For the anti-maskers
An aesthetic alternative to N-95?
Dancers by Ye Qianyu
A series of mid-twentieth century sketches by Shanghainese artist Ye Qianyu.
The excavation of a shipwreck
The non-scandal around the recovery of a ninth century shipwreck.
Rime of the ancient mariner
Design secrets of the Arab dhow plying the Arabian and Indian Ocean trade routes and transporting goods and ideas across the world for millennia.
Between the lines with Uncle Ho
Sometimes propaganda can be art and art propaganda.
A matter of perspective
Why you might want to take the Kardashians seriously.
The evolution of the Indian palace
From intimate to imperial.
Islam-ish
Trying to define a word can be very difficult sometimes.
The winking owl
The time the world went mad.
The history of civilization in four pictures
How man conquered nature.
The pampered pachyderms of Mysore
Food and empire
Where other cultures mark the passage of time with significant political events or military battles, Chinese historians do so with significant banquets.
The salt librarian
Why not ditch your generic table salt for something locally harvested and far more healthful?
The rock 'n' roll poet of the Dior dress
The story of the dress doesn't end with Zhang Xu's stomach ache. "Crazy Zhang," as he was known, was the enfant terrible of Chinese letters.
Lost in translation
When the tables are turned.
The first comic strip?
To the snobs who don't consider comic books art, consider this: it has classical origins. An introduction to the first comic strip.
Stop complaining about your lawyers
Maybe your lawyer isn't that bad after all.
Conspicuous consumption
An appreciation of the Mughal wine cup.
Did the early Buddhists pioneer the art of mass communication?
The Buddha's teachings were not easy to understand. And yet, millions of people adopted these teachings as their own. All without a single religious war.
Minka: A single-family detached home
The Minka or the Japanese farmhouse was one of the earliest forms of the single-family detached home.