Raqib Shaw. Paradise Lost. 100 ft wide. Mixed Media. 2009-2025. Run don't walk to the Art Institute of Chicago to see this breathtaking work of art. It will leave you awestruck for its sheer level of detail, skill, and poetic symbolism. The artist devoted over two decades to its development innovatively combining traditional materials and tools with unusual ones like automotive enamel, syringes, quills, and glittering embellishments. You'll find the 100-foot wide multi-panel artwork displayed...

Artemisia Gentileschi, Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting , 1638-39. Oil on canvas. Royal Collection Trust, London. Artemisia’s Self Portrait as the Allegory of Painting imaginatively matches the description of the personification of Painting found in the book Iconologica by Cesare Ripa (1593). This book became popular among artists and other creatives throughout the 17th century. He describes Painting as, “A woman, beautiful, with full black hair, disheveled, and twisted in...

Charles Wilson Peale. George Washington. ca. 1779-81. Oil on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The original commission for this portrait of George Washington was made in January 1779 by the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania when they passed a resolution to engage Charles Wilson Peale as the artist. It was intended to honor Washington and be displayed in their Council Chamber. Peale traveled to the battlefields of Princeton and Trenton to do research for the...