Curated category
Artist authors
- MichelangeloMichelangelo carved one of his most famous works, the Pietà, before he turned 30, then sculpted David before the same milestone.
- William BlakeWilliam Blake spent one of his last shillings on a pencil so he could keep sketching. He was near death, working feverishly on illustrations for Dante's…
- William MorrisWilliam Morris arrived in the world on the 24th of March 1834, and by the time he died on the 3rd of October 1896, he had left his mark on textiles, poetry…
- Eugène DelacroixEugène Delacroix once heard the poet and critic Baudelaire describe him this way: "Delacroix was passionately in love with passion, but coldly determined to…
- Rabindranath TagoreRabindranath Tagore was eight years old when he wrote his first poetry. At sixteen, he released substantial poems under the pseudonym Bhanusimha, meaning Sun…
- William HogarthWilliam Hogarth told people his pictures were meant to be read, not just looked at. A country girl arrives in London and meets a procuratress.
- Lorenzo GhibertiLorenzo Ghiberti was a Florentine sculptor who spent most of his working life making two sets of bronze doors for a single building.
- Leon Battista AlbertiLeon Battista Alberti once boasted that he could stand with his feet together and spring clean over a man's head. He claimed he could throw a coin so high…
- Albrecht DürerAlbrecht Dürer was born in Nuremberg on the 21st of May 1471, the third child of a Hungarian goldsmith who had translated his own family name from the word…
- Giorgio VasariGiorgio Vasari coined a word that historians still reach for five centuries later. Writing about Giotto's fresh way of painting, he called it a rinascita, a…
- Nicholas HilliardNicholas Hilliard, the English goldsmith and miniature painter born in Exeter around 1547, spent forty-five years at the heart of two royal courts without…
- Benvenuto CelliniBenvenuto Cellini was born in Florence on the 3rd of November 1500, and by the time he died there on the 13th of February 1571, he had killed at least four…