Using peach and eggplant emojis as shorthand for sex may seem like a new thing, but Renaissance painters were experts at using produce to imply intercourse.

These life-sized painted figures, popular in Europe and colonial America in the seventeenth and early eighteenth century, were designed to amuse and confuse.

The St. Cuthbert Gospel is the earliest surviving intact European book. Some time around 698, it was slipped into the coffin of a saint.

The inaccuracy of medieval lions may have been a stylistic preference, particularly in a bestiary, or compendium of beasts.

Michelangelo, perhaps the greatest artist the world has produced, wasn't a child prodigy like Mozart. He learned on the job. So maybe there's still hope for the rest of us.

Official portraits have been a means of communicating intention and creating image throughout history. Consider three of France's iconic leaders.

The image of the artist as eccentric genius or shaman is ubiquitous in popular culture for good reason. ...