Visual Arts Story Briefs

What does it mean when we say "art is in the eye of the beholder?" How have artists' subjects changed over the centuries? This collection features diverse art forms (from ancient mosaics to modern cubism).

Hannah More opposed slavery and the slave trade. She fought hard with people like Thomas Clarkson, William Wilberforce, John Newton and many others to...

We know how Henry VIII and many of his contemporaries appeared thanks to the work of a prolific German artist known as Hans Holbein the Younger. Who w...

Edward Sorel created this parody of America's sitting Vice-President, Spiro Agnew, in 1973. Not long after the political cartoon was published by Harp...

The Ringling Brothers tent that was in place - on the 6th of July, 1944 - was new. Its canvas top had been specially treated, to make it waterproof, ...

As the flames moved up, from the circus tent's untreated sidewall, they found the big top's roof with its treated layer of paraffin and gasoline. A d...

Francis Hauksbee invented this electrostatic generator which he, and others, used in early 18th-century scientific demonstrations.

This image, from the German Federal Archives, depicts Heinrich Himmler at the Dachau Concentration Camp in 1936.

When twenty of the shipwrecked crew of the Essex arrive at Henderson Island, three decide to stay. They had previously discovered a cave on the island...

Henry Bliss Northup was the man who rescued Solomon Northup - whose slave name was ''Platt Hamilton'' - from slavery.

Born into a very wealthy family, Henry Cavendish - a humble, eccentric man - devotes his life to science.

Henry Essex Edgeworth - an Irish cleric who was living in France - became Louis XVIs spiritual advisor during his final days. Although he (and others)...

In 1520, Henry VIII had two living children - Mary (his daughter with Catherine of Aragon) and Henry FitzRoy (his illegitimate son with Bessie Blount)...

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