About two and a half centuries before Thomas Eakins painted his world-famous “The Gross Clinic” (1875) a Dutch artist produced a similar frightening painting. The main difference, however, is that his work depicts the anatomy of a corpse, not an injured human being who was being operated on. Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) was one of …
Paintings
The career of this French artist didn’t really start until he was a 40-year-old man. This is extraordinary and why he is referred to as a “Naive artist.” Henri Rousseau (1844-1910) was much more than that, though. He became a significant influence for many renowned Avant-Garde artists at the turn of the 20th century. His …
It’s fair to say that the 1860s was a pivotal decade in art history. Along came a group of artists who defied academic art in France. They started painting outdoors, used bold brushstrokes, and completed paintings that can be described as painterly or even hazy. Claude Monet (1840-1926) was one of the most important Impressionist …
The life of one of the most famous Spanish artists in history dramatically changed in the early 1790s because he became deaf due to an unidentified illness. Francisco Goya (1746-1828) was already one of the most sought-after artists in Spain at the time as he officially became the court painter in the country in 1786. …
Very few people in the early 20th century made a greater impact on the course of modern art than this Swiss artist. Paul Klee (1879-1940) can be described as somewhat of an oddball because he didn’t fit into one particular group. He experimented with many different artistic styles in the first decades of the 20th …
To say that Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) wasn’t mentally stable is an understatement. His life was plagued by mental issues which culminated in his suicide at the age of 37. Before this tragic event, many of his amazing paintings featured a bright and vivid color palette, transforming the canvas into mesmerizing art. One of these …
Even though this Swiss artist was highly individualistic in his approach to art, he was influenced by several art movements during his career. The influences involved Expressionism, Cubism, and Surrealism, movements that emerged in the first half of the 20th century. Paul Klee (1879-1940) was a painter and an art theorist. He wrote an important …
When the wife of a famous French artist visited him in jail, he conceived the idea of a work that became one of his most famous paintings. Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825) was deeply involved in the French Revolution during the 1790s and he barely escaped the guillotine at the end of the so-called Reign of Terror. …
The Baroque era was a fascinating period in art history because it produced a wide range of different types of artists. This French artist spent most of his life living and working in Rome. He loved this place so much that he only briefly returned once to France. Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) embraced classical antiquity and …
When you see the title of a painting called “The White Horse,” you instantly assume that you will be able to discover the anatomy of this fascinating animal. This isn’t the case in this painting by a famous English painter who specialized in landscape paintings at a time when this type of artwork wasn’t so …