In the Western Hemisphere, particularly in the United States, terms such as Hispanic and Latino have been used to identify and give more visibility to people whose linguistic or cultural roots fall within the Spanish-speaking linguistic, ethnic, or cultural context: Spain, Latin America, or the Caribbean. Far from representing a monolithic cultural or ethnic […]

James McNeill Whistler’s most famous painting represents his mother Anna, dressed in modest dark attire and seated next to a gray wall. Over the years, the painting became iconic and even developed an entire mythology around it, quite far removed from the circumstances of its creation. But who was James Whistler’s mother, and what […]

One of the first works that come to mind when thinking about Van Gogh is his signature ink-blue sky dotted with dazzling stars. Not content with painting a traditional night scene in austere dark paints, Van Gogh used color, movement, and contrast to bring life into his Café Terrace at Night. Let’s see what […]

On September 18, 1931, the explosion of the Japanese-owned railway track near the city of Mukden, Manchuria in northeastern China, marked the beginning of a full-scale Japanese invasion of Manchuria. With minor resistance from the Chinese army, Japanese troops occupied the region within months and declared the territory an autonomous state of Manchukuo under […]