Portrait of Margaret Bonds, 1956

Keeping Scores: Unearthing the Works of Black Women Composers

Black women composers have been active in the US since at least the mid-nineteenth century, yet they’re largely omitted from scholarship on women musicians.
From left to right: Valery Larbaud, Léon-Paul Fargue, Marie Monnier, Sylvia Beach, and Adrienne Monnier in 1924 the fair at the Quai d’Orsay in Paris

The Short-Lived Le Navire d’Argent

Despite its short run, Adrienne Monnier’s literary review made its mark on modernist literature, publishing the work of James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, and Walt Whitman.

Principles of Composition in Art and Design

An artist combines repetition, balance, proportion, movement, and other design elements to form the whole of a visual composition.
Part of the series La Città Nuova, 1914, by Antonio Sant'Elia

Exploring the Avant-Garde Architectural Manifesto

More than a century later, the architectural manifesto continues to hold our attention, emphasizing a charged moment when society was breaking with the past.
A woman's mouth whispering into a man's ear.

Isabel Allende’s “Two Words”

Many have tried to guess the two magical words whispered by Allende’s character Belisa Crepusculario, but the author has yet to reveal them.
Lucille Clifton posing for a photograph; Louisa H. Bowen University Archives and Special Collections; Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

Remembering Her Memories: Lucille Clifton’s Generations in Our Time

The poet stares history down in an artful, Whitman-infused exploration of traumas her family endured and survived.
A detail from Ophelia by John Everett Millais, c. 1851

Elizabeth Siddal, the Real-Life “Ophelia”

A working-class woman with artistic aspirations of her own, Siddal nearly died of pneumonia after posing for John Everett Millais’s iconic painting.
A jet brooch with a vulcanite ring

Victorians Mourned with Vulcanized Rubber Jewelry

Nineteenth-century Anglo-American mourning rituals called for a period of sentimental sadness, but they also demanded an investment in clothing and jewelry.

Michael Gold: Red Scare Victim

The author of Jews Without Money, a proletarian lit best-seller, was ostracized for his Communism and derided for his prose. Today he is all but forgotten.

Elements of Design: Spotlight on Color

Color, like line, shape, texture, and the other elements of art and design, communicates meaning and creates visually compelling experiences. Here's how.