Style & Color
Japandi and Quiet Minimalism
The narrow palette, the value discipline and the one dark accent that make a quiet room work — plus how it differs from plain Scandinavian minimalism.
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Famous Paintings
Jean-François Millet’s Ten Most Famous Paintings
Gleaners, sowers and shepherdesses: the ten works in which Millet gave the French peasant the dignity of an Old Master saint.
Famous Paintings
William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s Ten Most Famous Paintings
Goddesses, angels, and barefoot peasant children, painted with unearthly polish: the ten works that define the great academic master.
Formats
How to Choose a Frame and Mat
Mat width does more than molding does. The defaults that work, the colors to avoid, and when a plain cheap frame beats an expensive one.
Comparisons
Baroque vs Rococo
Baroque persuades you; Rococo entertains you. The dates, the palettes, the patrons and the six-second test for telling the two apart.
Famous Paintings
Winslow Homer’s Ten Most Famous Paintings
Schoolyards, shipwrecks and the open Atlantic: ten paintings by the self-taught New Englander who became America’s greatest realist.
Famous Paintings
Albert Bierstadt’s Ten Most Famous Paintings
Thunderheads over the Rockies, golden light in Yosemite, and buffalo on the plains: the ten paintings that sold America its own West.
Style & Color
Mid-Century Modern Wall Art: A Guide
What actually counts as mid-century modern art, the six colors the style runs on, and how to frame and hang it without tipping into pastiche.
Movements
What Came After Impressionism?
Four painters took four different exits from Impressionism — and between them produced most of twentieth-century art.
Famous Paintings
Thomas Moran’s Ten Most Famous Paintings
Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon and the cliffs of the Green River: the ten works that made Moran the painter of the American West.
Famous Paintings
Joaquín Sorolla’s Ten Most Famous Paintings
Wet sand, white dresses, and the Mediterranean at midday: the ten paintings that made Sorolla the master of Spanish light.
Style & Color
Maximalist Walls: Color, Pattern and Density
Density only works when something governs it. The coverage figures, the repeated-color rule and the frame discipline that separate a maximalist wall from a cluttered one.