Arts

Garum Masala

Dramatic archaeological discoveries—including a marble Buddha in Egypt and jars of Mediterranean garum (fish sauce) and olive oil in India—have led scholars to radically reassess the size and importance of the trade between ancient Rome and India.

April 20, 2023 issue

Missionaries, Merlins, and Merchants

Recent scholarship illuminates how medieval Southeast Asia transformed Indian cultural and religious ideas brought to the region by monks and traders.

December 22, 2022 issue

Painting the Cosmic Ocean

“Mountain fortresses suddenly blossomed with artists, many of whom had been trained in the now-defunct Mughal ateliers, each family of painters competing with and inspiring one another in a manner comparable to the rival city-states of Renaissance Italy.”

June 6, 2019 issue

The Greatest Ancient Picture Gallery

One of the great wonders of India: the painted caves of Ajanta

October 23, 2014 issue

‘I Wanted to Paint What I Know’: An Interview with Jordan Casteel

Casteel’s first solo exhibition in New York City, ‘Within Reach,’ is a collection of large-scale oil portraits, on view at the New Museum for just one more week.

December 26, 2020

An Interview with Art Spiegelman

If you were drawing Donald Trump as an animal, who would he be? A very conventional part of my brain goes, “He’s a… wild boar.” Except that pigs are intelligent. Now I have drawn him as bloated frog. More recently, I drew him as a large turd.

April 13, 2018

An Interview with Artist Chloë Bass

I first encountered the work of conceptual artist Chloë Bass when I came upon a reflective billboard—a giant mirror—planted in the grass of Harlem’s St. Nicholas Park, with the words “How much of love is attention?” written across it.

August 19, 2020