Sign up to receive a handout with nine fun art appreciation activities for all ages. These games and challenges will help you connect with artworks and practice key art appreciation skills like attention to detail, comparison, and visual description in the process. I hope you'll have as much fun trying them as I had dreaming them up!
Author: Alexandra Kiely (A Scholarly Skater)
Alexandra Kiely, aka A Scholarly Skater, is an art historian based in the northeastern United States. She loves wandering down the dark and dusty corners of art history and wholeheartedly believes in visual art's ability to enrich every person's life.
Her favorite periods of art history are 19th-century American painting and medieval European art and architecture. When she not looking at, reading about, writing about, or teaching art, she's probably ice dancing or reading.
Prehistoric Art as a Fundamental Element of Humanity
Discoveries of artworks created up to 45,000 years ago prove that expressing and deriving meaning from visual images is an ancient and fundamental part of being human.
How Viewing Art is Good for Your Mental Health
Studies suggest that looking at art can be good for mental health. It can increase happiness, decrease stress and anxiety, and improve cognitive skills. Art can also help us be mindful and connect us to the past.
French Tradition at Delaware’s Nemours Estate
During a recent visit to Wilmington, Delaware, I had the opportunity to visit Nemours Estate, the 77-room home and formal French gardens of industrialist Alfred I. Dupont (1864-1935) and his family. It wasn't an experience I'll soon forget.
New Course Teaches Visually-Based Art Appreciation
Alexandra Kiely and A Scholarly Skater Art History are pleased to announce Art Appreciation for Beginners, an online course about understanding, enjoying, and evaluating artworks.
Introducing Online Courses with The Art Museum Insider
This just in: You can now take online courses about art at my new Teachable school, The Art Museum Insider! A short course about museum visits is already available, and more are coming soon.
The Narbonne Cathedral Dog Gargoyle
Enjoy this photo, sent in by a reader, of a charming gargoyle depicting a Saint Bernard dog from the cathedral of Saint-Just and Saint-Pasteur in Narbonne, France.
Chatting About Notre-Dame de Paris on Jo’s Art History Podcast
Listen to me chat about Notre-Dame de Paris with Jo McLaughlin of Jo's Art History Podcast.
Santa Claus is Coming to Town!
Count down the hours until Christmas with my articles, both old and new, about artistic representations of Santa Claus.
The Garima Gospels – Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts in Ethiopia
The Garima Gospels, two gospel books from northern Ethiopia, may be the oldest surviving illuminated Christian manuscripts in the entire world.
A Scholarly Skater 