Art history

Van Gogh’s 'Night Café': a haunt of prowlers, not a brothel

Vincent felt that the café he painted was where you could “ruin yourself, go mad, commit crimes”

Booksreview

Pier Paolo Pasolini’s ‘heretical’ writings on painting are spirited and contrarian

The Italian filmmaker—and occasional painter—was scathing about Picasso but delighted in Caravaggio

Where did Van Gogh shoot himself?

It may have been near the inn where he stayed—not in a more distant wheatfield

Van Gogh would have loved to see the National Gallery’s exhibition on Hals

We spotlight eight paintings in the London show that Vincent singled out for special praise

‘Breakthrough’ attribution for Artemisia Gentileschi painting stored at England's Hampton Court

Royal Collection curators checked provenance records and pigments, tracing the work to Queen Henrietta Maria

Revealed: Van Gogh’s unknown period, exploring the landscape of the remote north

The first exhibition on Vincent’s visit to Drenthe, where art consoled him after a failed love affair

Step inside Van Gogh’s London bedroom

It's 150 years since Vincent moved to Brixton, where he fell in love

Is AI generating an ‘averaged’, one-sided, view of art history?

Artists are getting creative to counter visual language being skewed by image-generating apps that average out scraped stock photos and social media files into “mean images”

What paintings did Van Gogh hang above his bed?

“Pictures within pictures” reveal more about life in the Yellow House

How Van Gogh inspired his artist friends to exchange self-portraits

But Vincent was then shocked when Paul Gauguin’s painting arrived at the Yellow House

Ten surprises about Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’

Vincent and his brother Theo once considered the painting a failure—and it only got its name in the 1920s

Van Gogh’s astonishingly bold painting of the church at Auvers, now on show in Amsterdam

The picture exudes spirituality, but after the artist shot himself, its priest refused to help bury him

Religionanalysis

Breaking a taboo: religion is being invited into three major museums

Working with Visual Commentary on Scripture, London’s National Gallery and Berlin’s Bode Museum and Gemäldegalerie are uniting art and theology

How Lavinia Fontana went from ‘prospect’ to first professional woman artist

An exhibition of the 16th-century Italian painter at the National Gallery of Ireland tells the story of her unique circumstances and reveals the results of a recently restored work

Mysterious Picasso portrait may be the key to Adrienne Fidelin’s place in art history

Fidelin, a Black dancer and model who was Man Ray’s partner and muse for years, is believed to be the subject of a Picasso portrait that has not been shown publicly since 1985

Van Gogh's thwarted dream: a painting by the artist blocked from display in a French café

A plan to show the €75m “Garden at Auvers” in the village inn where the artist died has been halted at the last minute, although hopefully temporarily

How Van Gogh’s drawing skills were once trumped by a 16-year-old girl

Discovered: a sketch by a pastor’s daughter, who sat beside Van Gogh when they both depicted a woman peeling potatoes

How Van Gogh’s 'Terrace of a Café at Night'—with its starry sky—was inspired by a friend’s painting

The work’s dramatic colour contrast echoes a Parisian street scene by Louis Anquetin, now on show at London’s National Gallery

Leonardo scholar claims newly discovered document proves artist’s mother was enslaved

While researching a work of historical fiction, Carlo Vecce says he found a document signed by Leonardo da Vinci’s father implying his mother was an enslaved woman from the North Caucasus region

Art history sleuths reunite mother with husband and son in 17th-century Flemish portrait

Scholars have pieced together separate parts of painting after 200 years

The Van Gogh phenomenon: our top ten most popular stories on the artist

After 200 posts of the "Adventures with Van Gogh" blog, an intriguing look back at the most-read posts

Drawing of male nude is Michelangelo’s sketch for Sistine Chapel, scholar says

Red chalk preparatory work may be linked to “Worship of the Brazen Serpent” section of Vatican masterpiece

The Girl with a Glass Bauble Earring? Why Vermeer's painting probably did not depict a real pearl

Plus, did you know the work used to be called “Girl with the Turban” and once sold for less than £1?

Revealed: Vermeer's patron was, in fact, a woman—and she bought half the artist’s entire oeuvre

New research in the Rijksmuseum's catalogue for its Vermeer blockbuster suggests that Maria de Knuijt may have influenced his subject matter

Life in Van Gogh’s Yellow House: the mysterious objects on his kitchen table

A still life, painted just after Vincent mutilated his ear, holds intriguing clues

Can this ‘art world outsider’ draw in an art-curious YouTube crowd?

Hosted by a science writer and actor, the Getty’s "Becoming Artsy" video series ditches the traditional documentary delivery of art history in favour of emotion, drama and fun