Photo by Juliet Furst
The longest-running installation in the world, stolen masterpieces, the origins of hidden pigments, record-breaking auctions, and more. Catch the best of art history through the unforgettable ‘mosts’ and facts. This is a reading for everyone, whether you have five minutes or fifty: interesting things abound in art. These short art stories are worth reading for anyone who loves art and enjoys a good story.
The Longest-Running Art Installation — The Dream House
Sometimes, art itself is not made to be placed on the wall. It is built to surround and continue for an indefinite period. The Dream House is an art installation that can rightly claim the title of the longest-running art installation in the world. This minimalist work was started in the 1960s in a loft by minimalist composer La Monte Young and multimedia artist Marian Zazeela in Manhattan. From its original design in 1966 into an expanding sine-wave and light environment, it was first publicly displayed in Munich in 1969.
Ever since, it has continued to be shown in many different places, such as Munich, Stockholm, Kassel, Cologne, and even at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1971. From 1979 to 1985, it ran for six years at a Dia-commissioned Harrison Street site. Since 1993, where it has continued to show its most extended presentation, the Tribeca loft above 275 Church Street.
Visitors enter a meditative, cross-sensory world featuring Young’s sustained microtonal drones — often generated in real time — and Zazeela’s magenta-hued light sculptures. The experience blends sight and sound into one perceptual entry that redefines time as an event that can be felt.
The Dream House isn’t merely an artwork; it is a room where one can entirely lose one’s sense of time.
One of The Most Famous Art Thefts In History — Caravaggio
Not every masterpiece ages peacefully. Some become legends. For over 350 years, Caravaggio’s “Nativity with Saint Francis and Saint Lawrence” was a magnificent altarpiece for the Oratory in Palermo, Saint Lawrence. It was rather illegally stolen on the night of 17–18 October 1969. Thieves cut it off from its frame, rolled it, and disappeared into the night. In fact, the FBI later included this theft in its top ten “unsolved art crimes”.
Sicilian Mafia involvement is widely suspected, but contrary informants suggest either that it was actually buried and eaten by rats, or destroyed in a barn, or eventually sold to a dealer in Switzerland. None of these eventually led to recovery. In 2015, Sky and Factum Arte produced a scientifically accurate replica that now stands in the place of the original altar. Modern artists, such as Michelangelo Pistoletto and Vanessa Beecroft, have created reinterpretations of the space.
Forever lost, perhaps, or hiding in plain sight is one of Caravaggio’s most iconic works.
Longest Painting in the World — Dubai, 2015
Some records are made with brushes, not stopwatches. On December 12, 2015, in Dubai, an initiative dubbed “I’m Different Just Like You” created the world’s longest painting: a jaw-dropping 10,850 meters (10.85 km long). The campaign was a collaboration between Al Tayer Group and the Dubai Autism Centre and has since received validation from Guinness World Records.
For the period of over 8 months, more than 20,000 participants including pupils aged 2 to 18, teachers, parents, and volunteers contributed self-portraits joined together symbolizing solidarity and inclusiveness for individuals with autism.
A 10-kilometre-long artwork brought thousands of people together with one powerful message: everyone belongs.
Sculpture, Sugar and Scandal — Kara Walker
Sometimes, art is so potent that it refuses to be polite. In 2014, artist Kara Walker staged the installation “A Subtlety”, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby, in the abandoned Brooklyn Domino Sugar Refinery, a 75-foot-long sphinx covered with 80 tons of sugar that was intended as a critique of racialized labor and exploitation in the sugar trade.
Yet the message took a backseat to the vulgarity of selfie-posing with the sphinx’s breasts and vulva. Visitors posed mockingly with the sphinx’s breasts and vulva. Walker anticipated this behavior and documented it in her film An Audience, exposing voyeurism and cultural indifference as part of the work itself.
Whether sugar-coated or not, Walker’s art never fails to amaze.
Sketches to $110 Million — Claude Monet
All greatness starts from somewhere-sometimes it starts with caricatures. Before he became the father of Impressionism, Claude Monet was a caricaturist as a teenage in Le Havre. Around the age of 15, he used to sell brilliant lively caricatures for 10 to 20 francs each. These early works funded his art studies and drew the attention of landscape painter Eugène Boudin.
Fast forward on the 14th of May, 2019: Monet’s Meules (1890) sold for $110.7 million at Sotheby’s New York-extending a record for Impressionist art.
A teenager’s caricature paved the way through the history’s most valuable haystack.
A Flaming No — Vincent van Gogh
For Van Gogh, love and madness walked hand in hand. In summer 1881, Van Gogh met his cousin Cornelia “Kee” Vos-Stricker, a widow with whom he became madly and hopelessly in love. She gave a firm, heartbreaking “No, nay, never” to his proposal. Van Gogh held his hand over a lamp’s flame in dramatic defiance to prove that one’s love could go to such extremes.
Her father forbade contact, which shattered Vincent. By Christmas, he was quarreling with his father and had left his home never to return to the same devout path that he had unwaveringly followed. Instead, he immersed himself completely in art.
This is how one of the greatest artists in history happened-the point of beautiful romantic and spiritual collapse.
The Only Signature — Michelangelo
Michelangelo signed only one work in his whole life just because someone tried to take credit for it. His Pietà (1498–99) in St. Peters Basilica was wrongly attributed to another artist. It prompted Michelangelo to sneak in and carve:
“MICHAEL·ANGELUS·BONAROTUS·FLORENT·FACIEBAT”
The Latin inscription means “Michelangelo Buonarroti the Florentine was making this.” Later, he regretted the pride and vowed never to sign another work. The fact that he used the imperfect tense “faciebat” shows that humility-this was being made, not finished.
One signature, one lesson: greatness does not always crave credit.
The Perfectionist Who Wouldn’t Stop — George Inness
George Innes painted his canvases in such a manner that they appeared unfinished, as in his mind they were unfinished.
Inness, well celebrated for his atmospheric landscapes and the spiritual tones of his painting, would frequently repurchase his landscapes to correct them. These corrections could mean a change from cows to rocks or simply a moon painted into the very center of a given canvas. Some accounts even hold that he would sneak into galleries or houses and retouch his works.
By the account of his son and some contemporaries, galleries would ban him. Nevertheless, Inness saw his paintings as living, evolving entities that he could not part with. To him, the process of painting was never considered complete, but an ongoing prayer.
Blue Was Once Gold — Ultramarine and Vermeer
Before synthetic chemistry, blue was a treasure. Ultramarine pigment was mined from lapis lazuli mined in Afghanistan and proved to be so rare before 1826 that it cost beyond gold. Only elitist commissions would be reserved for that pigment, mostly to depict the Virgin Mary.
Johannes Vermeer used ultramarine in such liberal quantity that some sources indicate he got into debt to acquire it. In 1826, Jean-Baptiste Guimet invented synthetic ultramarine, which dramatically brought prices down, in effect making the pigment accessible.
The deep blue in countless artworks? Once it represented fairly the color of wealth.
A Painted Illusion — Andrea Pozzo
Use a paintbrush to paint your church dome when there’s no money available to construct a dome.
That’s exactly what Jesuit renowned artist Andrea Pozzo did when the Church of Sant’ignazio in Rome ran out of cash to build its dome: instead of a real one, he painted one with trompe-l’oeil and quadratura to create a stunning illusion of an absent coffered dome between 1685 and 1688.
From the ground, the flat canvas looks like an actual architecture. Even today, it remains arguably one of the triumphs of Baroque illusionism.
Pozzo didn’t fake a dome. He redefined what a ceiling could be.
Factories for Art in China — Dafen Village
It’s not always true that art is one. In fact, it can sometimes be mass-manufactured.
In the year 1989, an artist and entrepreneur named Huang Jiang set up an oil painting workshop in a little village called Dafen located not far from Shenzhen. It became a powerhouse, and by the mid-2000s, Dafen churned out almost 60% of the world’s oil paintings.
Thousands of painters had specialized themselves in duplicating masterpieces from renowned artists like Van Gogh, Rembrandt, and Warhol– sometimes with each artist painting only one part of the picture, such as the eyes. Although production slowed due to the effects of the 2008 crisis, Dafen has remained an important part of the global art industry.
Dafen blurred the line between artistic tradition and industrial scale.
The Man Who Didn’t Use a Ruler — Piet Mondrian
Precision doesn’t always require measurement. Piet Mondrian was born “Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan” and, in 1911, he dropped the last “a” from his surname to announce his separation with Dutch tradition and entrance into French modernism.
Nevertheless, he had a distinctive geometric style. He never used a ruler, but drew his grids freehand, to be further worked on over months to realize his vision of achieving universal harmony through the balance and simplicity of form.
The sharpest lines of Mondrian were conceived from intuitive thought and not by instruments.
Michael Jackson’s Dangerous — Mark Ryden
Even album covers can be masterpieces. Michael Jackson personally commissioned Mark Ryden to paint the cover for his 1991 album Dangerous. Ryden — known for pop surrealism — crafted a richly symbolic scene inspired by circus posters, featuring Jackson’s masked face, animals, and layered iconography.
It took over six months, during which he painted it traditionally in acrylic on panel. Never mind that “Dangerous” has not won a Grammy for design, the artwork till date is exhibited in some of the best galleries, including the National Portrait Gallery in the UK.
Thus, Ryden turned pop into portraiture, making visible the music history.
How Long Does One Really Look At Art?
You may be surprised to find out how fast we walk past masterpieces. According to a study done in 2001 at the Met Museum, visitors spend on average about 27.2 seconds looking at each artwork, with a median of only 17 seconds. Studies done later found similar numbers.
This flies in the face of previous assumptions about how people engage with art in museums and highlights one of the challenges faced by curators: grabbing attention quickly and rewarding the ones who stay longer.
Most museum moments are over in 30 seconds. Art requires us to slow down.
Final Reflection
Just as any mere timeline of events, so art history too is a kaleidoscope of obsession, invention, theft, devotion, and change. These stories continually remind us of the fact that art is alive, has the capacity to provoke, and is deeply human.
So, whether one read it all or skimmed just about every second word, may this journey through the “mosts” in art history encourage you to look just a little longer-and a little deeper.
Sources
The Longest-Running Art Installation
Wikipedia — Dream House (installation)
Mela Foundation — DHpressFY07
Mela Foundation — LY MZ JHC DH July 2024
One of The Most Famous Art Thefts In History
Wikipedia — Nativity with Saint Francis and Saint Lawrence
The Guardian — Restitution lost beauty stolen Caravaggio Nativity replica
Longest Painting in the World
Guinness World Records — Longest painting
Guinness World Records — World’s longest painting created in Dubai
The National News — New world record set in Dubai
Sculpture, Sugar and Scandal
Wikipedia — A Subtlety
Fjords Review — Kara Walker Subtlety review
Time — Kara Walker Subtlety exhibit video
Sketches to $110 Million
Sotheby’s — Record-breaking $110.7 million Monet
Sotheby’s — Monet’s Meules sells for $110.7 million
Wikipedia — Claude Monet
The Vintage News — Claude Monet caricature artist
A Flaming No
Wikipedia — Vincent van Gogh
Hellenicaworld — Vincent Willem Van Gogh
The Only Signature
Wikipedia — Pietà (Michelangelo)
Paideia Institute — Michelangelo’s signature imperfection
The Perfectionist Who Wouldn’t Stop
Medfield Historical Society — A son’s recollections: George Inness
Time Archive — Arts Inness
Reddit r/ArtHistory — Artist banned for editing own work
Blue Was Once Gold
Wikipedia — Ultramarine
Wikipedia — Jean-Baptiste Guimet
A Painted Illusion
Romeing — Sant’Ignazio Church, Rome
Wikipedia — Andrea Pozzo
Factories for Art in China
Wikipedia — Dafen Village
Artsy — Village producing 60% of world’s paintings
Al Jazeera — Dafen oil painting village: the world’s art factory
The Man Who Didn’t Use a Ruler
Artsper Blog — 10 things to know about Piet Mondrian
Allpainters.org — Piet Mondrian
Michael Jackson’s Carnival
Wikipedia — Dangerous (Michael Jackson album)
Art of Design Online — Dangerous
Hi-Fructose — Mark Ryden revisits cover
How Long Does One Really Look At Art?
PMC — Museum viewing time study
ResearchGate — Where does one look when viewing artwork in a museum
ResearchGate — Short but meaningful visitors’ experiences
