Meet Lucy. She was a math major in college, and aced all her courses in probability and statistics. Which do you think is more likely: that Lucy is a portrait artist, or that Lucy is a portrait artist who also plays poker? How do we know...

Music is an integral part of Black American culture. Today, Clint Smith will teach you about rap & hip hop, and the cultural significance of artists including Public Enemy, Wu-Tang Clan, the Notorious B.I.G., Tupac, N.W.A., Queen...

If you haven't had a chance to play with Microsoft's Kinect, you're missing out on some great video games and some amazing art! The Kinect is a crazy awesome piece of XBox 360 hardware that maps your physical movements onto any screen....

Our image of dinosaurs has been constantly changing since naturalists started studying them about 350 years ago. Taken together, these pictures can tell us a whole lot about just how much we have learned. Let's explore the history of...

Was da Vinci an artistic genius? Sure, but he was also born in the right place at the right time -- pre-Renaissance, Western artists got little individual credit for their work. And in many non-Western cultures, traditional forms have...

Spray-painted subway cars, tagged bridges, mural-covered walls -- graffiti pops up boldly throughout our cities. And it turns out: it's nothing new. Graffiti has been around for thousands of years. And across that span of time, it's...

How can the magic of live theater, live music, live dance compete with the always-on Internet? Ben Cameron offers a bold look forward to a world where live arts matter more than ever -- to link humans together at a primal level of shared...

Thelma Golden, curator at the Studio Museum in Harlem, talks through three recent shows that explore how art examines and redefines culture. The "post-black" artists she works with are using their art to provoke a new dialogue about race...

Wale pulls up for a raw, unfiltered conversation with Rich Kleiman and Damien Scott in the latest episode of Boardroom Talks, and nothing is off limits. From his early days in DC to a botched Interscope rollout, signing with Rick Ross...

Michelangelo was one of the greatest artists of the Renaissance—a sculptor, painter, architect, and poet whose work shaped the course of Western art. Known for masterpieces like the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the statue of David, and...

Raphael was a master painter and architect of the Italian Renaissance, known for his graceful figures and perfectly balanced compositions. His works, including The School of Athens and numerous portraits of the Madonna, captured both...

Pablo Picasso was one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. From his early Blue and Rose Periods to co-creating Cubism, Picasso constantly reinvented his style. He could draw realistically as a teenager, but he chose to...

The video explores the concept of artistic mediums and how artists adapt myths into various forms of expression such as paintings, stage plays, and movies. By comparing different mediums, viewers gain a deeper understanding of the...

For centuries, “official” art spaces have shaped whose work gets taken seriously. But there are no required qualifications for making art! In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’ll explore amateurs and outsiders. We’ll learn how...

Art tells the story of humanity across societies and cultures, but keeping that art around for future generations can be a monumental task. In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’ll learn how art historians preserve, restore,...

What makes a painting worth millions of dollars? In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’re looking at the history behind today’s art industry and how we determine an artwork’s financial value. We’ll also learn how the big...

What’s the line between inspiration and flat-out appropriation? In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we grapple with questions about artistic originality and authenticity that have plagued the art world for hundreds of years....

Our cultural perspectives shape how we perceive art, including who we see as contributing to its most important movements. In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’ll get to the truth behind the creation of modernism and bust...

How can the color “red” be a global commodity? How can the way a statue stands be a sign of cultural exchange? In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’ll explore how trade networks have moved both materials and ideas — and how...

In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’ll keep digging into the myth of the Great Artist, with whether we can—or should—separate artists’ personal actions and beliefs from the art they create. Art historians are exploring new...

Michelangelo. Vincent Van Gogh. Pablo Picasso. The story of art history is told through the biographies of individual celebrity artists. In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’ll learn about where the myth of the Great Artist...

In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’ll learn why museums are so much more than just collections of interesting and pretty objects. Their legacy includes everything from violence to theft, to, oddly enough, mermaid hands.

Art history is much more than names, dates, and creepy babies. It helps us understand how history itself gets constructed and told. In this episode of Crash Course Art History, we’ll learn how interpreting artwork reveals connections...

Howcast - You can either stumble into a shop one night after you’ve been drinking, or you can select a tattoo artist carefully. Which do you think is smartest?