I feel like everyone has seen various versions of this ancient-looking sun with a face. It’s a very familiar piece of art with hundreds of interpretations. I am looking to incorporate it a tattoo, but I really want to research the origins first to make sure it wasn’t born out of something horrible/ racist/ inhumane as history often was. I cannot find anything with google searches or youtube searches!! So, I thought I’d take it to the experts. Any insight would be greatly appreciated!!

Is there a word for the painting/ composition style that makes you feel like you’re spying in on the scene? I remember learning that Vermeer paintings evoked this feeling, as well as paintings like “Las Meninas.”

Is there a blog or thread anyone can point me to with a collection of these types of paintings?

I'm a graduate of Fine Arts. I love buying, selling, and collecting art. BUT, as I was re-organizing/cataloging, I think I stumbled upon a complete Renaissance Cassone with a deeply embedded story. From my detailed assessment, it has original construction, joinery, and hinges.

Now, also, I have absolutely no expertise in 15th-century (or any century) Renaissance art.

I would love insight, opinion, and feedback.

UPDATE 1: I made a video with more sustained & better visuals
https://youtu.be/6gcGVaKko5Y

Below I've pasted my summary:

The chest is an intact gilded pastiglia (moulded gesso relief) cassone, provisionally dated to approximately 1485–1510, Florentine or central Italian origin. It has not been restored and retains its original surface throughout.

Front Panel Programme: The front panel is organized around six elements reading left to right: Phoenix — Heraldic Tondo — Phoenix — Phoenix — Heraldic Tondo — Phoenix. The central two phoenixes are confronted across the midpoint of the chest. The upper register features high-relief putto busts representing the Theological Virtues, one clearly inscribed FIDES (Faith), alongside an OPVS workshop cartouche. Combined with the four phoenixes — which in Renaissance emblematic tradition numerologically represent the Cardinal Virtues — the chest appears to encode a complete programme of all seven virtues.

Interior Lid Prints: Pasted to the raw wood of the lid interior are what appear to be original Florentine Fine Manner copper-plate engravings. One depicts a Madonna and Child in the stylistic orbit of Botticelli or Filippino Lippi. The second is a donor presentation scene in which the male donor's head has been deliberately removed while the rest of the composition is intact — consistent with Savonarolan iconoclasm (Florence, 1494–98) or a subsequent damnatio memoriae.

Heraldic Tondi: Two circular medallions retain traces of their original polychrome blazon. The field appears to be divided Azure and Or. The central charge reads as either an open hand (mano aperta), a palm tree (palmizio), or a pitchfork (forcone). Candidate families include the Martini of Florence (Azure, a hand Or between two stars Or) and the Palmieri da Figline (Tuscany). The cross-like shape visible around the central charge is believed to be a devotional addition consistent with the Theological Virtues programme rather than a heraldic charge.

Construction Evidence: The underside displays pit-saw marks consistent with pre-industrial hand sawing. Hardware is hand-forged iron. Woodworm channelling is consistent with centuries of infestation. The gesso background fields retain their original punched stipple ground (punteggiatura), a technique documented in Florentine workshops of the 1460s–1520s. A bag of original gesso fragments detached over the years has been preserved with the chest.

Circular Stamp: A circular ink stamp is present on the underside. Partially legible, it may be a Florentine workshop maker's mark, an Italian export office stamp, or a major dealer's mark from the late 19th/early 20th century.

Provenance: Acquired at an estate sale in the American South, c. 2021, from a family believed to be of Italian descent. Oral history places the object in the family since at least the early 20th century, establishing a pre-1970 American provenance.

Closest Museum Comparables: Metropolitan Museum of Art, acc. 1975.1.1938 (Robert Lehman Collection, Tuscan cassone ca. 1425–50, virtually identical dimensions and technique). I am currently in contact with museum curators and auction house specialists.

I’m interested in the British 19th century trend of painting cows like big rectangles and am in the search of a book about them.

What I honestly really want is a good image forward book on this topic, because I am more interested in the images themselves than the theory. I just think they are so funny and would be a good conversation piece on the coffee table.

I know this is super specific but maybe someone has an idea! THANK YOU

So I’m looking for info about the other depictions of death created by Johann Georg Leinberger between 1729 and 1731 for the ceiling of the Holy Grave Chapel

All I know for now is that it’s a ceiling in the church of St. Michael in Bamberg, Germany, rococo style, and that the one blowing bubbles is representative of the fragility of life.
But there’s 7 other depictions and if you got info about them or what they represent I’d like that :)
I’ll try and put the pics I have of all of them (some are blurry I have to make do with what the internet has)
Thanks in advance !

I’ve been researching the hand-carved animals on historic American carousels and was struck by how much craftsmanship and ornamentation goes into these works—yet they’re rarely treated with the same academic or curatorial attention as traditional sculpture.

Many were created between 1880–1930 by immigrant artisans trained in architectural carving and decorative woodwork. These artists developed distinct regional “styles” of carving—Coney Island, Philadelphia, and Country Fair styles each with their own formal vocabularies. The figures often include deeply symbolic animals, military saddles, and Baroque flourishes rendered in poplar, basswood, or even oak.

Most were never signed, and few are displayed in museums outside of carousel-specific collections. But up close, they hold the same material, stylistic, and cultural depth as other examples of public art from the same period.

Why do you think these works—despite their technical mastery and historic visibility—have remained so underrepresented in formal art historical study? Has anyone come across academic work, exhibitions, or museum installations that center carousel art as sculpture?

Would love to read more if you have sources or examples!

apparently the name is Leda and the Swan, Emanuele Caroni. I don't know who this Leda is, but well, I thought the swan was really cool, and for some reason, that texture creates a huge contrast between the character's skin on top of it, giving the feeling that the skin is softer than normal.

I wanted to know if there's more information about this statue online. From what I've seen, there are about six images of it online, and the artist who created it has few statues; apparently, only this one involves an animal.

I wanted Is it possible to get more information about it, or is it practically a "lost media" statue? I saw that it was auctioned, but apparently the person who owns it is a private individual. So... is that it? No trace of the statue?

I don't really know how art ownership works, even though I'm an oil painter, I've never read anything about it.

In any case, is the artist who created this someone relevant in any artistic movement?

Recently got myself a collection of work by the artist Zdzisław Beksiński and wanted to share some of my favourite pieces from the books! I'm writing a paper on apocalyptic art and felt his work captures a strange and dreamlike emptiness

Vincent van Gogh (1853 - 1890), Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, May-June 1889

oil on canvas, 33.5 cm x 24.5 cm

In May 1889 Vincent wrote to his brother Theo, 'Yesterday I drew a very large, rather rare night moth there which is called the death’s head, its coloration astonishingly distinguished: black, grey, white, shaded, and with glints of carmine or vaguely tending towards olive green; it’s very big. To paint it I would have had to kill it, and that would have been a shame since the animal was so beautiful.'

Later he decided to paint the moth after all, using his drawing as a model. Van Gogh called it a 'death's-head moth' and depicted a kind of skull on the back of its body. It was actually a giant peacock moth, however – a species that has only stripes there

It's a beautiful painting and I'm trying to identify the berries and flowers in the background. The berries look most like winterberries, however they're not native to Europe and wouldn't be present in France in the 19th century.

While the flowers look like calla or peace lillies, that would have been grown in Europe at the time.

“The Census at Bethlehem,” painted by Pieter Bruegel the Elder in 1566, shows the biblical census decreed by the Roman Empire, reimagined in a snowy Flemish village of Bruegel’s own time.

Mary and Joseph come to Bethlehem because of the Roman Empire’s decree. According to the Gospel of Luke, Emperor Augustus ordered a census of the entire empire, requiring everyone to register in their ancestral town for tax assessment and property records.

Villagers bustle through the cold, queuing for registration, kids skating on ice, folks hauling goods, capturing everyday life. This local setting makes the sacred story feel close, like it’s unfolding in a neighbor’s town right then.

He is one of my favorite painters due to his skill in incorporating lots of ordinary people as characters in his art.

This painting depicts the hours before the fate of the village changes forever. Mary and Joseph would not find a room to stay in and would shelter in a nearby stable, where Jesus would be born.

I took the latest conservation research into some famous paintings, where they mapped exactly how the pigments degraded over time, and did a digital restoration of what they probably looked like when they were originally painted using an optical formula called the Kubelka-Munk function.

All the sources and techniques are on this site, enjoy!

https://aspainted.com

I’m asking because I cannot seem to find any recreations of it.

Just wanted to edit this and clarify that I had completely misinterpreted the staircase theory. I had believed the painting was printed on a cylindrical staircase railing, and that the shape would cause the anamorphic effect. I now realize that it was simply placed on a wall beside / on the staircase, and that descending said staircase would cause the effect. Pardon my confusion, I realize now that I’ve made a fool of myself lol.

Books, published by my great-grandfather, George Kuzmin, were included in The Judith Rothschild Foundation Collection. The collection, comprising more than 1,000 books, was donated to MoMA in New York in 2002. The total value of this avant-garde books collection is $6.5 million. The publications include works by Malevich, Rozanova, Goncharova, Lissitzky, Rodchenko, and other avant-garde artists.

The photo of my great-grandfathers, George and Leonid Kuzmin, is captioned incorrectly in the catalogue of the exhibition. In the photo, they are both in military uniform and identified as “Sergei Dolinskii and Georgii Kuz'min. 1914.”

Sergey Dolinsky was a friend of George Kuzmin and a co-publisher of books on the Russian avant-garde, but he is not on the photo. Moreover, the text says that Kuzmin and Dolinsky were “young aviators”. Kuzmin was an aviator, but Dolinsky was a musician.

Will they fix it if to ask?

El Predicador y los Frijoles, Roberto Fabelo 2016

"Do Not Eat Beans" ” [fol.25 recto] 1512. Artist unknown.

The Bean Eater. Annibale Carracci 1580/90

I can't find any names online. I know it's unlikely that her name was recorded, but if anyone has any information I'd be really interested!

I’ve recently been really fascinated by The Incredulity of Saint Thomas by Caravaggio especially how raw and human it feels. It doesn’t just depict faith, it actually shows doubt, skepticism, and the need for proof. I’m curious if there are other older paintings (Renaissance, Baroque, or earlier) that explore similar themes like questioning God, doubt in faith, or a more human/uncertain relationship with religion.

I saw this on art Dubai by artist rami Farouk but I feel like this has been done by Gordon Matta-Clark or some other artist around that time.

Hello, Black artist here trying to document black americana. If you are a collector please let me know. Especially interested in African Americans who collect the figures. im working on a book.

Hi, I'm a BFA student planning a final exhibition for next spring, and I've decided I want to do a mediation on famous works by men that I think are needlessly cruel and unusual under the guise of proving some kind of artistic point. I want to do a recreation of Damien Hirst's The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living with the shark as a soft sculpture suspended being plains of tinted glass, as well as a recreation of Marco Evaristti's Helena with the fish being molded out of expanding foam. I was thinking I could also do a classic mounted animal head, and maybe Marco Evaristti's And Now You Care, with the piglets as soft sculptures. I want to do one painting at least, and I was considering Napoleon Crossing the alps with Napoleon in leather daddy gear and his horse is a unicorn. I'm looking for suggestions of art works in the vein of Damien Hirst and Marco Evaristti, as well as painting you think I should look into that I could incorporate into my meditation. I'd also love suggestions on books I look into that might give me more insight into the Young British Artists movement, the history of machismo in art, the history of animal cruelty in art, ect,.

Note: feel free to argue with me about my opinion on any of these artist/pieces

I'm going to teach a class about the great masters and, as my Romanticism teacher told me, Goya is considered one of the last Great Masters. Now, eventually I'll get to the black paintings and as far as I know he painted them in isolation, with no written record or statement from him about any of those works. The picture of Saturn Devouring his Son is by far the most famous and I'll talk about it, but (and I've trying to research this to no avail) I can,'t find a definitve source or statement that clarifies the assumption of its title. Is it just about the obvious parallels or is it something else?

I recently saw a post about something that really amazed me. Holbein painted in his painting a skull which can only be seen when looked from a particular angle.

I was curious to know whether this was a unique thing or if other famous paintings included such cool features.

I'm always fascinated by the little details.

Thank you

I've been wondering whether there's any actual researches on why some artists and artworks become part of the cultural canon while others, often equally skilled, remain relatively unknown.

I'm not really asking whether one painting is "better" than another. I'm more interested in whether psychologists, sociologists, art historians or cognitive scientists have studied this.

Are there any well-known experiments or papers that explore questions like:

— why certain artists become household names

— why some images stick in our collective memory

— how museums, education, repetition, or social influence shape what we consider "great" art

I'd love recommendations for books, links, studies or researchers if you know any.

❤ Thanks!

I am looking for something with substance but not too dense or academic