Clark Art Institute

The images produced by artists historicize war’s sick seductiveness while concentrating the mind on past, present, and, ineluctably, future calamity.

The Norwegian artist, a younger contemporary of Munch, is largely unknown outside Norway’s borders. That should change.

While masterpieces traffic in the inexplicable, drawings speak directly from the artist in pre- or mid-creation, hatching little big bangs of ideas.

An argument is often made that we shouldn’t judge the past by the values of the present, but that’s a hard sell in a case as primordial as Renoir’s.

At the Explorers Club, a Renoir-themed dinner party features an edible portrait and scents from the painter’s work.