HeyJaredThe Vivid Eye: Eva's Art History Newsletter
Welcome to Eva's vivid and illuminating art history newsletter, in which I explore whimsy, wonder, and inspiration in original cultural objects. Come learn about art, in world-famous museums, local galleries, maybe even in your living room!
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
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- Oct 1, 2026
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- Jul 17, 2026
Latest issues
A Life’s Work Cut Short: The Fates by Claude Dalbanne (opens the original)
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Now on the darker side of the fall equinox, we are well into the season of la rentrée, the reentry back to school and work after a summer vacation. Hopefully you have settled into a new rhythm, and are not yet stressed out or overwhelmed at this point, but you can revisit this post when you are! Especially if you are young—a long list of assignments, a romantic breakup, or a first life crisis may feel so overwhelming that you are unsure how you will ever get through it. I posit that this overwro
Diego Rivera’s Workers Among the Almond Blossoms, and Painting an Imaginary Friend (opens the original)
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It may be Labor Day in the United States, the unofficial end of summer, but for our friends in Australia, this is the beginning of Spring. To both celebrate Labor Day and welcome the flowering trees in the southern hemisphere, I am writing about a small fresco by Diego Rivera, now on display at the entrance to the stacks at the Doe Library at UC Berkeley. Anyone can walk in to see it in person! Still Life and Blossoming Almond Trees features one of Rivera’s favorite themes, men at work using phy
Two Years of The Vivid Eye (opens the original)
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It has been two years since I began The Vivid Eye, this newsletter devoted to the pleasures of close looking at artwork. Thank you to all of my subscribers! I am so grateful for your readership. Let’s celebrate two years with two party games! Feel free to share with a friend or three so that they can play along!
Small but Mighty Liberation (opens the original)
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This quick post remembers Betye Saar, who died last month, just shy of her hundredth birthday. An artist working in assemblage, or a combining of found and modified imagery with both two and three dimensional motifs, Saar challenged and reclaimed demeaning stereotypes of African-American women. She subverted those harmful ideas by turning the imagery into powerful refusals: refusals to being coopted, patronized, and objectified.<a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" href="https://substackc
The Odyssey, Condensed: Penelope and Her Suitors (opens the original)
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This week sees the release of another movie interpreting Homer‘s Odyssey, the latest installment in a thousands-years-long history of retelling and translating the epic story of Odysseus‘s journey home.Five hundred years ago, the Italian Renaissance painter Pinturicchio contributed his own interpretation of the Odyssey. He crafted a complicated composition that condenses the epic story, focusing especially on Penelope’s own craftiness, pun intended, to protect her (husband’s) honor. It was one o
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