An Expert’s Perspective: Q&A with Art Historian Ross King

Ross King is best known for telling fascinating stories of art history in bestselling books such as Brunelleschi’s Dome and Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling. He’s also a popular Smithsonian Journeys Expert who shares his insights on art and culture on some of our journeys to France and Italy.

Q. What prompted you to move from writing novels to nonfiction works of art history and biography?
A. History is far more fascinating and downright stranger than anything I can invent. In my novels I wanted to bring history alive through storytelling, but I hope I can do that every bit as entertainingly in nonfiction. In Brunelleschi’s Dome and Mad Enchantment I try to make use of all those things that, in my opinion, make novels readable—a quick pace, intrigue, colorful characters, and interesting locations. Luckily, history is full of such things. All that said, however, I’d love to do another novel sometime.

Q. What do you hope our travelers gain from your expertise?
A. I try to combine my expertise with enthusiasm. It’s one thing to know something intellectually, or to see it on the page, but quite another to experience it firsthand. I want to help give people a kind of time-travel experience, where we move in time as well as space. I want them to appreciate what it was like to live in a different culture and in a different time. In the end I want people to know and feel—if not necessarily all of my knowledge, then at least some of my passion and joy.

Q. What do you consider the best part of your role as a Smithsonian Journeys Expert?
A. Traveling through beautiful landscapes, looking at paintings and historic buildings with like-minded people, then sitting down with them in the sunshine to enjoy an espresso or gelato to discuss the experience . . . what more could a person ask for?

Read more about Ross King and find out which upcoming Smithsonian Journeys trips he will be leading.