Visual Arts

Mohamed Hashem, one of Saudi Arabia's best known musicians, plays the oud, a Middle Eastern lute.

An Art Scene Flourishes Behind Closed Doors In Saudi Arabia

3:14pm September 10, 2015

by Leila Fadel

There isn't much public space to be creative. Artists Arwa Alneami and Ahmed Mater are trying to change that. They host a salon where creative people gather and exchange ideas.

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A New York study found that getting medical students together with dementia patients and their families at museums to view, discuss and create art for 90 minutes made the students better communicators.

Sharing Art Helps Medical Students Connect With Dementia Patients

8:17pm August 05, 2015

by Ina Yang

It's easy to spot what Alzheimer's patients have lost — memory, communication skills and more. But a study that sent medical students and dementia patients to art classes opened new vistas for all.

Of I Wish You the Sunshine of Tomorrow, Rodgers says: "The ICU room my dad was in on the day he died had yellow walls. Every time we visited him we had to wear hospital gowns that were a bright yellow. [It] was a recurring color in that whole time frame o

A Woman Uses Art To Come To Terms With Her Father's Death

3:24pm May 04, 2015

by Meredith Rizzo

Artist Jennifer Rodgers' father was hospitalized for seven months with sepsis before he died. She used the creative process to try to comprehend his suffering and her loss.

Books
Arts

Imagining The Power Of Edouard Manet's 'Very Active Muse'

3:04pm April 25, 2015

by NPR Staff

Maureen Gibbon's new novel, Paris Red, delves into the life of Victorine Meurent, Manet's favorite model and the central figure in some of his most famous paintings.

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The Noun Project uses crowdsourcing to gather an army of people to define words using icons. This is just a small selection of the huge icon dictionary.

Arts

How Iconic: A Word Is Worth Thousands Of Pictures

10:37am April 13, 2015

by Caele Pemberton

Inspired by the origins of the Oxford English Dictionary, the Noun Project uses crowdsourcing to gather an army of people to define words. But instead of using other words to do it, they use icons.

The birth of vaccines: Photographer Alexia Sinclair portrays Dr. Edward Jenner giving John Phipps the world's first vaccine, for smallpox, in 1796.

Why Bill Gates Is Commissioning Fine Art

6:02pm January 08, 2015

by Susan Brink

From stylized photography that looks like a fashion shoot to a comic book journey about lockjaw, artwork from around the world illustrates the value of vaccines.

The video for Chinese artist Ai Weiwei's newly released song starts by re-creating the conditions of his captivity during the 81 days he was held in police detention in 2011, and later dissolves into a dystopian nightmare.

China's Artist Provocateur Explores New Medium: Heavy Metal

8:18pm May 22, 2013

by Louisa Lim

In 2011, police detained Ai Weiwei for 81 days. Now, he's released a song that's turned the experience into a heavy metal protest song, along with a dystopian nightmare video. The lyrics are explicit and angry. Ai says his music is for the many political prisoners who remain jailed.

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One of the highlights of the new China Art Palace in Shanghai is a giant digital rendering of a famous ancient scroll, "Along the River During Qingming Festival," which includes figures that walk and talk. The work was first presented at the 2010 World Ex

China Builds Museums, But Filling Them Is Another Story

5:43pm May 21, 2013

by Frank Langfitt

China has been building museums with abandon, opening about 100 annually in recent years. Two of the biggest opened on the same day last fall on opposite banks of Shanghai's Huangpu River. But filling these museums — with both art and visitors — is proving more challenging.

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