Welcome to Smithsonian Associates Streaming

Students are introduced to the materials, tools, and technologies used in collage and assemblage. They find inspiration in artists who worked in collage, including Joseph Cornell, Romare Bearden, and Gertrude Greene.

Bologna is home to some of Italy’s most important art, including works by Michelangelo, Annibale Carracci, Lavinia Fontana, Domenichino, and Guercino. Rocky Ruggiero, an expert in Renaissance art, explores the city’s artistic treasures and great artists. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)

Fine-tune a drawing of an amaryllis from a provided tracing, then focus on creating captivating, colorful shapes. As you add details, the rhythmic lines and soft folds of the petals become even more vibrant and lifelike.

Explore the possibilities of collage, realistic abstraction, and altered images as you create works centered around people and places. Experiment with a range of materials and techniques to create your own story, including exploring real or imagined landscapes, architecture, portraits, and self-portraits.

When Charles Darwin wrote The Origin of Species, the oldest known fossils were trilobites preserved in rocks deposited during the Cambrian Period. Many decades and countless discoveries later, fossils from six continents now extend the animal record backward into the Ediacaran Period, some 50 million years before the first trilobites. Andrew H. Knoll of Harvard University traces the fossil record of Earth’s earliest known animals, asking how these remains illuminate the early evolution of our own kingdom.

Explore the basis of abstraction by studying color, line, and shape as they relate to composition. Learn to create exciting and innovative works of art, using a series of drawing and painting exercises designed to examine non-traditional ways of handling traditional materials and subject matter.

Learn about different forms of charcoal as well as a variety of styes and techniques—including pressure, twisting, blending, and smudging—by doing exercises in class. Then create a more finished project of choice: portrait, landscape, or still life.

At Christmastime in 1914, months after World War I began, hundreds of soldiers in Flanders spontaneously stopped fighting one another, left their trenches, and shook hands in no man’s land. For a short time, British and German soldiers barely fired a shot, helped bury one another’s dead, and even played soccer together. Historian and battlefield guide Simon Jones tells the story of what happened in Flanders during the Christmas season in 1914.

While shooting for his book Working the Water, photographer Jay Fleming traveled up and down the Chesapeake documenting all facets of the region’s commercial fisheries and the people and businesses that depend on the harvest. Join him for a vividly illustrated program that brings the bay's iconic seafood industry into focus.

Learn the basics of filmmaking from pre-production to shooting to post-production, working with your iPhone. Each participant creates a short video to share with the class.