Smithsonian Associates Online Programs

Music and the visual arts have always been intertwined. For millennia, artists have obsessed about how to represent music’s invisible beauty, just as composers have sought to render art’s vibrant colors in pure sound. From Chagall’s set and costume designs for opera to artists who were also instruments, lecturer and concert pianist Rachel Franklin explores the intimate relationship between the visible and invisible arts in a 4-session series.

Why does Sherlock Holmes remain such an intriguing figure generations after his debut? English professor Kristopher Mecholsky highlights his origins and worldwide popularity. He also focuses a magnifying glass on his unique impact on contemporary fans—who are fascinated by searching for clues to whether Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s timeless detective would be classified as neurodivergent today.

Located in Naples, Italy, the Capodimonte Museum is one of the largest museums in Italy. Housed in the museum is the Galleria Nazionale, which features one of the best repositories of Neapolitan painting and decorative art as well as works by Caravaggio, Raphael, Titan, El Greco, Artemisia Gentileschi, and many others. Italian Renaissance art expert Rocky Ruggiero highlights this lesser-known art museum’s impressive and expansive collection. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)

Women pilots were denied the chance to fly when the United States entered the Second World War. But in 1942, Great Britain welcomed 25 young aviators who became the first American women to command military aircraft. Author Becky Aikman highlights the stories of several of these “spitfires,” their exciting and often-terrifying work, and how they broke new ground off duty as well.

The Mogao Grottos of China—a UNESCO World Heritage Site—are often referred to as an “art gallery in the desert.” For more than a thousand years, kings, merchants, monks, and nuns called the nearby desert oasis of Dunhuang home. Not far from town they sponsored the excavation and decoration of nearly 500 caves with paintings that depicted Buddhist iconography, local folktales, and life along the Silk Road. Historian Justin M. Jacobs traces the history of the grottos, analyzes the paintings, and discusses the controversial fate of a secret “cave library.”

The Thorne Miniature Rooms are a collection of 68 interiors at the Art Institute of Chicago. Crafted on a 1:12 scale by Narcissa Niblack Thorne and her colleagues in the 1930s and ’40s, each recreates in perfect detail a room from the 16th to the 20th century. Author Marianne Malone delves into the history of Thorne’s project and how her childhood obsession with it inspired her series for young readers set in the magical world of the Thorne Rooms. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)

Author Lesley Poling-Kempes brings to life the adventures of two groups of lesser-known women whose legacies helped shape the American Southwest: the thousands of young women who became waitresses in Harvey House restaurants along the Santa Fe Railway from the 1880s to the 1950s and four women who journeyed to the Southwest in the early 20th century and found their lives transformed by its people, landscapes, and cultures—particularly Native American art and music.

Cleopatra would have been a social media star if she lived today. Known for charisma, she was more renowned for her intellect and her ruthless determination to rule. She embraced both Caesar and Mark Antony as protectors and lovers when the need arose and murdered siblings to gain power. Historian Barry Strauss highlights Cleopatra’s complex role as an absolute ruler at a crucial moment when Romans and Egyptians fought for domination.

Art played a pivotal role during the dawn of European natural history in the 16th and 17th centuries. Advancements in scientific technology, trade, and colonial expansion allowed naturalists to study previously unknown and overlooked insects, animals, and other beestjes: “little beasts” in Dutch. Curators of the National Gallery of Art’s exhibition “Little Beasts: Art, Wonder, and the Natural World,” share an exhibition overview and a closer look at the artists and ideas that it highlights. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)

Death is the one thing all humans throughout history have in common, and yet it is still a mystery. Robert Garland, a professor emeritus of classics, explores the death-related beliefs and practices of a range of ancient cultures and traditions, including Egyptian, Jewish, Zoroastrian, Etruscan, Greek, Roman, early Christian, and Islamic. Garland puts himself in the sandals of ancient peoples and imagines how they sought—in ways that turn out to be remarkably similar to ours—to assist the dead on their journey to the next world and to understand life’s greatest mystery.