Power & Privilege

These articles address how art can create and challenge power and privilege.

The Rinpa Experience of Nature

How painters in Edo-period Japan reinvigorated artistic traditions and idealized the past.

Illustration of the magi presenting gifts to Mary and Jesus from an Austrian manuscript

Exploring Representations of the Black Magus in European Art

What can depictions of a key biblical scene tell us about perceptions of race in the Middle Ages?
Left: A wooden sculpture of a woman holding an infant child. Right: A stone sculpture of a lounging figure

Compassion, Mercy, and Love: Guanyin and the Virgin Mary

How two independent cultures—feudal Europe and imperial China—depicted divine figures with incredible visual similarities.
Black-and-white image of an actor in 18th-century period costume sitting in the Marmion Room

Representing the Complicated History of American Interiors

Curator Amelia Peck and Research Associate Moira Gallagher speak to Digital about what a period room is and the benefits of publishing the research that informs them online.

Detail of a sculptural relief plaque made of brass depicting a central figure on horseback flanked by smaller attending figures to either side.

The Legacy of Benin Court Art: From Tragedy to Resilience

The extraordinary aesthetic power, beauty, and complexity of Benin artworks has profoundly influenced Black public intellectuals and artists, while their continued segregation reflects their forced removal.

An ornate painting of the Virgin Mary

Follow the conservation treatment of Emblem of Folly, a painting from colonial Cuzco that “shines a light on those communities or artists that have not had the focus before.”

A black-and-white photo of a man shrouded in all-white cloth

Visualizing a Sahelian Past

How art from the Sahel brings the region’s underappreciated past to life.

Zamora discusses Lattice Detour, his 2020 Rooftop Commission.

A detail from Manet's "Emilie-Louise Delabigne (1848–1910), Called Valtesse de la Bigne

Missing Manet's Valtesse

European Paintings Collections Management Associate Jane R. Becker offers insights into the life of Emilie-Louise Delabigne, the famous sitter of Manet's portrait.

This enigmatic short film presents 50 Egyptian funerary portraits from the region of Fayum.

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