Articles

During the Renaissance, most works of fine art were commissioned and paid for by rulers, religious and civic institutions, and the wealthy. Producing statues, frescoes, altarpieces, and portraits were just some...

The different Buddhist schools of thought, still operating in the present day, developed after the death of the Buddha (l. c. 563 - c. 483 BCE) in an effort to perpetuate his teachings and honor his example...

The dates of the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, have been a concern of, primarily, Western scholars for well over 100 years now owing to the particularly Western need for precise dating of historical persons and events. The...

The Bronze Age Aegean in the eastern Mediterranean encompassed several powerful entities: the Minoans on Crete; the Mycenaeans on mainland Greece, and the Cypriots on Cyprus. These cultures...

The majority of great Renaissance works of art were produced in large and busy workshops run by a successful master artist and his team of assistants and apprentices. Here, too, more mundane art was produced...

Ancient Persian culture exerted a powerful influence throughout the Near East, and beyond, for over a thousand years between c. 550 BCE - 651 CE and many aspects of their culture continued to influence others...

In 1508 CE the Pope commissioned the celebrated Florentine sculptor and painter Michelangelo (1475-1564 CE) to paint scenes on the ceiling of the Vatican's Sistine Chapel. The walls of the chapel had already received...

Dogs were highly valued in ancient Rome, as they were in other cultures, and the Roman dog served many of the same purposes as it did in, say, Egypt and Persia - as hunters, guardians, and companions - but with...

Dogs in ancient Greece are regularly depicted in art, on ceramics, in literature, and other written works as loyal companions, guardians, hunters, and even as great intuitive thinkers; all of these expressing...

The legacy of the ancient Romans – from both the time of the Roman Republic (509-27 BCE) and the time of the Roman Empire (27 BCE - 476 CE) – exerted a significant influence on succeeding cultures and is still felt around...