In Venus in Exile renowned cultural critic Wendy Steiner explores the twentieth century's troubled relationship with beauty. Disdained by avant-garde artists, f

A “thrilling adventure story" (San Francisco Chronicle) that brings to life the astronomers who in the 1700s embarked upon a quest to calculate the size of th

An analysis of the career of Ana Mendieta, a Cuban-American feminist artist who came to prominence in the late 70s and early 80s, in terms of gender and perform

Beneath the original Venetian glass and rosewood case at La Specola in Florence lies Clemente Susini's Anatomical Venus (c. 1790), a perfect object whose luxuri

Alessandra Cecchi is not quite fifteen when her father, a prosperous cloth merchant, brings a young painter back from northern Europe to decorate the chapel wal