The Importance of Being Odd 

What we refer to as Hellenization or Romanization in the ancient world may well be the first examples of the phenomenon we now call globalization. Essay

Wood seeks to produce the paradox of an American Gothic, to combine the best of the New and the Old Worlds--a synthesis he found adumbrated in the quaint house that inspired the painting and led to its name. Essay

Mendelssohn's works obviously deserve to be called great. He may not have changed the course of music history, but think of how much poorer that history would be without the likes of the Octet, the Violin Concerto, the Italian Symphony, and Elijah. Essay

Wagner, for all his faults, his reprehensible behavior, and his contemptible beliefs, made a unique contribution to the world of music and expanded our awareness of the range of the human soul’s possibilities. Essay

The seemingly innocuous occasion of commemorating the 500th anniversary of the death of the great painter Hieronymus Bosch touched off a battle of museums. Essay

Vermeer did not acquire his reputation as one of the great masters until the second half of the 19th century, when the Romantic idea of genius had triumphed. Essay

It sounds like a Saturday Night Live sketch when you first hear about it. Steve Martin— the Steve Martin—is curating a museum exhibition of works by a supposedly famous Canadian painter you've never heard of. Essay