From antiquity to the Enlightenment, astrology, magic, and alchemy have always been considered important tools in unravelling the mysteries of nature and human destiny. As a result of the West's exposure to the astrological beliefs of Arab philosophe...

Pliny the Younger (61-112 AD) was a Roman official and writer. He has become famous for his two letters to the historian Tacitus, which detail his eye-witness account of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD which took the life of his uncle, Pliny...

Ever since they were first discovered and explored in 1709, the ancient cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum have excited the historical imagination of the West. "Antiquity Recovered" presents thirteen diverse essays that trace how perceptions of the pa...

An artist's materials – from the broad brushstrokes of a Van Gogh oil painting, the sparkling gold leaf of a Byzantine mosaic, to the fragile translucence of a porcelain vase – are not just the results of their work. They are the physical embodiment...

In this delightful alphabet book, cleverly illustrated with paintings from the collection of the Getty Museum, A is for an artist by Jan Steen, B is for a bumblebee by Ambrosius Bosschaert, and C is for a candle by Jean-Francois de Troy. Details from...

Stone is one of the oldest building materials, and its conservation ranks as one of the most challenging in the field. The use of alkoxysilanes in the conservation of stone can be traced as far back as 1861, when A. W. von Hoffman suggested their use...

American painters and graphic artists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries sought inspiration for their work in the uniquely American experience of history and nature. The result was a transformation of the conventional Old World visual languag...

Although oil remains an important binding medium in artists' paints, today's synthetic resins are being used with increasing frequency. This was true during much of the twentieth century, when artists such as David Alfaro Siqueiros, Jackson Pollock,...

Mantegna's magnificent painting, in the Getty collection, is based on one of Christianity's most beloved stories. The picture is much more than a Christmas-card image though. Dawson Carr explores Mantegna's life and milieu in fifteenth-century Padua...

During his first visit to London, Anthony van Dyck produced his portrait of Thomas Howard. It marked the beginning of van Dyck's brilliant international career. Thomas Howard, a prominent member of the court of James I, was to become one of the great...