Art & Artists

Look closely at paintings and the people behind them. Explore artists, movements and the stories hidden in familiar and unexpected works of art.

A Japanese couple in a small boat; the man poles while the woman watches him.

Anniversary gifts by year: 11 milestones, each with a masterpiece

Paper, cotton, flowers, wood, crystal, china, silver, pearl, ruby, gold and a lifetime: an artwork for every traditional anniversary, from the first year to the sixtieth.

Art & Artists

A tall bouquet of tulips, roses, irises and other flowers in a blue and white Chinese vase against a dark background.

Famous flower paintings: 18 bouquets from Ruysch to Van Gogh

Four centuries of bouquets, from the Dutch masters who painted every petal to Fantin-Latour, Renoir, Cézanne and Van Gogh: eighteen flower paintings and how to hang them.

Art & Artists

Two lovers share one umbrella as they walk through falling snow, in a Japanese woodblock print.

Paper anniversary gifts: 12 masterpieces made on paper

For a first anniversary, give a work that began on paper: Japanese woodblock prints, Dürer’s engravings, Blake’s etched poems and a Carl Larsson watercolour, each as a print to keep.

Art & Artists

Peasants rest and eat under a pear tree beside a golden wheat field, with a wide valley and a bay stretching into the distance.

Famous landscape paintings: 20 views to live with

From Bruegel’s harvest to Böcklin’s Isle of the Dead: twenty famous landscapes from Dutch skies to American mountains, what makes each one great, and where it looks best at home.

Art & Artists

A young prince in red silk holds the hand of a girl in a shimmering silver gown with lace.

Wedding portrait paintings: 12 couples from Van Dyck to Böcklin

Royal betrothals, Florentine wedding chests, a Rococo declaration of love and a Symbolist honeymoon: twelve masterpieces about marriage, and how to turn your own day into a portrait.

Art & Artists

A bouquet of purple-blue irises in a vase against a pale yellow-white background.

Van Gogh paintings: 8 you can hang at home

Irises, Roses, Oleanders, L’Arlésienne and four more: eight works by Vincent van Gogh from the Met and the Art Institute of Chicago, with the story behind each one and where it looks best.

Art & Artists Impressionism

A Dutch family in a sunlit interior gathers around a keyboard instrument, a man with a viola da gamba beside them.

Family portraits painted like the old masters: 12 ideas for every family

Van Dyck’s royal children, Renoir’s Madame Charpentier, a Dutch family making music: twelve masterworks behind Fable’s family portrait styles, and the photo each one needs.

Art & Artists

A fisherman on a jagged rock leans out over a rushing river with a net, his lines echoing the spray, with Fuji pale in the mist.

Hokusai beyond the Great Wave: 14 prints to know

The Great Wave made Hokusai the most famous artist in Asia, but it is one print among thousands. Here are fourteen more: views of Fuji, ghosts, flowers, cranes and poems.

Art & Artists Japanese art

A young woman in a red dress stands at a window, one hand on the sill, looking straight at the viewer.

Renaissance portraits of women: 14 faces from the 1400s and 1500s

Botticelli, del Sarto, Cranach and the court painters of Flanders and France: fourteen portraits of women from the Renaissance, who they were and what their clothes tell us.

Art & Artists