Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926): Woman with a Parasol - Madame Monet and Her Son, 1875 - One of Monet’s most popular figure paintings, Lady with a Parasol showcases the parasol, one of his longstanding themes… The parasol itself makes many appearances in his work, primarily because when painting from real life outdoors, most women would use one to protect their skin and eyes… But it also creates a contrast of light and shadows on the figure’s face and clothing, indicating which direction the actual light is coming from…

John Koch (American, 1909-1978): Night, 1964 - What a waste of a beautiful women! This is the problem with many men. Let this painting be a lesson to such kind of men. If I'm there I will hug and kiss her. Don't say she has gone for a sexcapade... - szingy gallery

Robert Delaunay (French, 1885-1941): Nude Woman Reading (Nu à la lecture),1915 (Oil on canvas, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne) - Delaunay painted three versions of Nude Woman Reading between 1915 and 1920 and each one is a spectacular transformation. The first is a depiction of a woman seemingly lost in thought with her back turned to the viewer, and her voluptuous figure and pose make for a striking element. Her golden hair flows down her bare back and the colours from her room burst forth from the canvas…

Childe Hassam (American, 1859-1935): Improvisation, 1899 (Oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum) - Inspired perhaps by the warm spring day, a breeze through the window, the portrait on the wall before her, and cut poppies and dahlias, the woman improvises a composition on her piano in her living room...

Hugó Scheiber (Hungarian, 1873-1950): Dancer (Mixed technique) - The vivid colors of Dancer are a constant feature throughout Scheiber’s work. Details such as the rippling waves of hair and his spontaneous and active brush strokes are characteristic of Scheiber’s Futurist oeuvre of the 1920’s. Scheiber’s focus on caberet and café life is exemplified in a number of works…

Henri Lebasque (French, 1865-1937): Le Cannet, Madame Lebasque Reading in the Garden, 1923 (Oil on canvas) - In 1924, Lebasque moved to Le Cannet on the French Riviera, where he and his friend Bonnard shared a manikin for their studies. Lebasque was called “the painter of joy and light,” by both critics and artists. He was admired for the intimacy of his themes and the unique joy in his colors and forms…

János Thorma (Hungarian, 1870-1937): In the Field (Oil on canvas) - A representative figure of the Nagybánya artists’ colony, which started in 1896... Thorma moved through different styles... He shifted from the naturalism that was the aesthetic of the colony, to historical subjects, to romantic realism and to a Post-Impressionism style...

Joan Miró (Spanish, 1893-1983): Horse, Pipe, and Red Flower, 1920 (Oil on canvas, Philadelphia Museum of Art) - Valós tárgyak elbújva a fantáziák és az álmok rejtekében, az elsőre felfoghatatlan összefüggés: a zagyvaságban minden a helyén van (mint az életben)…

Alfred Sisley (1839-1899): Fog, Voisins, 1874 (Oil on canvas, Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France) - Sisley, along with Monet, was one of the central proponents of the plein air technique, using this method in his famous paintings of the Voisins countryside, where he moved in 1871. Unlike Degas, Renoir, Cassatt, or Morisot, Sisley focused almost expressly on representations of the atmosphere while diminishing the importance of the human figure, if they appeared at all… Fog, Voisins demonstrates this general preoccupation with the visual perception of the natural world through the application of rough, clearly visible brushstrokes and the blurry, almost ethereal rendering of color and form. Here, a woman, serenely picking flowers, is almost entirely obscured within the dense fog that eclipses the pastoral scene. Like much of Sisley's work, the protagonist of the painting is nature and the visual reception of it…

Camille Pissarro (Danish-French, 1830-1903): The Red Roofs, a Corner of a Village, Winter Effect, 1877 (Oil on canvas, Musée d'Orsay) - The Red Roofs, Corner of a Village, Winter Effect is a relatively small canvas… In this painting we see a small cluster of houses through the trees of an orchard. The buildings appear to be the subject of the painting, but the cobweb of trunks and branches stops the eye from resting on them for a second at a time. They physically block our view. Rather than being able clearly to look through and see the houses, our eye skids across the surface of the composition…

Jackson Pollock (American, 1912-1956): Number 1 - Lavender Mist, 1950 (Oil on canvas, National Gallery, Washington DC) - Number 1 (Lavender Mist) exemplifies gestural abstraction, in which paint was poured or applied with extreme physicality to reflect the artist's inner mind. The color is expressive, while space is created through alternative layers and drips of opaque paint, creating a textured canvas surface that is nearly dizzying…

Frank Bramley (British, 1857–1915): Delicious Solitude, 1909 (Oil on canvas) - Here, a lady absorbed in reading is likely the painter’s wife Katherine… By this stage the painter had completely abandoned the systematic square brushwork of his youth and his handling of the work was more painterly…

Camille Pissarro (1830-1903): Vegetable Garden with Trees in Blossom, Spring, Pontoise, 1877 (Oil painting on canvas, Musee d'Orsay) - Colour, and the technique: Pissarro has quickly applied his brush, heavy with individual colours, to form dashes of pure pigment. The build-up of paint caused by this technique is so thick in parts, particularly in the white blossom, that it stands out in relief from the surface of the picture…

Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954): Interior, Nice, 1919 (Oil on canvas, The Barnes Foundation) - Matisse crafts a scene of a sensuous woman reading while seated in a comfortable, light-filled interior setting that provides a lovely, intimate view of the early 20th century décor. A sense of intimacy and leisure is evident in the work, through both the languorous scene itself and the casual way in which Matisse painted the work, with seemingly aimless and carefree brushstrokes…

Casa Batlló is a key feature in the architecture of modernist Barcelona. It was built by Antoni Gaudí between 1904 and 1906 having been commissioned by the textile industrialist Josep Batlló. Nowadays, the spectacular facade is an iconic landmark in the city. The "Manzana de la Discordia", or Block of Discord, is a series of buildings in Passeig de Gràcia. It is home to a collection of works by the most renowned architects, amongst which is Casa Batlló. The house, now a museum, is open to the public, both for cultural visits and for celebrating events in its splendid modernist function rooms…