This is a list of amazing illustrations painted directly on to feathers. Many thanks to heavybison for forwarding me the email of these! So, here are the top 10 amazing paintings on feathers. As usual, click on the image for a larger view. These paintings were all made by Julie Thompson.

(Read the rest of this list…)

Great art usually comes with a high price - and sometimes unbelievably so. This is a list of the most expensive paintings sold to date. The prices quoted are inflation adjusted to 2007 US dollars. Prices are in millions of dollars.

10. Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II 89.1m Wikipedia

Artist: Gustav Klimt

Adele Bloch-Bauer II is a 1912 painting by Gustav Klimt. Adele Bloch-Bauer was the wife of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, who was a wealthy industrialist who sponsored the arts and supported Gustav Klimt. Adele Bloch-Bauer was the only model to be painted twice by Klimt; she also appeared in the much more famous Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I.

(Read the rest of this list…)

There is such a plethora of images of this type out there that I had to set a restriction; the restriction is that the images must include a planet - either a surface or from space. So, here they are - the top 15 stunning images from Science Fiction - in no particular order (click for a larger image):

15. The Monorail

(Read the rest of this list…)

The theft of treasure is nothing new - it is one of folklore’s most persistent themes - but thanks to novels, films and the newspaper headlines, art theft has captured the public’s imagination like few other types of crime have. Below is a list of the top 10 (plus a bonus) post-war art thefts.

1. The Duke of Wellington - Goya

In 1961, Charles Wrightsman, the oil-rich American collector, bought Goya’s “Portrait of the Duke of Wellington” for $392,000 and planned to take it to the United States. There was such a public outrage that the British government raised the necessary matching sum. Less than three weeks after its triumphal hanging in the National Gallery, it was stolen. The thief demanded a ransom of the same amount and said he was going to devote it to charity.

(Read the rest of this list…)

WARNING: Some adult and shocking content is featured here. This article shows some of the most bizarre art in modern history. Art has progressed well past the concept of recognisable structures to completely outlandish (and often nightmarish) images. Seeing is believing, so here is the list:

1. The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living [Wikipedia]

Artist: Damien Hirst

Damien Hirst (born June 7, 1965) is an English artist and the most prominent of the group that has been dubbed “Young British Artists” (or YBAs). He dominated the art scene in Britain during the 1990s and is internationally renowned. Death is a central theme in his work. He is best known for his Natural History series, in which dead animals (such as a shark, a sheep or a cow) are preserved, sometimes cut-up, in formaldehyde.

(Read the rest of this list…)