Caspar David Friedrich (German, 1774-1840) - Cairn in Snow, 1807 (Oil on canvas. New Masters Gallery, Dresden) - Caspar David Friedrich was a romantic landscape painter, and was one of the first artists to portray winter landscapes as austere, forbidding and desolate. His winter scenes are solemn…
Peter Bruegel the Elder (Netherlandish, c. 1525-1569) - The Hunters in the Snow, 1565 (Oil on wood panel. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) - Winter scenes, technically more challenging than summer ones, were relatively rare in western art until the early Renaissance. One of six panels representing…
Utagawa Hiroshige (Japanese, 1797-1858) - The Drum Bridge at Yuhi Hill in Meguro, 1857 (Honolulu Museum of Art) - One of the images from One Hundred Views of Edo, his wildly popular series of ukiyo-e prints, this image depicts a rare stone bridge in the city we now call Tokyo. Captured at an oblique…
Peter Bruegel the Elder (Netherlandish, c. 1525-1569) - The Census at Bethlehem, c. 1566 (Oil on panel, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels) - Luke describes the event. “And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered……
Giorgione (Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco, Italian, c. 1477/8–1510) - The Adoration of the Shepherds, c. 1505-10 (Oil on panel, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.) - The mysterious Giorgione left very few works at his premature death, but this one is a masterpiece of contemplation. The…
Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973): Woman with a Book, 1932 (Oil on canvas. The Norton Simon Foundation) - Picasso transforms the earnestness of the mid-19th century sitter into a dreamy portrait of his current lover, Marie-Thérèse Walter (1909–1977). The chromatic riot and the web of thick black…
Edward Hopper (American, 1882-1967): Automat, 1927 (Oil on canvas, 71.4 cm × 91.4 cm. Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines) - Hopper, the quintessential realist painter of 20th century America, portrayed the commonplace and made the ordinary poetic. Hopper’s empty places and solitary figures repeatedly…
Pál Fried (Hungarian/American, 1893-1976): Blue Ballerina (Oil on canvas) - Fried studied at the Hungarian Academie under Professor Hugo Pohl and in Paris under Claude Monet and Lucien Simone. Under Pohl’s influence, he executed many portraits, nudes and Oriental scenes in pastel. He was also…
Pál Fried (Hungarian, 1893-1976): Dancer (Oil on canvas) - Fried’s paintings were usually of dancers, nudes, and portraits, and his subjects were almost always women. He titled his paintings after the names of models or, in this case, a place or nickname for the model… - Fried immigrated to the US…
Paul Cézanne (French, 1839-1906): Table, Napkin, and Fruit (A Corner of the Table) 1895-1900 (Oil on canvas, The Barnes Foundation, Pennsylvania) - After studying Dutch and French Old Master still life painting at the Musée du Louvre and other Paris galleries, Cézanne formulated his own…
Raphael (Italian, 1483-1520): Madonna of the Goldfinch, c.1506 (Oil on poplar panel. Uffizi, Florence) - The meeting of the infant Saint John the Baptist and Christ is from an extra biblical source known as the Pseudo-Bonaventura. The Virgin is seated on a rock and in bare feet, in adherence to the…
Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926): Wheatstacks (End of Summer), 1890-91 (Oil on canvas, Art Institute of Chicago) - Claude Monet, the Father of Impressionism, was so charmed in 1890 with haystacks he painted 25 canvases of them! These haystacks are astonishing with the differences in light at various…
Henri Charles Manguin (French, 1874–1949): The Nap (The Rocking Chair, Jeanne), c. 1905 (Oil on canvas, Villa Flora, Winterthur, Switzerland) - Manguin, along with Henri Matisse, André Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck, Albert Marquet and Charles Camoin, was a founder and early exponent of the Fauve…
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…
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…