely with each other. The image is cropped at their waists.
December 2, 2025 at 12:15 AM
arthistory.bsky.social
Titian, Rape of Europa, c. 1560-62. Oil on canvas, 178 x 205 cm. Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Oil painting of white woman in camicia carried off on white ox into the waters; she has placed a floral crown on the ox's head. Cupid and other putti attend on dolphin-back or in the air. Drapery flies; it's active. The woman's attendants, tiny, react to the abduction on shore
December 2, 2025 at 12:11 AM
arthistory.bsky.social
Paul Liégeois, Still Life with Plumps and Grapes, n.d. Oil on canvas. Sacramento, CA, Crocker Art Museum
oil painting of green grapes and purple red splotched plums with leaves on a ledge in an undescribed dark interior
November 29, 2025 at 10:37 PM
arthistory.bsky.social
The first time I showed her internet cat videos #Caturday
Shellshocked black cat with alert ears, eyes as side as they can go, hanging on a human arm seated both leaning back and leaning forward
November 29, 2025 at 5:49 PM
arthistory.bsky.social
Pieter Claesz, Still Life with a Turkey Pie, 1627. Oil on panel, 75 x 132cm. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum.
Such a Dutch still life: pewter ewer, sliced bread, peeled lemon, half0eaten pie, oyster shells, fruit in a porcelain bowl (looks like knock-off Chinese rather than true), nautilus shell cup in gilt mount, and a feathery turkey shaped into a weird swan shape holding a white flower in its mouth. Egads.
November 26, 2025 at 2:12 PM
arthistory.bsky.social
Unrecorded French artist, Still Life with Turkey, second half of the 18th c. Oil on canvas, 96 x 123cm. Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts
oil painting of turkey suspended by one foot, head slumped from the wall onto a shelf with a couple copper pots, chestnuts, and herbs. Death ripe for the Barthes' capitalist exploitation
November 26, 2025 at 2:09 PM
arthistory.bsky.social
Castello Giácomo, Still Life with Dead and Living Fowl, 1680s, oil on canvas, 80 x 109. Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts.
some living, some dead birds, one lemon and one of the birds is a turkey (alive)
November 26, 2025 at 2:07 PM
arthistory.bsky.social
Some people draw hearts, others do math on the bottom of the library food prohibition sign.
Photograph of several hearts containing initials etched into a metal electrical outlet w a folded triangular paper sign in the shape of a Toblerone bar package held up to show handwritten math worked out on the plain bottom
November 25, 2025 at 7:22 PM
arthistory.bsky.social
If you see this, post your getaway vehicle
Raphael's fresco Galatea, depicts white woman nymph fleeing on a shell boat with water wheels pulled by two dolphins on reins she olds. Lots of classical sea creatures surround her while winged cupids fly above
November 24, 2025 at 3:59 PM
arthistory.bsky.social
One of my favorite Giovanni Bellini Madonna and Childs and man could that guy churn them out. But that green cloth of honor... the polite little Italian trees and Christ's delicate stance on the parapet. It's perfect in full Venetian luminous oil. Accademia, Venice.
Framed oil painting half length of Madonna and Child. She presents him standing fully nude on a marble parapet inscribed w/ artist's signature. A green silk cloth silhouettes them but on either side a landscape with two shaggy small trees can be seen in the margin before the carved wooden frame.
November 24, 2025 at 3:41 PM
arthistory.bsky.social
Jacopo Palma Giovane (the younger), The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, 1581-82. Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista, Venice
painting of horses and riders tumbling around on clouds (riders include skeleton and a knight) with bodies falling and a demonic mouth breathing fire while St. John in the corner foreground, accompanied by his eagle avatar, turns from writing his book on Patmos to watch the vision
November 23, 2025 at 5:49 PM
arthistory.bsky.social
Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Torn Notebook Study #1, 1996. aluminum, canvas, latex paint and resin. SFMOMA.
sculpture of a notebook torn in half mid-motion, half facing down on the mounting plate, half pages flying facing up; spiral ring bent
November 23, 2025 at 3:49 PM
arthistory.bsky.social
The shoulders on the fainting Virgin Mary (left in blue) are a superb example of Giotto's unparalleled expression of emotion through gesture. Most will point to the angels, but that awkward lifted shoulder conveys more in its quietude.

Giotto, Crucifixion, c. 1310, fresco, Scrovegni Chapel, Padua.
White Christ in center on wooden crucifix. Mary Magdalene kneels at his feet in penitent purple. Angels in the sky gesture with near maudlin grief expressions. Soldiers divide Christ's cloak on the right. Mary faints on the left.
November 22, 2025 at 8:49 PM
arthistory.bsky.social
When Nicolás García Uriburu painted the Grand Canal green in 1968.

"Coloration of the Grand Canal" smarthistory.org/nicolas-garc...
a coda da gamba boat powers through the unnaturally green waters of the Grand Canal towards Santa Maria della Salute The artist on a boat holds a bucket and flings green dye into the Grand Canal in front of Santa Maria della Salute
November 22, 2025 at 7:52 PM
arthistory.bsky.social
Had a brand new viewing experiencing in Los Angeles at the Velaslavasay Panorama with a 2019 hand-painted, hand-crafted view of Shenjing 1910-1930. A 20-min light cycle with the softest audio of city sounds keeps time moving very gently as visitors can circle on the center bench.
panoramaonview.org
Section of a panorama painted vista with 3d models of more rural scenes in the foreground viewed over a parapet detail of model of market complete w/ figures and a bunch of awnings outside the painted stone city wall detail of painted backdrop 1-story houses and 3d horses
November 22, 2025 at 4:44 PM
arthistory.bsky.social
Sleepy #Caturday
Black cat dozing with head turned so the top rests downward on a pile of blankets. Peaceful & cozy
November 22, 2025 at 4:40 PM
arthistory.bsky.social
Exceptionally boring print at the scanning center. Superficially inoffensive until you remember lilies are flowers symbolic of death (and psa: toxic to cats) and we’re screening for cancer here. 1/10 #WeRateMedicalArt
Photo of a framed print of a flat graphic big white lily w a bunch of stamens labeled “Lindsay’s Lily” by Carol Hoffnagel, Studio 12, Ross, California
November 18, 2025 at 4:34 PM