Most rock paintings and rock carvings or petroglyphs were created by ancient and prehistoric societies. Archaeologists have long used them to gain clues to the way of life of such peoples. Certain rock frescos − such as the renowned Lascaux and Chauvet cave paintings or the petroglyphs of Scandinavia and North America − have already yielded substantial information on our ancestors' daily lives.

More than 30 years ago, when Northwestern University chemist Richard Van Duyne developed a powerful new sensing technique, he never thought he would be using it to learn more about treasures in the Art Institute of Chicago’s collection -- including a watercolor recently featured in the museum’s exhibition “Watercolors by Winslow Homer: The Color of Light.”

Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci avoided the palette and mixed colours directly on the canvas, Italian researchers said after they reconstructed his work step by step "as if watching him while he painted".

A lecturer from the department of Drawing of the University of Granada (Universidad de Granada) has carried out the first exhaustive research project in Spain that analyses fashion as an artistic discipline, in relation to painting, sculpture or architecture. The thesis written by Luis Casablanca Migueles studies fashion as “a plural phenomenon, one of the most important contemporary artistic disciplines”.

An incomplete world features paintings and photographs by leading international artists including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Sarah Morris, Damien Hirst, Andreas Gursky, Ed Ruscha, Lucian Freud, Gerhard Richter and Cindy Sherman.