Paul Gauguin (1848-1903): Van Gogh Painting Sunflowers, 1888 (Oil on jute, Van Gogh Museum) - Gauguin moved in with Van Gogh at the Yellow House in Arles in late October 1888... Van Gogh’s first impression on seeing the painting was that Gauguin had depicted him as a madman… He later softened his…
Ikenaga Yasunari (Japanese, b. 1965): Glamour Girl c.2004 (Mineral paint, Menso brush on linen) - Ikenaga creates his paintings utilizing Japanese paint and Menso brush on linen canvas with various mixed media that includes mineral pigments, gelatin glue, soot ink and occasionally gold leaf…
Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510): Idealized Portrait of a Lady (Portrait of Simonetta Vespucci as Nymph) c.1475 (Tempera on wood. Städel, Frankfurt) - Vespucci’s outfit is a nymph costume in the antique or classical-mythological style… The background contributes to Simonetta’s idealisation: it is as…
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973): Le Moulin de la Galette, 1900 (Oil on canvas, Guggenheim) - Le Moulin de la Galette, his first Parisian painting, reflects his fascination with the lusty decadence and gaudy glamour of the famous dance hall, where bourgeois patrons and prostitutes rubbed shoulders… Picasso…
Claude Monet (1840-1926): The Beach at Trouville, 1870 (Oil on canvas, The National Gallery, London) - The figure to the left is probably Monet’s wife Camille, and the woman reading may be the wife of Eugène Boudin… The painting is unusual in its composition - a close-up of symmetrically disposed…
Robert McGinnis (b.1926): The Exhibition, Gouache on board
Art Scott in his The Art of Robert E. McGinnis wrote that McGinnis is “one of the most widely seen and admired… His colleagues at the Society of Illustrators recognized that fact when he was elected to the Illustrators’ Hall of Fame in…
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919): Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette, 1876 - Renoir’s main aim was to convey the vivacious and joyful atmosphere of this popular dance garden on the Butte Montmartre. The study of the moving crowd, bathed in natural and artificial light, is handled using vibrant,…
Georgy Kurasov (b. 1958): Love Letter, 2001 - Kurasov's artwork combines surrealism and abstraction and yet, it is narrative and iconic…
Although a challenge, he has found a balance in all these elements of artistic expression…
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973): Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (The Young Ladies of Avignon), 1907. Although it is probably the single most analyzed picture of the century, ironically, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon was not exhibited in public until 1916. Picasso's friends felt that the highly distorted brothel…
Camille Pissarro (1830-1903): Jalais Hill, Pointoise (1867) “This little valley, this hill have a heroic simplicity and forthrightness. Nothing would be more banal were it not so grand…” Émile Zola wrote of the manner in which Pissarro handled his rural subject matter… Indeed, the positive reception…
Marc Chagall (1887-1985): I and the Village, 1911 This early work clearly shows both the Cubist and Fauvist influences at play in Chagall's canvas, yet unlike the works of Picasso or Matisse, Chagall is far more playful and liberal with decorative elements, creating a pastoral paradise out of the…
Piet Mondrian (1872-1944): Houses on the Gein (1900) is a good instance of Mondrian's manner and ideas around 1900, when he was twenty-eight and had just started painting landscapes in the surroundings of Amsterdam… Typical of the early Mondrian is the loose brush stroke, giving the impression of a…
Claude Monet (1840-1926): Bordighera, Italy, 1884
I haven't yet managed to capture the colour of this landscape; there are moments when I'm appalled at the colours I'm having to use, I'm afraid what I'm doing is just dreadful and yet I really am understating it; the light is simply terrifying.…
Joaquim Mir i Trinxet (or Joaquin Mir, 1873-1940): Canyelles
Joaquin Mir was a Catalan painter… Mir Trinxet painted landscapes in Tarragona and Majorca - perhaps his best known works - and certainly the ones that contributed most to create the myth of the artist that merged with nature and lost…
Edgar Degas (1834-1917) was a French painter, sculptor, printmaker and draftsman associated with the Impressionist movement. Although he is regarded as one of the movement’s founders, he rejected the label and preferred to be thought of as a realist. Unlike Impressionist painters, he was not as…