The art of China’s Tang period (618 to 907) has delighted me ever since I happened across this piece a few years ago in the Chicago Art Institute, where I took the sadly discolored snap on the right. But the two views are from slightly different angles. Together they give a sense of the action.…

My interest in art history died slowly back in art school, where the professors in that subject were historians, not artists. Their lectures were social history lite, with slides of the hoary old standards blinking grayly and grimly on the wavering screen behind. They didn’t talk about the art as art at all–pointing out and…

These two pieces are divided by several hundred years, to say nothing of culture. Nor do they have the same expressive intent: Zhang Xuan’s piece is about lightness and delight, while Robert Peake was showing off the majesty of Queen Elizabeth and her nobles. But there is a fun reflection in the liveliness of the…