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.
An orangutan attacks a woman and pulls her hair in an illustration for the murder scene in Edgar Allan Poe's short story 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue,' early 1840s. A victim lies on the floor, and a witness watches through a window.

“The Murders in the Rue Morgue” by Edgar Allan Poe: Annotated

Poe's 1841 story, arguably the first detective fiction, contains many tropes now considered standard to the genre, including a brilliant, amateur detective.
circa 1945: A portrait of American writer Edna Ferber (1887 - 1968) crossing her arms. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Edna Ferber Revisited

The first-generation Jewish American novelist exposed entrenched prejudices of her day. A reissue of The Girls introduces her wit to new readers.
Illustration of two people trying to communicate through tin-can phones with a disconnected string

How Media Stifles Deliberative Democracy

As outlets that welcome rational exchanges of ideas dwindle those that serve as echo chambers are exploding. What does that mean for free speech and the health of the US?
English art and radio critic Frederick Laws (left) and American photographer Lee Miller attend a one-night performance of Pablo Picasso's play 'Desire Caught By The Tail' at the Rudolf Steiner Hall in London, March 1950.

Lee Miller, More than a Model

Miller photographed the chaos of war’s end in Europe, documenting major battles, the liberation of Paris, and the horrors of Dachau and Buchenwald.
From a poster by Henry Van de Velde for a food supplement, 1898

Art Nouveau: Art of Darkness

First named such in Belgium, Art Nouveau was intimately tied up with that country’s brutal rule of the Congo.
Black and white photo of The Boston Athenaeum by Southworth & Hawes

The Boston Athenæum

Founded in 1807, the subscription library was a gathering place for local scholars, “men of business,” and members of the upper classes in search of knowledge.
William Morris at age 53

William Morris, Anti-Capitalist Publisher

By drawing on traditional typefaces for Kelmscott Press, Morris showed that he was unwilling to yield to capitalism’s demands for speed and efficiency.
A dressmaker uses a sewing machine, 1928

Dressmaking Liberated American Women—Then Came the Men

The creation of bespoke clothing offered women a way to escape traditional middle-class expectations and gain unprecedented power, until men took over.
From the cover of the NYRB edition of Arabesques

Arabic Hebrew, Hebrew Arabic: The Work of Anton Shammas

Within the alienated and antagonist cultures inside Israel’s borders, Arabic and Hebrew—related, but mutually unintelligible languages—cross-fertilize each other.