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"Microdose of Art" is my go-to for a quick way to learn about art and art history [1]

['Jennifer Sandlin']

Date: 2025-08-07

If you love art and art history and want to discover artists you might not already know, or learn more about widely familiar artists, check out Paul Thompson's project, "Microdose of Art." In this video series, Paul Thompson provides short, two-minute overviews of well-known artists like Henri Matisse and Frida Kahlo, including brief analyses of some of their paintings as well as stories about their personal and professional lives.

His Microdose of Art daily videos also cover lesser well known artists, and this is where I find him especially interesting and helpful, as he's introduced me to artists I'd never heard of before, and has inspired me to seek out more information about them as well as more of their work. For instance, I recently learned about New York-based Laurie Lipton, and her massive black and white graphite drawings. Thompson refers to Lipton as the "queen of monochrome madness" and describes her drawings as things that seem like they "crawled out of a nightmare but with perfect linework." I also loved learning about Canadian artist Alex Colville, who creates paintings that Thompson describes as "so calm" that they feel "creepy." Colville's art is filled with scenes that are rife with tension, where, as Thompson explains, it seems like something "is about to happen or just did." Thompson's art inspired filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick, who was a huge fan. Thompson's piece "Horse and Train" was a visual reference for Kubrick's film The Shining, and some of Thompson's other artworks can be seen hanging in the Overlook hotel's infamous Room 237 in the film.

In an interview with Bold Journey, Thompson discusses his motivations behind and goals for the project:

I post daily short videos where I share stories or quick lessons about art, covering everything from contemporary happenings to works from thousands of years ago. I started Microdose of Art because I love art and art history, but I find a lot of the content online about it either boring or pretentious. I wanted to create something that shows how much cool stuff exists in the world of art in a way that's easy to understand and totally unpretentious.

He's beautifully enacting these goals, bringing art and art history to a wide audience in an engaging, accessible, and entertaining way. I can't wait to see more! Thanks, Paul!

See more at Microdose of Art's YouTube or Instagram.

Previously:

• Disturbing drawings: how Laurie Lipton reveals our inner darkness

• The darkly funny drawings of Laurie Lipton

• Laurie Lipton on her peculiar art technique: 'It's an insane way to draw'

• Laurie Lipton's Day of the Dead drawings

• A walk through art history, told in a series of imaginative shoe designs

• Art history in stick figures

• 'Women listening to men in western art history'

• The tiny, secret art museum we sent to the moon — and how it got there

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