• Art The Garden of Earthly Delights Five centuries after it was painted, historians still can't agree whether this triptych is a warning against sin or a… 4 min read · 10 facts
• Art Girl with a Pearl Earring She's one of the most recognizable faces in art history, but Vermeer never gave her a name — and there's a real chance… 3 min read · 10 facts
• Art Mona Lisa The world's most famous painting owes much of its fame to a crime — an Italian handyman walked out of the Louvre with… 3 min read · 10 facts
• Art The Starry Night Van Gogh painted the most beloved night sky in art history from an asylum window — then wrote to a friend that the… 3 min read · 9 facts
• Art The Scream One blood-red sunset gave the world its face of pure dread. Both painted versions have been stolen — and one carries a… 3 min read · 9 facts
• Art The Great Wave off Kanagawa A woodblock print made by a Japanese artist in his seventies became possibly the most reproduced image in art history… 3 min read · 10 facts
• Art Guernica Picasso painted his answer to the bombing of a defenseless town in just 35 days — and refused to let the painting… 3 min read · 10 facts
• Art The Persistence of Memory Dalí's melting clocks were inspired not by Einstein but by cheese left in the sun — and the painting that conquered… 3 min read · 9 facts
• Art American Gothic The stern farmer and woman everyone loves to parody are actually the painter's sister and his dentist — and Iowa was… 3 min read · 10 facts
• Art Banksy The world's most famous living artist has never confirmed his own name — he hangs fake art in museums, builds… 3 min read · 10 facts
• Art The Thinker The world's most famous statue of thinking was never meant to stand alone — it was designed as one small figure above… 3 min read · 9 facts
• Art The Night Watch Rembrandt's most famous painting is named for a mistake, was trimmed with scissors to fit between two doors, and has… 3 min read · 10 facts
• Art The Kiss Klimt's father engraved gold for a living. His son covered a canvas in it — and the Austrian state bought the painting… 3 min read · 10 facts
• Art AI Art In August 2023 a US court ruled that AI-generated images cannot be copyrighted, because no human made them. The… 3 min read · 10 facts
• Art The Last Supper Leonardo painted it with materials that let him revise as he worked — and that is exactly why almost none of the… 3 min read · 10 facts
• Art Vincent van Gogh He painted for only ten years, sold almost nothing, and was dismissed as a madman and a failure. Around 860 oil… 3 min read · 9 facts
• Art The Great Wave: A Tiny Print That Conquered the World A struggling 71-year-old artist made it from a woodblock, using a blue pigment that had just arrived from Holland… 3 min read · 8 facts
• Art Bauhaus It lasted just fourteen years and was shut down under Nazi pressure, yet this small German art school still decides… 4 min read · 10 facts
• Art Perspective (graphical) Making a flat picture look deep is not obvious and not natural. It had to be invented, and for most of human history… 4 min read · 10 facts
• Art Sistine Chapel Michelangelo was hired to paint twelve apostles on the corners. He talked his way into repainting the entire ceiling… 3 min read · 10 facts
• Art Photography The word means drawing with light, and the physics behind it was worked out in the eleventh century. It then took… 4 min read · 10 facts
• Art Taj Mahal An emperor was so broken by his wife's death that he gave up music for two years, then spent over two decades building… 4 min read · 10 facts
• Art Statue of Liberty When the Statue of Liberty was unveiled in 1886, it was a shiny reddish-brown. Within twenty years it had turned… 4 min read · 10 facts
• Art Sagrada Família Construction on Barcelona's Sagrada Família began in 1882, and for 136 years it had no building permit. When asked… 4 min read · 10 facts
• Art Ballet Ballet started as court entertainment for Italian nobles who could barely move in their costumes. The steps still… 4 min read · 10 facts
• Art Islamic geometric patterns Patterns drawn with nothing but a compass and a straightedge, which turned out to contain ideas that mathematicians… 4 min read · 10 facts
• Art Stained glass The colour is not painted on. Metal salts are mixed into the molten glass itself, which is why medieval windows have… 4 min read · 10 facts
• Art Jazz The word jazz was first written down to describe a baseball pitch that wobbled so strangely nobody could hit it… 3 min read · 9 facts
• Art Film Every movie you have ever watched is a trick played on your eyes: a stream of still pictures flashing too fast to tell… 3 min read · 9 facts
• Art Eiffel Tower Famous artists called it useless and monstrous, and it was only meant to stand for 20 years. Then radio came along and… 3 min read · 10 facts
• Art Leaning Tower of Pisa It started tilting before it was even half built, and by 1990 it was close to toppling. So engineers saved it, but… 3 min read · 10 facts
• Art Mount Rushmore Mount Rushmore's four giant faces were meant to have bodies too. Here is how 400 workers blasted a mountain into… 4 min read · 10 facts
• Art Neuschwanstein Castle A king built the world's tallest castle with his own money and huge loans, lived there for only 172 days, and never… 5 min read · 10 facts
• Art Alhambra Its outer walls went up in a single year, one ceiling holds more than 8,000 wooden pieces, and its tiles hide nearly… 5 min read · 10 facts
• Art Burj Khalifa The world's tallest building sways 1.5 meters at its tip and was partly built with steel from a torn-down palace in… 5 min read · 10 facts
• Art Sydney Opera House From afar its roofs look pure white, but they hide over a million tiles in two colors. And the architect who designed… 4 min read · 10 facts
• Art Golden Gate Bridge Experts said no one could bridge this windy, foggy strait. Then someone did, painted it orange instead of striped, and… 4 min read · 10 facts
• Art Big Ben London's most famous clock is fine-tuned with a stack of old pennies, and its giant bell has been ringing with a crack… 5 min read · 10 facts
• Art Ansel Adams He was thrown out of several schools, taught at home, and handed a camera at fourteen on his first trip to Yosemite… 3 min read · 9 facts
• Art Petronas Towers Before the world's tallest twin skyscrapers could rise, engineers found their site sat on the edge of a hidden cliff… 4 min read · 10 facts
• Art Tower Bridge In 1952 Tower Bridge started to open with a double-decker bus still on it. The driver put his foot down, jumped the… 5 min read · 10 facts
• Art Hoover Dam Engineers worked out that if Hoover Dam had been poured in one go, its concrete would have taken 125 years to cool. 5 min read · 10 facts
• Art Empire State Building The Empire State Building rose so fast that builders once added 14 floors in just 10 working days, and its spire was… 4 min read · 10 facts
• Art Atomium Brussels' most popular tourist attraction was built to last only six months, and for years even sharing a photo of it… 4 min read · 10 facts
• Art CN Tower A helicopter named Olga flew the CN Tower's antenna into place in 36 pieces, and newspapers printed the flight… 4 min read · 10 facts
• Art Brooklyn Bridge The Brooklyn Bridge was finished by an engineer who watched it rise through a telescope from his bedroom. Within a… 5 min read · 10 facts
• Art Chrysler Building To win the race for the world's tallest building, its architect secretly built a steel spire inside the tower, then… 4 min read · 10 facts
• Art Burj Al Arab Its helipad, 210 metres up, has been a car race track, a boxing ring, a tennis court and the launch point for the… 4 min read · 10 facts
• Art Gateway Arch When the final piece of the Gateway Arch was lifted into place, heat had made the steel swell so much that workers… 4 min read · 10 facts
• Art Flatiron Building At its narrow tip, the Flatiron Building is only about 6 feet wide. New Yorkers were so sure the wind would topple it… 4 min read · 10 facts
• Art Millau Viaduct The world's tallest bridge for over two decades has a road deck shaped like an upside-down wing, so strong winds press… 4 min read · 10 facts
• Art Sydney Harbour Bridge The four giant granite towers of the Sydney Harbour Bridge hold up nothing at all. They were added mainly to calm… 4 min read · 10 facts