Each week, we scour the internet for the most significant, surprising, and outrageous art news—helping you stay informed (and sound smart). Have a suggestion? Let us know on social media (@meetmeural) with the tag #thisweekinartnews. (See all installments.)

(A few of the stories below are from last week. Forgive us.)

1. “How to Be an Artist” by Jerry Saltz, New York

Apropos of nothing in particular, the longtime New York magazine art correspondent Jerry Saltz has compiled a list of 33 rules to, well, be an artist. Organized in stages (from “You Are a Total Amateur” to “Attain Galactic Brain”) the rules range from obvious (“All Art Is Subjective”; “Find Your Own Voice”) to peculiar (“Be Delusional”) to sublime (“All Art Was Once Contemporary Art”).

2. “Thieves walk off with Renoir painting ahead of auction” by Lianne Kolirin, CNN

A good art theft will never not make this list. Last week, a few (seemingly professional) thieves walked out of an Austrian auction house with Renoir’s Bay, Sea, Green Cliffs (1895). The landscape isn’t one of Renoir’s most well-known works, but should be worth more than $180,000 nonetheless. And how did they steal it? They cut it right out of its frame. Impressive, sure, but not likely to make the FBI’s Top Ten Art Crimes list, which does include the 2011 theft of another Renoir—Madeleine Leaning on Her Elbow with Flowers in Her Hair, which is worth $1 million.

3. “Peeling Back the Paint to Discover Bruegel’s Secrets” by Nina Siegel, New York Times

No one should be surprised to find macabre elements in the work of Pieter Bruegel. What is surprising, however, is all of what we we don’t (and can’t) see. New imaging technology has allowed researchers to discover shocking, hidden details in 12 of his paintings—details that Bruegel himself decided to scrub from the final work. The sleuths among us can take a deep dive into the works themselves, juxtaposing the original work with the “uncovered” versions.

4. “Do Proteins Hold the Key to the Past?” by Sam Knight, The New Yorker

Similar to the above article, Sam Knight’s piece details startling new tools scientists have begun to use to extract hidden data from books, works of art, and more. Specifically, it centers around proteomics, the study of how proteins interact with living things. By scraping the proteins off of old works, scientists can tell what the creator ate and drank—even what drugs they used.

5. “Top Ten of 2018” by Johanna Fateman, Artforum

Not to get too meta here, but this top 10 list is a fine recap of the books, exhibits, and events that mattered most (or should have) in 2018. They range from the mainstream (the Google Arts & Culture Selfie Match Tool) to the must-see (the Peter Hujar exhibit at the Morgan Library & Museum) to the in-crowd only (Geta Brătescu’s exhibit at Hauser & Wirth).