Ancient Art

Lascaux Caves Paintings Lascaux is famous for its Palaeolithic cave paintings, found in a complex of caves in the Dordogne region of southwestern France, because of their exceptional quality, size, sophistication and antiquity. Estimated to be up to 20,000 years old, the paintings consist primarily of large animals, once native to the region. Lascaux is located in the Vézère Valley where many other decorated caves have been found since the beginning of the 20th century (for example Les Combarelles and Font-de-Gaume in 1901, Bernifal in 1902).

Fresco from Palace of Minos, Knossos This fresco, part of the Palace of Knossos in Crete, Greece, was painted about 1400 BCE. It offers one of many depictions of the ancient practice of bull-leaping. The most famous image of bull-leaping is probably the Bull-Leaping Fresco from the palace at Knossos, Crete, Greece. The fresco was painted around 1400 BCE, and depicts a young man performing what appears to be a handspring or flip over a charging bull. Two young women flank the bull.

Egyptian Art The art of ancient Egyptians remained much the same over the course of their 3,000 year rule. To them, it meant something different than what it means to us today. Art was their science, it represented what they believed to be divine truth. Ancient Egyptian Art and Religion Since the Ancient Egyptians were highly religious people, much of the art they created can be found on temple walls and in tombs in the form of sculptures and paintings. The paintings in tombs were meant to help guide the dead pharaoh into the afterlife.

Classical Art

Greek Sculpture Classical Greek art sculptures. The Winged Victory of Samothrace is an ancient Greek sculpture of the late Hellenistic period made in 190 BC and depicts Nike the winged goddess of victory. Subsequently the question is what is the characteristics of Greek art. They were the ones who created ideal proportions and contrapposto which later played a key role in Renaissance art. Classical Greek art was idealistic and so was Hellenistic Roman and Renaissance art. 440 BCE Height 6 feet 11 inches National Museum Naples The new contrapposto style is seen more fully developed in this statue of the Doryphoros Spearbearer by the sculptor Polykleitos. The art of the Classical Greek style is characterized by a joyous freedom of movement freedom of expression and it celebrates mankind as an independent entity atomo.

Etruscan Art Etruscan art, (c. 8th–4th century BC) Art of the people of Etruria. The art of the Etruscans falls into three categories: funerary, urban, and sacred. Because of Etruscan attitudes toward the afterlife, most of the art that remains is funerary. Characteristic achievements are the wall frescoes painted in twodimensional style and realistic terra-cotta portraits found in tombs. Bronze reliefs and sculptures are also common. Tombs found at Caere, carved underground out of soft volcanic rock, resemble houses. Etruscans were among the first in the Mediterranean to lay out cities with a grid plan, a practice copied by the Romans.

Pompeian Art

Pompeii, situated in southern Italy, is well known for the vicious eruption of Mount Vesuvius on the 29th August 70 A.D. The eruption led to the entirety of the city being buried beneath a 6 metre thick layer of volcanic ash that solidified and preserved everything that lay beneath for 17 long centuries. Since being discovered by excavators in 1748, Pompeii has captured popular imagination. Today it is one of the most popular and intriguing excavation sites in the world; tourists from across the globe travel to this site to witness the ancient ruins of a Roman city that once flourished and bustled with life.However Pompeii attracts intrigued visitors for something even more unusual than its 2000 year old history, caught forever in ash.

Basilica de San Marco, Venice

San Marco Basilica, Italian Basilica di San Marco, English Saint Mark’s Basilica, church in Venice that was begun in its original form in 829 (consecrated in 832) as an ecclesiastical structure to house and honour the remains of St. Mark that had been brought from Alexandria. St. Mark thereupon replaced St. Theodore as the patron saint of Venice, and his attribute of a winged lion later became the official symbol of the Venetian Republic. San Marco Basilica, built beside the Palazzo Ducale, or Doges’ Palace, also served as the doge’s chapel. It did not become the cathedral church of Venice until 1807.

Byzantine

Roman Catacombs

The word “catacomb” is used to define any kind of underground necropolis. The old term to call this monuments is `coemeterium’, derived word from the Greek that means “bedroom”. For christians, the sepulture was a provisional moment of transaction on the way to resurrection. The old Rome’s law forbid, because of sanitary reasons, to bury the dead inside the city. The roman roads were flanked by splendid sepulchres of the patrician families, that were generally incinerated and conserved their ashes inside the urns. The first christians, instead, considering that they had to be ready for resurrection, were buried without being burnt on underground groutes excavated on the rocks. The dead were deposited in the grave wrapped in two layers of cloth soaked in bleach to avoid the risk of contagion to the living.

Mosaics from Ravenna Mosaics Sculpture in the round, the preferred medium for images of pagan deities, disappeared in Byzantium and was replaced by its aesthetic opposite: mosaic. With figures depicted against a glimmering gold background, mosaics suggest an ethereal, heavenly realm. In antiquity, most mosaics adorned floors and so were usually made of colored stones that could withstand people walking on them. Because the Byzantines put mosaics on the walls, they could also use fragile materials: mother of pearl, gold and silver leaf, and glass of different colors. Small glass cubes, or tesserae, were placed at angles to catch and reflect the light, creating a sparkling, otherworldly atmosphere.

Early Medieval

Page from Lindisfarne Gospels The copying and decoration of the Lindisfarne Gospels represent a remarkable artistic achievement. The book’s importance lies in the evidence of its production, the beauty of its illustration and the late 10thcentury added gloss of its text that is the earliest rendering of the Gospels in the English language. The Gospels were made on Lindisfarne island, in Northumbria, around 700. The manuscript has been fully digitised and can be viewed here in great detail, with the zoom function, on our Digitised Manuscripts site (Cotton MS Nero D IV). Each carpet page has a cross pattern embedded in its design. It seems likely that these pages were designed to serve as a sort of interior treasure binding to ornament each Gospel as a mirror of the ornate exterior one that once was ‘bedecked with gold and gems’, according to the colophon.

Page from Apocalypse of Beatus

THE MORGAN BEATUS MANUSCRIPT This piece of artwork is a type of manuscript that is a moralized bible. It is made with unfoliated paper and is in a spanish mozarabic style. The size of these pages is 385 x 280 mm and are covered in different scenes depicting the apocalypse. Each scene depicts a different scene, so the colors vary from scene to scene. The colors throughout the scenes are slightly worn and not as bright as they might have been when first created. The figures in the scenes are not in a realism style and have very large eyes for their heads. All the hairstyles in the scenes appear to be similar with long brown hair that reaches to the shoulders. Many of the scenes have halos behind people’s heads which would signify a holy person. Some of the halos are in yellow but others are in green which could show that the figure was not as holy as the other. The angels that are depicted in the manuscript are clearly angels as they have wings but some angels with wings do not actually have halos.

Page from Book of Kells

It is interesting to notice how much Christian art flourished after it was legalized by Constantine in Rome and made the state religion by Justinian. Early Christians, because of the persecution they faced, had only the chance to create their art in the catacombs that hold the bodies of the early Christians martyrs, but after its legalization, Christian art became one of the main influences of religion art in the art of the medieval times and beyond. In fact, most art from the Medieval, Romanesque and Gothic periods is religious in subject matter, and hardly any secular art existed during this time. Early Medieval art borrowed aspects from Byzantine and Early Christian art, the use of relief , mosaics and sculpture continued but other media such as stained glass , metal work and illuminated manuscripts were more used than the media mentioned before them. The illuminated manuscript consisted of an illustrated text, mostly religious, that also was decorated with vibrant and elaborate religious images.

Page from Lindisfarne Gospels

The copying and decoration of the Lindisfarne Gospels represent a remarkable artistic achievement. The book’s importance lies in the evidence of its production, the beauty of its illustration and the late 10thcentury added gloss of its text that is the earliest rendering of the Gospels in the English language. The Gospels were made on Lindisfarne island, in Northumbria, around 700. The manuscript has been fully digitised and can be viewed here in great detail, with the zoom function, on our Digitised Manuscripts site (Cotton MS Nero D IV). Each carpet page has a cross pattern embedded in its design. It seems likely that these pages were designed to serve as a sort of interior treasure binding to ornament each Gospel as a mirror of the ornate exterior one that once was ‘bedecked with gold and gems’, according to the colophon. Certainly the affinities with surviving contemporary precious metalwork such as the Sutton Hoo treasure are readily apparent in the carpet page panels, with their interlace patterns, intertwined sinuous and elongated twisted bodies and stylized birds’ and beasts’ heads.

The Bayeux Tapestry

Around 500AD, when Rome could no longer contain the fierce Northern European tribes, the Roman Empire was replaced by much smaller kingdoms. The thousand years which followed are known as the medieval period. Despite the collapse of Rome, the Catholic Church continued to be a powerful institution unifying all those kingdoms. The Church became the centre for learning during these times: in science, the arts, in medicine, as well as religious culture. The rich culture of this medieval period eventually paved the way for many of the ideas which would mark the start of the Renaissance. Medieval Tapestries were enriched with metal and silk threads producing ostentatious displays for both the Church and the aristocracy. Early in the fourteenth century, a substantial industry evolved for the production of high quality tapestries. This new surge of tapestry production was assisted by the abundance of skilled weavers and the support of many local guilds who actively encouraged large scale tapestry production.

Gothic Medieval

Cimabue Madonna and Child

Cenni di pepo (ca.1240 - ca.1302), among the most highly regarded artists of his time, is sometimes called the last of the great Byzantine painters. Yet he was also among the first to break with the formalism of Byzantine art, introducing a more lifelike treatment to the traditional subjects. As a boy in Florence, rather than study his letters, Cenni spent the day drawing in his books a variety of scenes from his imagination. It was probably then that the reputedly arrogant and disdainful young man received his nickname, Cimabue, which roughly translates as "bullheaded." (It was later said he would rather destroy one of his pictures than hear criticism of it.) He apprenticed with a Grecian master, but soon developed his own, less formalized style.

Giotto The Kiss of Judas (detail)

Giotto di Bondone (b. 1267 or 1277 - d. 1337 CE), usually referred to as simply Giotto, was an Italian painter and architect whose work was hugely influential in the history of Western art. Giotto is most famous today for the cycle of frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel of Padua where his love of drama is most effective in such scenes as Judas' betrayal of Jesus Christ. An innovative painter who searched for far greater realism and human emotion in art than had been seen previously, he was an artist with a particular skill at constructing single dynamic scenes from familiar religious themes. Often referred to as the 'first Renaissance painter' even if he lived before the Renaissance proper had got underway, Giotto was certainly a bridge between the sometimes flat, characterless religious art of the middle to late medieval period and the lively innovative drama seen in the masterpieces of the High Renaissance

Duccio Maestá

Maestà by Duccio is an altarpiece composed of many individual paintings commissioned by the city of Siena in 1308. The front panels depict a large enthroned Madonna and Child with saints and angels, and a predella of the Childhood of Christ with prophets. The reverse of the panels has the rest of a combined cycle of the Life of the Virgin and the Life of Christ. In a total of forty-three small scenes. Unfortunately, several panels are now lost or can be seen in some leading museums across the world. The base of the panel has an inscription that reads: “Holy Mother of God, be thou the cause of peace for Siena and life to Duccio because he painted thee thus.” Though it took a generation for its effect truly to be felt, Duccio’s Maestà set Italian painting on a course leading away from the Byzantine art styles of art adhering to early methods as laid down by religious tradition towards more direct presentations of reality.

Andrea Pisano Detail of St. John the Baptist from the Baptistry doors, Florence

As we have discussed before, at the beginning of the 15th century the art of sculpture renewed by Pisan artists ended up concentrating on Florence. By then, there was ongoing construction done in the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, especially on the lateral facades, one of which includes the beautiful door called “Door of the Mandorla” which was completely decorated with sculptures. Andrea Pisano’s bronze doors with scenes from the life of John the Baptist and figures of the Virtues, located on the south side of the Florence Baptistery (between 1330-1336). Pisano was recommended by Giotto and ended up being awarded the commission to design these first set of doors. They originally were installed on the east side, facing the Duomo, but were later transferred to their present location in 1452.

Ambrogio Lorenzetti Section from The Allegory of Good and Bad Government

The Allegory of Good and Bad Government is a large series of frescos painted between 1337 and 1339. This series stands as the first and only secular painting of Siena’s early Renaissance period. The governing political party of Siena commissioned artist Ambrogio Lorenzetti to depict an allegory of "bad government" featuring the negative dimensions of city life, from assassinations to sacking, violence, poverty and famine. The other allegory would instead depict the qualities of a "good government," including visuals such as prosperous cities, cultivated lands, general well-being, wealth, joy and so on. The painting’s overall meaning is abundantly clear: if the city is administered well, the entire population benefits from the administration's successful system of governance.

International Gothic

Jean and Paul Limbourg Section from Les Tres Riches Heures

About 1413 to 1416 artists Herman, Paul, and Johan Limbourg, working for their patron, Jean, Duc de Berry created the paintings for the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. It is a very richly decorated book of hours containing prayers to be said by the lay faithful at each of the canonical hours of the day. This book, with its spectacular miniature paintings, has been called the most important illuminated manuscript of the late 15th century, and "le roi des manuscrits enluminés." It remained unfinished at the death of the Duc de Berry in 1416; the artists died the same year, leading to the suggestion that the deaths of artists and patron were caused by plague. "The Très Riches Heures consists of 416 pages, including 131 with large miniatures and many more with border decorations or historiated initials, that are among the high points of International Gothic painting in spite of their small size. There are 300 decorated capital letters.

Gentile da Fabriano Presentation of the Child in the Temple

Gentile da Fabriano, or Gentile di Niccolò di Giovanni di Massio (c. 1370 – c. 1427) was born in or near Fabriano, near Ancona in the Marche. The most sought-after and famous artist in Italy during the first quarter of the 15th century, he carried out important commissions in several major Italian art centres and was recognized as one of the foremost artists of his day. Gentile da Fabriano first worked in Venice, but his early frescoes are now destroyed. By 1422 he had joined the Florentine guild, and started a workshop. He is regarded as a leading exponent of the so-called International Gothic style, and his pictures are elegant and stylish. In fact his unifying use of light predates Masaccio. He probably taught Jacopo Bellini in Florence.

Robert Campin Virgin and Child before a Firescreen

Little is known of Flemish painter Robert Campin’s ancestry, other than that his father was known as Herr Campin. Robert was probably born around 1378 in Tournai (known) as Doornik in Dutch and originally Dornick in English), then under French rule and now considered to be one of the oldest cities of Belgium. Some sources place Robert’s birthplace as Valenciennes in France, but it is recorded that Campin bought citizenship of the town in 1410, and thus is unlikely to have been born there. He was a man of high standing; according to 1405-1406 Tournai archives, he established himself in the city as a Master Painter. It is recorded that by 1422 he was married to Ysabel de Stocquain (Elisabeth van Stokkem), some seven years his senior, but they had no children.

Jan van Eyck The Arnolfini Marriage

Jan van Eyck’s equally enigmatic and iconic Arnolfini Portrait often prompts art history newcomers and experts alike to ask: is the female figure pregnant? Questions about the presence of pregnancy in the portrait are so common that the London National Gallery’s website addresses the issue on the second line of the painting’s official explanatory text. Is the woman in the Arnolfini Portrait pregnant? The short answer is no. The illusion is caused because the figure collects her extensive skirts and presses the excess fabric to her abdomen where it springs outwards and creates a dome like silhouette. Her hand position is regularly read by modern viewers as a universal acknowledgment of pregnancy, but in the Renaissance this gesture would have been understood instead as a sign of adherence to female decorum.

Antonio Pisanello Lionello d’ Este

The singing lion on the reverse of this medal is a punning allusion to the patron’s name, Leonello or ‘little lion’. Leonello d'Este (1407-1450) received early training as a soldier and went on to become marquis of Ferrara, his reputation was as one of the most cultivated princes of his time presiding over a court of intense intellectual activity. Cast in bronze or lead, the Renaissance portrait medal commemorated individuals or events. They were used as gifts and mementoes and were inspired by Roman coins, with their portraits of rulers and allegorical representations on the reverse, excavated all over Italy and eagerly collected by humanists such as Leonello. Pisanello established the format for the portrait medal and produced superb examples for the d’Este family.

Rogier van der Weyden Portrait of a Lady

Many of Rogier's portraits were parts of devotional diptychs, a form he helped popularize. In these hinged two-panel works, the sitter, typically on the right, was depicted in prayerful attitude toward a religious image, usually the Virgin and Child, on the opposite panel. This painting is an outstanding exam ple of the abstract eleganc e characteristic of Rogier's late portraits. Although the identity of the sitter is unknown, her air of self–conscious dignity suggests that she is a member of the nobility. Her costume and severely plucked eyebrows and hairline are typical of those favored by highly placed ladies of the Burgundian court.

Benozzo Gozzoli The Journey of the Magi

Benozzo Gozzoli (c. 1421 – 1497) was an Italian Renaissance painter from Florence. Gozzoli was trained by both Lorenzo Ghiberti and Fra Angelico and from them he evolved a narrative style of great charm. He is best known for a series of murals in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi depicting festive, vibrant processions with wonderful attention to detail and a pronounced International Gothic influence. The Chapel of the Magi, built and decorated in the fifteenth century, features a harmonious decoration of enchanting beauty. The frescoes of Benozzo Gozzoli, more famous even than the artist himself, constitute one of the most eminent illustrations of Medici Florence.

Domenico Ghirlandaio Old Man and Grandson vr "

"An Old Man and His Grandson" by Domenico Ghirlandaio portrays an older man in a red robe, embracing a young child who is also wearing red. They sit in a room with a window through which can be seen as a landscape consisting of a sculptured terrain and winding roads, typical of many of Ghirlandaio’s background depictions. Although the man’s fur-lined robe and the boy’s elegant doublet and cap indicate an autocratic or wealthy family, their identities are a mystery. The identity of the sitters is no longer known. The poignancy of the image is dramatized by the contrast between the man’s weathered and wise face, and the child’s delicate profile. It is one of Ghirlandaio’s best-known works and is considered notable for its emotional poignancy and realism. An extraordinary feature of the painting is the deformity of the man’s nose, evidence of rhinophyma. Ghirlandaio has presented the portrait in a naturalistic and sympathetic fashion, at variance with the practice of the era of assessing a person’s character from their outer appearance. Rather than implying a defect of character, Ghirlandaio invites appreciation of the intimacy between the older man and a child.

Dieric Bouts Virgin and Child

Dirk Bouts is considered the founder and principal representative of the School of Haarlem. In the 15th century this school was known for its innovations in the genre of landscape, imbuing it with a remarkable sense of depth. This work has been attributed to numerous artists in the past but it is now given to a follower of Dirk Bouts. The composition is inspired by the famous Virgin of the Fountain by Jan van Eyck (now in the Musée Royal des Beaux-Arts, Antwerp), with the composition simplified to its essential elements. Dirck Bouts was born in the northern Low Countries and moved to Louvain around the mid-1440s. His name regularly appears in the city’s archives from 1457. One of the great artists of the 15th century, Bouts’ painting reflects the artistic legacy of Rogier van der Weyden as well as the influence of contemporary artists such as Petrus Christus and Memling. Bouts was head of an important workshop in Louvain in which his sons Dirck the Younger and Aelbrecht worked.

Hans Memling Mystic Marriage of St Catherine

Hans Memling, Memling also spelled Memlinc, (born c. 1430–40, Seligenstadt, near Frankfurt am Main [Germany] died August 11, 1494, Bruges [Belgium]), leading South Netherlandish painter of the Bruges school during the period of the city’s political and commercial decline. The number of his imitators and followers testifies to his popularity throughout Flanders. His last commission, which has been widely copied, is a Crucifixion panel from the Passion triptych (1491). Memling, born in the region of the Middle Rhine, was apparently first schooled in the art of Cologne and then traveled to the Netherlands (c. 1455–60), where he probably trained in the workshop of the painter Rogier van der Weyden. He settled in Bruges (Brugge) in 1465; there he established a large shop and executed numerous altarpieces and portraits.

Hieronymus Bosch The Garden of Earthly Delights Few artworks sum up the wild ecstasy and weirdness of lust better than Hieronymus Bosch’s famed triptych Garden of Earthly Delights (1490–1500). The dominant subject of the painting is fleshy pleasure. In one area, a group of nude figures intertwine while nibbling on a gargantuan, succulent strawberry. Memling, born in the region of the Middle Rhine, was apparently first schooled in the art of Cologne and then traveled to the Netherlands (c. 1455–60), where he probably trained in the workshop of the painter Rogier van der Weyden. He settled in Bruges (Brugge) in 1465; there he established a large shop and executed numerous altarpieces and portraits.

Matthias Grunewald The Crucifixion Long before Mel Gibson brought the horror and brutality of Christ’s passion to the movie screen in "The Passion of the Christ," Matthias Grunewald brought the horror and brutality of Christ’s passion to his altarpiece. In order to understand "The Crucifixion" by Grunewald, you must first understand the background of this unique work of art. "The Crucifixion," which is part of the Isenheim Altarpiece, was commissioned by the Antonites. The Antonites were a hospital order of medieval monks that devoted themselves to the care of people in the tiny hamlet of Isenheim. In the 1500s, that care consisted primarily of treating patients who were afflicted with a terrible skin disease called "St. Anthony’s fire," or ergotism, which was caused by rye fungus.

Early Renaissance

Masaccio The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise This fresco portrays a nude Adam and Eve as they are expelled from the Garden of Eden. They walk out through an arch from which black lines emanate, representing the angry voice of God, with a red clad angel holding a black sword hovering above to usher them on their way. Adam buries his face in his hands, his body language and facial expression conveying deep anguish. This scene is part of a fresco cycle of Biblical scenes in the Brancacci Chapel painted by Masaccio, as well as Masolino and other artists. In depicting the two naked, the artist departed from the Biblical account in which they wore fig leaves, and also, boldly, created the first nudes in painting since the Roman era. He also added the arch and reduced the multiple cherubs mentioned in the Biblical account to focus on one angel.

Masolino St Peter Raising a Cripple In the square there are two elegantly dressed characters, in the centre of the scene, who separate but also provide the link between the two miraculous events. The presence of these two figures, and also the characters depicted in the background in front of the houses, makes the two events look like normal everyday occurrences in the life of a city. The square resembles a contemporary Florentine piazza and the houses in the background, although none of them is strictly speaking an accurate portrayal of an existing building, convey the idea of Florentine architecture, as we still know it today. Even the paving of the street, different from that of the square, is a note of pure realism: the cobblestones, decreasing in size as they recede, also serve to emphasize the perspective of the composition.

Lorenzo Ghiberti Joseph Sold into Slavery (Baptistry Doors) Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378 – 1455), is best known as the creator of the two sets of bronze doors for the Florence Baptistry. Trained as a goldsmith and sculptor, he established an important workshop for sculpture in metal. His book of Commentarii contains important writing on art, as well as what may be the earliest surviving autobiography by any artist. Lorenzo Ghilberti's Gates of Paradise (Porte del Paradiso, as nicknamed by Michelangelo) represents multiple passages from the Old Testament through a series of sculptured, gilted bronze panels that together form this beautiful pair of doors.

Fra Angelico The Annunciation Fra Angelico, (Italian: "Angelic Brother")(born c. 1400, Vicchio, republic of Florence [Italy]—died February 18, 1455, Rome), Italian painter, one of the greatest 15th-century painters, whose works within the framework of the early Renaissance style which adopted perspective as a technique. The Annunciation was one of the last San Marco frescoes to be completed and was painted on Angelico’s return from Rome in 1450. It shows Gabriel and the Virgin conversing in a cloister fringed with Corinthian columns. Mary is pictured seated within the cloister, which underlines her separateness from the world.

Donatello David Perhaps Donatello’s landmark work and one of the greatest sculptural works of the early Renaissance was his bronze statue of David. This work signals the return of the nude sculpture in the round figure, and because it was the first such work like this in over a thousand years, it is one of the most important works in the history of western art. David is shown at a triumphal moment within the biblical storyline of his battle with the Philistine, Goliath. According to the account, after David struck Goliath with the stone from his slingshot, he cut off his head with Goliath’s sword.

Andrea Mantegna The Agony in the Garden Andrea Mantegna produced two paintings on the subject of The Agony in the Garden, depicting Christ's torment as he prayed in the G arden of Gethsemane shortly before his crucifixion. The first was painted between 1457-1459, the second from 1458-1460, an intensive schedule considering that throughout this period, Mantegna was also completing an immense altarpiece for the Benedictine monastery of San Zeno in Verona, a work commissioned by its abbot. In 1453, Mantegna had married Nicolosia, the daughter of Jacopo Bellini, thus becoming brother-inlaw to the talented artists Gentile and Giovanni Bellini.

Piero della Francesca The Duke of Urbino The Portrait of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino by Piero della Francesca is one of the most famous works of art from the Italian Renaissance period. It is a tempera on wood diptych (a painting in two parts, the same size, displayed side by side), of the Duke of Urbino, Federico da Montefeltro, and his wife, Battista Sforza. Painted between 1465 and 1472, the paintings were previously hinged together, in order that the Duke and Duchess were entirely in each other's gaze. The hinges are now no longer present, and the paintings are instead displayed in an elaborate double gold frame.

Paolo Uccello The Hunt in the Forest The art was possibly created to stay in either Urbino where Paolo worked for some time from 1465, or be in Florence about 1470. The Hunt in the Forest is an early sample of the practical use of perspective in the famous Renaissance art. The painting illustrates participants in the hunt, including people, dogs, deer and horses vanishing into the dark forest that is shown in the distance. Hunting was an aristocratic hobby with rituals of its kind. The crescent moon, a symbol of Diana, the virgin goddess of the hunt, takes shape in the horses' trappings. The idea of hunting by night is symbolic or playful rather than realistic.

Antonio Pollaiuolo The Martyrdom of St Sebastian Antonio Pollaiuolo (ca. 1432-1498), Italian painter, sculptor, goldsmith, and engraver, was a master of anatomical rendering and excelled in action subjects, notably mythologies. This "most Florentine of artists" appealed especially to the circle of Lorenzo de' Medici. Pollaiuolo's monumental Martyrdom of St. The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian is composed symmetrically to tell the story taken from the 'Golden Legend' of Saint Sebastian who was sentenced to death on being discovered a Christian. He was bound to a stake and shot with arrows. Here, the six archers have three basic poses, turned through space and seen from different angles. This helps produce the three-dimensional solidity of each figure and together they define the foreground space.

Antonello da Messina Portrait of a Young Man The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian is composed symmetrically to tell the story taken from the 'Golden Legend'. The six archers have three basic poses, turned through space and seen from different angles. This helps produce the three-dimensional solidity of each figure. Antonio Pollaiuolo (ca. 1432-1498), Italian painter, sculptor, goldsmith, and engraver, was a master of anatomical rendering and excelled in action subjects, notably mythologies. This "most Florentine of artists" appealed especially to the circle of Lorenzo de' Medici. Pollaiuolo's monumental Martyrdom of St.

Giovanni Bellini Madonna of the Small Trees The Madonna degli Alberetti (Italian for Madonna of the Small Trees) is one of the most prolific paintings from Giovanni Bellini. It was done in 1487, when the renaissance was the inspiration of many artists. Coming from an artistic family, Bellini took cognisance of events and times which informed most of his paintings. This particular painting was a representation of Jesus Christ and his mother Mary, standing on a slab. This painting was done on a panel and painted by oil. A panel is a piece or pieces of wood joined together to form a surface.

Sandro Botticelli The Birth of Venus Botticelli's famous painting of The Birth of Venus was executed in the middle of the 1480s. At the start of the 16th century, the painting hung together with Primavera in the country villa of the Medici in Castello. Venus is said to have sprung from the foaming waters of the sea in Botticelli's masterpiece, A Portrait of the Virgin and Child (1661-1665), by the Italian artist Giotto di Donatello (1662-1664).

Gentile Bellini The Miracle of the True Cross near San Lorenzo Bridge Gentile Bellini, a member of Venice's leading family of painters in the 15th century, died in Venice on this day in 1507. He was believed to be in his late 70s, although the exact date of his birth was not recorded. He was considered one of the greatest living painters in Venice at the turn of the 15th Century. Venerable Gentile was the brother of Giovanni Bellini and the nephew of Andrea Mantegna.

Domenico Ghirlandaio Old Man and Grandson The Italian Early Renaissance painter Domenico Ghirlandaio was born in Florence and died in Rome in 1665. He is remembered for his drawings of the Renaissance, which are some of the best in the world. His works include portraits, altarpieces, and frescoes.

Domenico Ghirlandaio Old Man and Grandson The Italian Early Renaissance painter Domenico Ghirlandaio was born in Florence and died in Rome in 1665. He is remembered for his drawings of the Renaissance, which are some of the best in the world. His works include portraits, altarpieces, and frescoes.

Leonardo da Vinci Mona Lisa The Mona Lisa (La Gioconda in Italian) is a half-length portrait of a woman by Leonardo da Vinci which was completed between 1503 and 1506. Mona Lisa is perhaps the most famous painting of all time and was painted by Italian Renaissance artist, Leonardo da Vinci. The Mona Lisa painting was something that artist Leonardo da Vinci worked on for many years, constantly tweaking elements of it to an almost obsessive level that is rarely seen within today's art scene. It seems that the Mona Lisa was a work which held great importance to the artist which caused his to constantly seek slight alterations in order to exactly capture the look that he wanted within the portrait.

Michelangelo Buonarroti David Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael were stars of the Italian Renaissance and its artistic masterpieces. They were visionaries who changed the face of sculpture, architecture and painting. The David statue was installed in 1504 and remained there until 1873. Now a copy is in its place and the original is in the Galleria dell' Accadem ia. In the photo above note the detail of his face and of the slingshot.

Giorgione The Tempest A burst of lightning illuminates a countryside engulfed in a thunderstorm. Its sudden flash reveals a curious scene: a fashionably dressed man standing on a riverbank eyeing a nearly nude woman seated on the opposite shore nursing an infant. The figures are alone in an otherwise lush landscape that glows turquoise in the storm’s humid air. Groves of tall trees flank a deep view extending backwards along a central waterway to a rural town on the horizon. The breastfeeding woman gazes outward as if questioning our intrusion upon the secluded rustic scene.

Raphael The School of Athens In 1508, during the High Renaissance (c.1490-1530), the 25-year old painter Raffaello Sanzio, better known as Raphael, was summoned to the Vatican by the ageing pontiff Pope Julius II (1503-13), and given the largest, most important commission of his life - the decoration of the Papal Apartments, including the Stanza della Segnatura. Located on the upper floor of the Vatican palace, this room was used by the Pope as a library.

Fra Bartolommeo della Porta Resurrection of Christ Fra Bartolommeo, Bartolommeo also spelled Bartolomeo, also called Bartolomeo della Porta or Baccio della Porta (born March 28, 1472, Florence [Italy] - died Oct. 31, 1517, Florence), painter who was a prominent exponent in early 16th-century Florence of the High Renaissance style. Bartolommeo served as an apprentice in the workshop of Cosimo Rosselli and then formed a workshop with the painter Mariotto Albertinelli. His early works, such as the Annunciation (1497), were influenced by the balanced compositions of the Umbrian painter Perugino and by the sfumato (smoky effect of light and shade) of Leonardo da Vinci.

Lorenzo Lotto Husband and Wife Lorenzo Lotto, Husband and wife (c. 1543), 96 × 116 cm, oil on canvas, The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg. The woman is holding a dog (fido), a traditional symbol of fidelity. The squirrel is a symbol of lustful wandering and the fact that the squirrel is sleeping (or dead), and that the husband is holding a paper bearing “HOMO NUN QUAM” (Latin, “man, never”), both indicate that the husband will not roam among other women. The couple is safe from the windy storm outside, showing their mutual support and refuge from the vicissitudes of life.

Jacopo Tintoretto The Last Supper This painting is from the Late Renaissance in Venice. The strong diagonal lines, dramatic lighting, asymmetrical composition, and energetic movement were a strong shift away from the classic style of the Italian Renaissance. Tintoretto painted the Last Supper several times in his life. This version can be described as the fest of the poors, in which the figure of Christ mingles with the crowds of apostles. However, a supernatural scene with winged figures comes into sight by the light around his head.

Giovanni Battista Moroni The Tailor Moroni’s most celebrated painting, The Tailor is unusual in Renaissance portraiture for its presentation of a man performing his trade. It has been debated whether its subject is indeed a tailor, a cloth-cutter, or a cloth merchant, or if the picture is an “emblematical portrait” in allusion to the unknown sitter’s name (the surname Tagliapanni, for example, meaning “cloth-cutter”). Presumably only a tailor would mark up a piece of fabric with chalk, as is seen here. The tailor’s clothes are fashionable and costly, but they are made of wool and not the more sumptuous silk fabrics worn by Moroni’s most socially elevated subjects.

Sofonisba Anguissola Self-Portrait In this 1556 self-portrait, Sofonisba shows herself in the act of painting, applying mixed pigments to a canvas that depicts the Virgin and Christ Child tenderly kissing. She gazes outward as if we have just interrupted her in mid-stroke. Her expression is calm and reserved. A maulstick (a common device used to support the artist’s hand) held in her left hand supports her right hand as she touches the brush to the canvas. The inclusion of a painting of the Virgin Mary and Christ child in the 1556 selfportrait further reflects on Sofonisba’s virginity.

Paolo Veronese The Marriage Feast at Canan In this 1556 self-portrait, Sofonisba shows herself in the act of painting, applying mixed pigments to a canvas that depicts the Virgin and Christ Child tenderly kissing. She gazes outward as if we have just interrupted her in mid-stroke. Her expression is calm and reserved. A maulstick (a common device used to support the artist’s hand) held in her left hand supports her right hand as she touches the brush to the canvas. The inclusion of a painting of the Virgin Mary and Christ child in the 1556 selfportrait further reflects on Sofonisba’s virginity.

Titian Self-Portrait In the year between 1567 and 1568 he created two paintings that are arguably among his finest masterpieces, the Vienna Portrait of Jacopo Stradathe and the Prado Self-Portrait.The Prado Self-Portrait is the second self-portrait that Titian produced, the earlier being the Berlin Self-Portrait which he painted around 15 years earlier. The Berlin work portrays the artist as a man of vigour in an alert and dynamic pose. In it he wears the trappings of his knighthood and confidently displays his grand status. The painting has an animated feel with a sense of movement and alertness.

Mannerist

Andrea del Sarto Portrait of a Young Man One cannot write in depth about an artist without placing him or her within the context of the era in which they lived and cavorted, and to write about Andrea del Sarto (1486-1530) is to instantly shuffle him into the shadow of Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and perhaps others such as Titian and Correggio. But now, with Getty's sturdy if not exactly overwhelming exhibition, “Andrea del Sarto: The Renaissance Workshop in Action,” del Sarto can reclaim some of the attention he truly deserves.

Correggio Noli Me Tangere Antonio Correggio’s stay in Rome between 1518 and 1519 powerfully affected his late work, which reflects that of late Raphael and the Michelangelo of the Sistine Chapel. Without ever abandoning Andrea Mantegna, and especially Leonardo, Correggio drew on those influences to shape his personal and decisive contribution to the classical style. After returning to his native Parma in 1520 he focused on frescoes and large altarpieces, painting few religious works for private use.

Parmigianino Madonna with the Long Neck Madonna with the Long Neck is typical of Parmigianino's later work, which was defined by unusual spatial compositions and elongated figures. The painting is also known as Madonna and Child with Angels and St Jerome but earned the name Madonna with the Long Neck because of the curious length of the Madonna's swan-like neck. This painting is one of Parmigianino's more controversial works and has been analyzed by many critics. It shows the Madonna, seated on a pedestal, with the baby Jesus on her lap. To the left of the picture are four angels, looking admiringly on Christ.

Agnolo Bronzino Eleonora of Toledo and Her Son In Agnolo Bronzino’s Portrait of Eleonora of Toledo and her Son Giovanni, it is these last facts that Bronzino sought to immortalize. The painting shows a much-idealized Eleonora in an elaborately decorated and bejeweled dress, which dominates the painting (another portrait by Bronzino shown left which has been recently identified as Eleonora, depicts her as much frumpier and is probably closer to what she really looked like). To her right is her small son Giovanni, also dressed in an expensive garment.

Giambologna The Rape of the Sabine The statue was positioned in the Loggia della Signoria, also called the Loggia dei Lanzi, together with many other statues, including Cellini’s Perseus. At the time, the Loggia was intended as an openair museum, as it still is today. Donatello’s bronze Judith and Holofernes was originally placed in the same position under the Loggia, however due its smaller dimensions and the scene it represents, it was moved to the Arengo in Palazzo Vecchio. Giambologna’s statue substituted it in 1583.

El Greco The Burial of Count Orgaz The Burial of the Count of Orgaz, located at the Church of Saint Thomas in the Spanish city of Toledo, is an oil-on-canvas painting created by Cretanborn artist El Greco in 1586. El Greco, whose real name was Doménikos Theotokópoulos, had already gained a reputation as an accomplished painter of ecclesiastical scenes by the time that he arrived in Spain and was soon able to establish a workshop in Toledo where he could work on his commissions.

Northern Renaissance

Albrecht Dürer Portrait of Dürer’s Father This portrait of the artist's father was most likely part of a diptych with the portrait of his mother, Barbara Holper, since the coat of arms of both families are present on the back. It was acquired by cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici before 1675, inventoried that year in his collection. It came to the Gallery in 1773. Even in this early portrait the characteristics of his work are evident- both the representation of minute detail typical of northern art and the plasticity typical of the Italian Renaissance.

Cranach Venus with Cupid the Honey Thief The statue was positioned in the Loggia della Signoria, also called the Loggia dei Lanzi, together with many other statues, including Cellini’s Perseus. At the time, the Loggia was intended as an openair museum, as it still is today. Donatello’s bronze Judith and Holofernes was originally placed in the same position under the Loggia, however due its smaller dimensions and the scene it represents, it was moved to the Arengo in Palazzo Vecchio. Giambologna’s statue substituted it in 1583. The painting was in 1759 transferred from the Kunstkammer at Gottorp Castle to the Royal Collection together with other works, making it the largest Cranach collection outside German-speaking countries.

Hans Holbein the Younger The Ambassadors The Ambassadors from 1533 is Hans Holbein the Younger's most famous painting and is also amongst the highlights of the National Gallery's collection in London, taking a prominent position within its permanent display. This exquisite multi-figure portrait painting is also sometimes known as Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve as these are the names of the two men in this piece. Besides them, you will also spot some symbolic items included that aim to inform the viewer about the two individuals and their status within society.

Nicholas Hilliard Young Man Against a Rose Tree A young man gazes dolefully at nothing in particular, engrossed in a private misery and with his hand on his heart. We are therefore left in no doubt as to the cause of his suffering. However, the object of his desires may be less easy to divine and this gem of a picture may fulfil a dual role. The sitter is dressed in black and white, the queen’s colours, and he is surrounded by the barbed beauty of the eglantine rose, also associated with Elizabeth, but at the same time, a reference to the pains of love.

Northern Landscape

Hans Holbein the Younger The Ambassadors Patinir is often considered the first landscape painter in the history of art, although we should specify: “in the history of Western art”, paying respect to the great Chinese landscape painters of the Song Dynasty. Also, it should be pointed out that Patinir’s landscapes are actually religiousthemed works, although the presence and quality of the landscape is often so high that it is virtually impossible to pay attention to any other element in the painting. In any case, his landscapes, admired by the great Albrecht Dürer, had an important influence on the great Flemish and Dutch landscape painters of the following century.

Pieter Brueghel the Elder The Tower of Babel Pieter Bruegel created the incredibly intricate masterpiece, the Tower of Babel in 1563. This historic and religious painting is now housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. During Bruegel's long career, he created many panel paintings that depicted religious events. The Tower of Babel was amongst a number of paintings that were commissioned by the art collector and historian, Nicolaes Jonghelinck. This was the second attempt by Bruegel to paint the Tower, as his first painting was a miniature version which today is sadly lost. He then went on to create a third and smaller version of the scene, onto wood in 1564.

Jan Bruegel the Elder Vase of Flowers There are tulips, roses, irises, forget-me-nots, daffodils and snake's head fritillaries among the vast array of colourful flowers on display here. Their elongated stems overlap as if they are still growing and competing for prime place in the arrangement. This is one of more than 130 flower paintings in The Fitzwilliam Museum bequeathed by Henry Rogers Broughton, 2nd Lord Fairhaven. The bequest also included more than 2,500 botanical drawings, floral miniatures and watercolours by artists including Nicolas Robert, Georg Dionysius Ehret and Pierre-Joseph Redouté.

Hendrick Avercamp A Winter Scene with Skaters by a Windmill Hendrick Avercamp was one of the most popular painters of the “Dutch Golden Age,” a time period (around the 17th century) when art, science, and trade flourished in the Netherlands. Avercamp, who was most likely deaf, specialized in painting winter scenes, when Dutch citizens enjoyed working and socializing on the country’s many frozen canals and rivers.“Winter Landscape with Skaters” (1608) is a typically lovely example of Avercamp’s style. He uses formal artistic techniques and rich individual scenes to paint a picture of an entire community.

Baroque:

Giuseppe Arcimboldo Spring This painting belongs to a four-part cycle of the Seasons which was frequently repeated by the Milan artist for the Imperial court in Vienna and Prague. This particular series, which is now in Paris, had been commissioned by the Emperor Maximilian II for Augustus the Elector of Saxony.

Annibale Carracci Portrait of a Man Drinking Images of such subjects barely existed before Annibale Carracci, who painted “Boy Drinking” around 1582-1583. Carracci (c. 1560-1609) was an important artist from Bologna, a landlocked city between Florence, Venice and Genoa. When it was purchased in 1994, the Cleveland museum’s then director, Robert P. Bergman, called it “arguably the most spontaneously painted picture of the 16th century.”

Caravaggio Supper at Emmaus Supper at Emmaus is an artwork created by Baroque artist Caravaggio (his full name is Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio). Caravaggio lived from 1571 to 1610 and was born in Milan Italy. He worked throughout Rome, Sicily, Naples and Malta. His career took place during a turning point in the history of the art world, and his paintings continue to attract attention till this day. This particular artwork is an oil and tempera piece that was painted on canvas, and is a historical painting that showcases a biblical story. The painting was commissioned by Ciriaco Mattei and it was created sometime between 1601 to 1602.

Artemisia Gentileschi Judith Slaying Holofernes Artemisia Gentileschi was the daughter of the painter Orazio Gentileschi and is considered by many the most important woman painter of Early Modern Europe. She was trained by her father as a painter and was influenced heavily by Caravaggio. Artemisia was surrounded by artist friends of her father but when she was about 18 she was raped by one of them, Agostino Tassi. He was tried for rape and found guilty but it was never really inforced. As part of the process, Artemisia was tortured to prove her honesty.

Guido Reni St Sebastian Painted sometime between 1617 and 1621, St Sebastian epitomises Guido Reni’s search for an ideal form of beauty. Sebastian’s pose is taken directly from the Belvedere Torso, which had been discovered early in the 16th century in Rome’s Campo de’ Fiori and is now in the Vatican collection. Yet Reni has taken this muscular marble figure and turned it into a palpably soft-skinned man, who overcomes the pain of his wound by the intensity of his trust in God.

Pietro da Cortona Glorification of the Reign of Pope Urban VIII Cortona’s Glorification of the Reign of Urban VIII (or, Allegory of Divine Providence) utilizes illusionism for a new treatment of ceiling decoration. Cortona had previously used quadri riportati for ceiling decoration, but with the fresco ceiling of the Salone in Palazzo Barberini, Cortona used a combination of painted architecture and sculpture, overlapping narrative to create a unity (Harris, 119). Cortona employs an illusionistic architectural framework in the decoration of the vault, leading to a unified surface (GOA).

Nicolas Poussin Et in Arcadia Ego This is a classical painting as being an important genre of French Baroque art. The foreground is presented by three shepherds, living in the idyllic land of Arcadia, an enigmatic inscription on a tomb as a female figure places her hand on one of the shoulders of the men. She may be the spirit of death as she is reminding these mortals that even death is found in Arcadia. Poussin is establishing Edenic bliss.

Claude Lorrain The Embarkation of Ursula One of Claude's early successes, Seaport with the Embarkation of St. Ursula depicts a scene from the legendary life of Saint Ursula as narrated by Jacopo da Varagine's Golden Legend. The tale is not accepted as official church doctrine, due to the numerous versions of the story that exist, but the version from the Golden Legend goes something like this: Saint Ursula was the daughter of the King of Britain, Donaut of Dumnonia. When Ursula was engaged to the pagan governor, Conan Meriadoc of Armorica, she set sail to meet her future husband with some astounding companions: 11,000 virgins, to be exact.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini Ecstasy of St Teresa of Avila St. Theresa of Avila was a Spanish nun, mystic and writer during the Counter-Reformation. Some sources suggest that as a girl, Theresa was willful and spoiled, and chose to enter the Carmelite sisterhood instead of marrying a wealthy hidalgo based on the mistaken belief that as a nun she would be afforded more freedom. Upon entering the convent aged 19, Theresa became seriously ill (she has now become a patron saint for the infirm), possibly depressed and subjecting her body to self-mutilation.

Flemish Baroque

Sir Peter Paul Rubens Samson and Delilah The painting depicts an episode from the Old Testament story of Samson and Delilah Samson was a Hebrew hero known for fighting the Philistines. Having fallen in love with Delilah, who has been bribed by the Philistines, Samson tells her the secret of his great strength: his uncut hair. Without his strength, Samson is captured by the Philistines. Rubens portrays the moment when, having fallen asleep on Delilah's lap, a young man cuts Samson's hair. Samson and Delilah are in a dark room, which is lit mostly by a candle held by an old woman to Delilah's left. Delilah is depicted with all of her clothes, but with her breasts exposed.

Frans Hals The Laughing Cavalier Frans Hals the Elder (1582-1666) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, usually of portraits, who lived and worked in Haarlem, a city in the Netherlands. He is notable for his loose painterly brushwork, and he helped introduce this lively style of painting into Dutch art. Hals played an essential role in the evolution of 17th-century group portraiture. “The Laughing Cavalier” by Frans Hals is famous for the lively and spontaneous style of portraiture created by the Dutch Golden Age Master. The subject is, in fact, not laughing but has an enigmatic smile, amplified by his upturned mustache.

Anthony van Dyke Charles I of England Charles I was a highly memorable monarch who was for many years the King of England, Scotland and Ireland. Charles was strongly connected to the arts and this has ensured his own image was well publicised for many centuries after his death. He held a good eye for oil painting and chose some of the finest artists to produce portraits of him in a variety of stately scenes.

Jacob van Ruisdael Landscape with Windmills Windmills were ubiquitous in seventeenth-century Holland and they remain the best-known symbol of the Dutch landscape. Jacob van Ruisdael first depicted them as a precocious teenager and continued to represent all types in various settings until his very last years. Water mills, in contrast, were scarce in the new Dutch Republic, found mainly in the eastern provinces, particularly near the border with Germany. Ruisdael discovered them in the early 1650s and was the first artist to make water mills the principal subject of a landscape.

Jan Steen Skittle Players Outside an Inn This idyllic landscape, with skittle players and figures seated on the grass outside The White Swan inn, is an unusual subject for Jan Steen, who is best known as a painter of rowdy domestic and tavern interiors. Steen's work was unusual in its wide range of subject-matter in an age which encouraged specialization. Steen moved from town to town, and this apparent restlessness of temperament is reflected in the unevenness of his output. Often in financial difficulties, Steen was not above hack-work. At his best, however, as in this painting which probably dates from around 1660,

Carel Fabritius The Goldfinch Carel Fabritius was a Dutch 17th-century painter with a completely unique style. He painted portraits, still lifes, views of towns and cities and history paintings, often in bright colours and with clever lighting. In 1654 Fabritius painted one of his most extraordinary pictures, The Goldfinch. It is a lifelike portrait of a little bird pictured against a white wall. That same year, at the age of 32, Fabritius was killed when a gunpowder warehouse exploded in Delft.

Pieter de Hooch Woman and Maid with Pail in Courtyard Pieter de Hooch has gone down in art history as a painter who rendered Dutch domestic life with great precision. The private everyday life of the bourgeoisie in all its ordered tranquility, a world whose calm is never shattered by any sensational event, is the subject of his works. De Hooch opens a window on narrow alleyways, small gardens and courtyards, and gives us a glimpse into the antechambers and living-rooms of the Dutch citizens. Like Jan Vermeer, de Hooch specialized in the portrayal of interiors.

Jan Vermeer Woman Holding a Jug Vermeer focused many of his scenes on a female figure lost in thought while in the midst of a daily activity. He discovered in such quiet moments of contemplation, when one gazes outward but looks within, a window into an individual's spiritual nature. Here, the woman's reverie occurs as she stands near the corner of a room, holding the frame of a leaded-glass window in one hand and a water pitcher in the other. The woman is merely letting in the morning air as she tidies up, but she tidies up with a gesture as grand as that of a sibyl by Michelangelo. The grandeur is of the essence, and not stylistically imputed.

Meindert Hobbema The Avenue at Middelharnis Hobbema is the last of the great landscape painters from the Dutch Golden Age, and along with Jacob van Ruisdael -of whom he was probably a pupilhe is probably the best of them. Comparisons between these two painters are common. Van Ruisdael is more versatile and brave. Hobbema is calm and precise. His study of Dutch landscape and its characteristic features (mills, cottages) are reminiscent of John Constable’s views of the English countryside. When Hobbema was at the height of his artistic powers, he got a well paid job as a wine appraiser, so sadly his artistic production was greatly reduced. “The Avenue at Middelharnis” is therefore one of the last works by the artist, and certainly one of the most original.

Spanish Baroque

Jusepe de Ribera St Paul the Hermit As the hermitic orders trace their spiritual ancestry back to the preChristian Jewish hermits, it makes sense that the first known Christian hermit would hold a significant place in the chronicles of eremitical history. Saint Paul the Hermit is believed to have been the first Christian to lead a solitary life of divine devotion in the desert, and he was the first hermit to be canonized. Born in Thebes (now Luxor), Egypt, he fled into the desert to avoid the persecution of Christians, and to dedicate his life to the solitary worship of God.

Diego Velázquez Las Meninas This is one of Velázquez`s largest paintings and among those in which he made most effort to create a complex and credible composition that would convey a sense of life and reality while enclosing a dense network of meanings. The artist achieved his intentions and Las Meninas became the only work to which the writer on art Antonio Palomino devoted a separate section in his history of Spanish painters of 1724, entitling it In which the most illustrious work by Don Diego Velázquez is described. Since then the painting has never lost its status as a masterpiece. From Palomino we know that it was painted in 1656 in the Cuarto del Príncipe in the Alcázar in Madrid, which is the room seen in the work.

Francisco de Zurbarán St Francis of Assisi Francis of Assisi was born in around 1181. As a youngster he lived a high-spirited life typical of a wealthy young Italian man. Yet growing up in such comfort didn’t suit Francis’s temperament and he began to lose his taste for the worldly life. One day, Francis was praying in a ruined church when he had a mystical vision of Jesus Christ: “Francis, Francis, go and repair My house which, as you can see, is falling into ruins.” Francis sold some cloth from his father’s store to help renovate the church. Stories like this, about Francis’s veneration of God and his devotion to the maintenance of Christianity, became strongly linked with his image in art. Above all, St Francis was an emblem of authentic worship in a religion wrought with schism.

:Bartolomé Murillo Ecce Homo Bartolomé Esteban Murillo was a Spanish Baroque painter. Although he is best known for his religious works, Murillo also produced a considerable number of paintings of contemporary women and children. These lively, realist portraits of flower girls, street urchins, and beggars constitute an extensive and appealing record of the everyday life of his times.

Rococo

Jean Antoine Watteau Italian Comedians Antoine Watteau's The Italian Comedians presents fifteen figures arranged on stone steps and dressed in costumes typical of the commedia dell'arte theater. The Italian comedians were extremely popular performers whose fame rested on the audience's recognition of stock characters. Their plays were often greatly exaggerated by pantomime, gesture, and innuendo.

William Hogarth Scene from the Beggar’s Opera Hogarth represents an important watershed in British art, marking the end of the century-long predominance of Dutch and Flemish painters in England and the beginning of a native school. Although his style was influenced by French rococo artists, Hogarth was a realist and social critic whose subjects came from the London middle classes as he observed them in the streets, in coffee houses, or at the theater.

Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin House of Cards At a time when large-scale heroic narrative painting was thought to be the most meritorious, Chardin, thwarted by his lack of academic training in drawing, became one of the greatest practitioners of the 'lowly' art of still life. Born in Paris, where he spent most of his life, he first trained at the guild school of Saint-Luc, before gaining admittance to the French Royal Academy in the category of a still-life and animal painter. By the end of his life his works were to be found in most of the great private collections of the time.

Canaletto The Grand Canal, Venice “The Entrance to the Grand Canal, Venice” by Canaletto portrays the Rococo landscape of the entrance to the Grand Canal, Venice. This Canaletto is a typical example of the ‘vedute paintings’ popular with Grand Tour travelers of the 1700s as a visual record of their travels. Canaletto was one of the most famous painters of city views or vedute, especially of Venice. The composition is a veduta, a word derived from the Italian for “view,” which means a highly detailed, large-scale painting of a cityscape or some other vista. From 1746 to 1756, Canaletto also worked in England, where he created many pictures of the sights of London.

Canaletto The Grand Canal, Venice “The Stolen Kiss” by Jean-Honoré Fragonard depicts a kiss between two lovers, showing a young lady in a cream-colored silk gown who has left the group of women in the next room for a secret meeting with a young man. Fragonard’s painting displays the kind of eroticism and romantic folly that was popular before the French Revolution among French aristocrats. This scene of voyeurism depicts the stolen kiss in lavish surroundings, containing luxurious details of textures, silks, and lace, like the rug with flower pattern, silk draperies, her shawl on the chair, the elegantly clad ladies that are visible through the open door.

Angelica Kauffmann Portrait of David Garrick Painting of the Swiss artist Angelica Kaufman “Portrait of David Garrick”. The size of the picture is 84 x 67 cm, canvas, oil. Unusual for his time, this private portrait conveys the subtle and sensitive nature of the great English actor. The relaxed position of Garrick, his gaze soft and penetrating are strikingly different from the generally accepted manner of portraying the actor in a tragic role, as if on stage. Great as an actor, David Garrick acquired himself in the history of the theater an immortal name and as a converter of the English scene, pointing to the artistic truth as the first and basic law of scenic creativity.

François Boucher Woman at her Toilette La toilette was acquired directly from the artist and Tessin paid 648 livres for it. It arrived in Stockholm in June 1742. Following the death of the Count it was auctioned in 1771 along with other works from his collection and entered the Masreliez collection, also in Stockholm. From there it was acquired by Baron E. Cederström in Löfsta. In the early 20th century it was to be found in Vienna in the collection of Baron Nathaniel de Rothschild and later in that of Baron Alphonse de Rothschild.

Neoclassical

François Boucher Woman at her Toilette In the middle of the 18th century, French artist Jacques-Louis David pioneered a new genre of painting. Aptly titled Neoclassical, this movement was seen as a revival of the idealized art of Ancient Greece and Rome. Though rendered in a style reminiscent of antiquity, Neoclassical paintings often feature contemporary scenes and subjects. The Death of Marat was completed in 1793, four years after the onset of the French Revolution. Like much of David's art created during this decade, The Death of Marat is a politically-charged piece dealing with a major event of the time.

Sir Henry Raeburn The Rev Robert Walker Skating The Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch, better known by its shorter title The Skating Minister, is an oil painting attributed to Henry Raeburn in the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh. The minister portrayed in this painting is Robert Walker. He was a Church of Scotland minister who was born on 30 April 1755 in Monkton, Ayrshire. When Walker was a child, his father had been minister of the Scots Kirk in Rotterdam, so the young Robert almost certainly learnt to skate on the frozen canals of the Netherlands. He was licensed by the Presbytery of Edinburgh in 1770 at the age of fifteen.

Jean Ingres The Bather “The Valpinçon Bather” by JeanAuguste-Dominique Ingres is a female nude in a chaste pose. Her neck and the curves of her back and legs are accentuated by the curves in the green draperies. With the white linen in front of her and the folds of the bedsheets, this painting lacks the overt sexuality of other Ingres paintings. Most famously in “The Turkish Bath” of 1863, where the central character in the foreground playing the mandolin which echoes in rhythm and tone this figure. The Turkish Bath was the last of his Orientalist paintings of the female nude and was finished when Ingres was 83 years old.

Antonio Canova The Three Graces The sculptor, Antonio Canova born in 1757 and died in 1822, was visited by John Russell in his studio in Rome in the year 1814. The Duke of Bedford was impressed by the Three Graces that Antonio had sculpted for Empress Josephine, a wife to Napoleon Bonaparte. John Russell was captivated and commissioned another version of the Three Graces from Antonio Canova which he started carving in the year 1814 and completed in 1817 before being installed at Sculpture Gallery in Woburn in 1819. The Three Graces, depicted in classical artworks and literary works, were daughters to Jupiter, popularly known as Zeus in Greek, and were also companions to the Muses.

Thomas Gainsborough Mr and Mrs Andrews The painting is among Gainsborough's most famous works. Until 1960, it remained in the sitters' family and was not well known before appearing in a 1927 exhibition in Ipswich, after which the portrait was requested on a regular basis for other exhibitions held in Britain and abroad. Critics praised it for its freshness and charm. By the post-war era, the portrait's iconic status was established; it was one of the 4 paintings selected to represent British art held in an exhibition located in Paris, and celebrating the 1953 Coronation of Elizabeth II.

Romantic

Henri Fuseli The Nightmare The Nightmare by Swiss-born English painter Henry Fuseli. Though it does represent the Gothic style, it's actually considered a Romanticist painting. It was made in 1781 in London, England and was quite shocking to the public, though many knew he was an odd man who was interested in painting the supernatural and dream-like already. His audience wondered what happened to the popular themes that came about in paintings at the time- there was no moralizing subject, there was no historical significance in the scene, there was nothing from the Bible or literature in the painting, it was simply a result of Fuseli's imagination.

George Stubbs Mambrino George Stubbs is a famous artist best known for his work with horse. Stubbs makes the horse look powerful and shows it's natural beauty. Mambrino is a strong racehorse with the strength and the heart in its soul. To understand the painting the viewer has to understand the depth of the painter. The depth of the painting shows how the subject is acting or feeling in the picture. The sky is a light blue, with white puffy clouds. The horse is white, muscular horse with a dirty white coat. There is a green, grassy hill in the background of the picture. There is a dark forest green in the picture with brown colored twigs.

William Blake The Ancient of Days The painting shows Urizon bending and doing some measurements on the universe. This particular title, the ancient of days, is inspired by the bible scriptures from the book of Daniel that describes the whole situation of God overseeing the world and all that is in it. Blake took his time in painting this particular art through his common techniques like using watercolour through his hands on the printed materials or opaque pigments. He embraced the use of ink, pieces of paper, chalks in oil and copper plate. He finalized his work by pressing the paper against the dump paint to get the outcome.

John Martin Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion Martin is best known for religious and fantastical subjects often painted on a huge scale. After an apprenticeship with a coach painter he worked in London painting on china and glass. On losing his job Martin decided it was make or break for his career and spent a month working on Sadak. It was shown at the Royal Academy and later sold for 50 guineas. The painting is based on a story from Tales of the Genii in which Sadak has to find the waters of oblivion in order to save his wife from an evil sultan.

Madrid, 3rd May 1808 “The Third of May 1808” by Francisco Goya depicts the early hours of the morning after the uprising in May 1808 by the people of Madrid against the city’s occupation by French troops. Goya portrays the French as a rigidly firing squad, and the citizens are represented as a disorganized group of captives held at gunpoint. Executioners and victims face each other in a confined space.

John Martin Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion Martin is best known for religious and fantastical subjects often painted on a huge scale. After an apprenticeship with a coach painter he worked in London painting on china and glass. On losing his job Martin decided it was make or break for his career and spent a month working on Sadak. It was shown at the Royal Academy and later sold for 50 guineas. The painting is based on a story from Tales of the Genii in which Sadak has to find the waters of oblivion in order to save his wife from an evil sultan.

Sir Thomas Lawrence The Duke of Wellington Lawrence’s composition is that of victory, heralding Wellington as the finest of military commanders and the ‘liberator of Europe’. Positioned under a Roman style triumphal arch, he grasps the Sword of State (symbolising the sovereign's royal authority) in his hand and holding it aloft in an heroic gesture. He wears Field Marshal’s uniform and his baton (a symbol of office) rests on a ledge beside a letter addressed to him and signed by George P.R. signifying his promotion to Field Marshal and the gratitude of the Crown.

Théodore Géricault Dapple Gray Horse In today's article, we'll go through an animal portrait titled Study of a Dapple Grey by Jean-Louis André Théodore Géricault. The horse is well fed and muscular, thus dictating that it’s well-kept by the owners. Not much is known about the painting or the horse at large. However, the horse’s stance and muscles can easily make us conclude that it was a superior horse that either served as a carriage horse, battle horse, or either as a mount horse. One could also say that the horse was all but the painter’s imagination since it is well-posed and is not moving. However, this has was not the case since the scene was initially set up before painting began.

John Constable The Haywain This famous piece from 1821 was originally titled, Landscape: Noon. Upon its unveiling, The Hay Wain was well received across Europe, helping to boost the reputation of the artist right across the continent. British art had long been living in the shadows of artists from France and Italy, and this was now the time for artists from the UK to gain recognition for their work. For the painting to be praised by Théodore Géricault, one of the most talented members of the French Romanticism movement, was a huge honor for this Suffolk-born painter. The artwork now resides in the National Gallery, London and was recently voted the second most popular British painting in history in a major BBC poll.

Eugène Delacroix Massacre at Chios As early as September 15, 1821, Delacroix had thought of using the desperate revolt of the Greeks against the Turks, begun in 1820, as the subject for a painting, and had confided this intention to his friend Raymond Soulier: "I plan to do for the next Salon a picture for which I will take the subject from the recent wars between the Turks and Greeks. I believe that, in the present circumstances, if there is any quality in the execution of the work, it will be a way to distinguish myself". However, the artist postponed the execution of his project and in the interim, in April, 1822, there were the terrible massacres on the island of Chios, in which twenty thousand people died.

Caspar David Friedrich Wreck of the Hope The Sea of Ice (German: Das Eismeer), also called The Wreck of Hope (German: Die gescheiterte Hoffnung) is an oil painting of 1823–1824 by the German Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich. The landscape depicts a shipwreck in the middle of a broken ice-sheet, whose shards have piled up after the impact. The ice has become like a monolithic tomb, or dolmen, whose edges jut into the sky. The stern of the wreck is just visible on the right. As an inscription on it confirms, this is HMS Griper, one of two ships that took part in William Edward Parry's 1819–1820 and 1824 expeditions to the North Pole.

Thomas Cole Scene from The Last of the Mohicans Famous for his unparalleled portrayals of the American wilderness, Thomas Cole was the founder of the Hudson River school. The hallmark of this group of artists was a uniquely American style of landscape painting that combined nationalist pictorial rhetoric with English aesthetic conventions. Commissioned for display on the steamboat Albany, Landscape with Figures depicts the tragic climax of James Fenimore Cooper’s popular novel The Last of the Mohicans (1826). The heroine, Cora Munro, clad in white, lies dying on a cliff beside Uncas, a Mohican who is killed while attempting to save her from Magua, a member of the enemy Huron tribe.

William Etty Hero and Leander The story of the two young lovers Hero and Leander is one enduring love. It has been a recurring subject in art and literature since classical times. The annual feast devoted to Venus, goddess of love, brought all the youth of the Asian town of Abydos- including Leander- to Venus’s temple in Sestos. Here Leander saw the perfectly beautiful priestess Hero: they fell in love. To conceal this from Hero’s parents and her female attendant Leander promised that, come what may, he would swim across the Hellespont from Abydos to Sestos ( in Europe) every night so they could make love; to guide him safely Hero would place a burning torch on the top of the tower where she lived.

J.M.W. Turner Venice “The Grand Canal, Venice” by J. M. W. Turner was painted on his second visit to Venice, probably in 1833. Turner created a series of views of the city that displayed his interest in capturing a scene through the lens of his Romantic sensibility. Turner was the master in portraying nature with dramatic light and color that permeates most of his paintings. This painting is renowned for the way the foundations of the palaces of Venice merge into the waters of the canal through subtle reflections. This painting was shown in 1835 at the Royal Academy, where it was well-received as one of his “most agreeable works.”

George Bingham Ferrymen Playing Cards Bingham also made historical paintings depicting scenes from the American Revolution and ongoing political uprisings. Bingham became known as “The Missouri Artist” as word of his talent spread throughout the western region. Bingham painted countless portraits of people in Missouri, and recorded his state’s developing landscape well. George Caleb Bingham, a Missouri artist, began his career as an essentially self-taught portrait painter, but eventually turned to genre painting, which he saw as an outlet for his fascination with the subjects found along Missouri's rivers. This painting is an idealized scene of river life in Missouri during the 1840s.

Edwin Landseer The Monarch of the Glen The Monarch of the Glen is one of the most famous British pictures of the nineteenth century; for many people it encapsulates the grandeur and majesty of Scotland’s highlands and wildlife. Here Landseer depicts a monumental and precisely defined ‘royal’ or twelve point stag – a reference to the number of points on its antlers. Many of his paintings show interactions between humans and animals, but in this, his most well-known work, a single emblematic creature is viewed in a moment of exhilaration. The Monarch was first exhibited in the Royal Academy of Arts that is housed in the National Gallery. In this gallery, he also commissioned some bronze lions at the base of Nelson's Column.

Pre-Raphaelite

Ford Madox Brown The Last of England The painting is done in an oval shape, which is different from other arts that centre in a square or rectangular frame. The two main characters, a man and a woman, are seen looking ahead with hard expressions on their faces. Behind them there is a frenzy of activities, there are a lot more people, food and events all emigrating to England. The two main characters represent Madox and his wife, Emma. The two are painted to look like they have no remorse whatsoever for leaving England. They have not bound to anything back there and that their future is still ahead of them.

Sir John Everett Millais Sir Isumbras at the Ford Sir John Millais's transitional work, A Dream of the Past Sir Isumbras at the Ford (1857), depicts an ancient knight carrying two children of a poor woodcutter across a river on horseback. The character of Sir Isumbras derives from a 14th-century English romance, but this specific incident does not occur in the medieval poem. Rather, when exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1857 the painting bore a quotation from a pseudo-medieval romance by Millais's friend, the art critic Tom Taylor, who wrote a fake medieval verse explaining the story.

William Holman Hunt Isabella and the Basil Pot One of the things that initially drew the Pre-Raphaelites together was a shared admiration for the writings of John Keats. Throughout their careers, subjects from Keats’ poems frequently supplied the narratives for the paintings done by the members of the PRB (Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood), but William Holman Hunt’s Isabella or the Pot of Basil (1866-1868) is an innovative interpretation of the subject. Keats’ Isabella or the Pot of Basil (published in 1820) is based on a story from the Renaissance author Boccaccio’s Decameron. It explores the traditional theme of star-crossed lovers. The poem tells the tragic tale of Isabella and Lorenzo, who is employed by Isabella’s brothers.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti The Day Dream In 1878, Rossetti made a chalk sketch of Jane, his mystery sweetheart, whom he met in 1857 at the Royal Theater in Drury Lane. She was a role model for some of his famous artworks, inclusive of Proserpine. The painting was exhibited above the fireplace in the Rossetti workshop. The artwork was originally named Monna Primavera, conceivably enlivened by La Vita Nuova, a story that fascinated Rossetti and became the reason for prior artworks. He was additionally an artist and wrote poems to go with some of his paintings. This picture is the last artwork from his series "Sonnets for images." Rossetti was initially not completely happy with the picture and improved it several times.

William Morris Iris textile The term of textile covers several different mediums in which artist Morris worked, and he switched from one to another in several phases of his career. Many art followers may find it hard to differentiate between some of the technical terms used here, such as embroidery against tapestry. This website aims to separate these into a clearer format and detail the technical intricacies of each. Tapestries by William Morris are distinctive wall decor. The textile designer set up a tapestry loom in 1877 and completed his first piece in 1879. Morris' tapestries show various scenes from religious and legendary stories to different scenes such as gardens and nature.

John William Waterhouse Ophelia This painting t h e m e d a r o u n d Ophelia was completed by John William Waterhouse in 1889 and in this version he depicts the young woman laying in a field of wildflowers. He also produced two other versions along this theme, in 1894 and this other Ophelia. John William Waterhouse was closely connected to the PreRaphaelites. He was never truly a part of the Brotherhood, but his work bore similarities. The same models appear multiple times in different artworks, sometimes even in paintings and drawings too.

Realist

Gustave Courbet Bonjour Monsieur Courbet Arguably the most influential artist of nineteenth century French Realism, Gustave Courbet is the first major figure that we can identify as avantgarde (ahh-vahhnt guard) This was originally a French military term adopted for certain radical artists and thinkers. Avant '' means advance or forward, and garde is similar to the English guard or soldier. In his canvas The Meeting or, Bonjour Monsieur Courbet, of 1854, Courbet has painted himself on the right side. This self-portrait offers a number of significant clues as to how the artist thought of himself or perhaps how he wished to be seen.

Jean-Frangois Millet The Gleaners Gleaning is the act of scouring the field for stalks of crop missed in the first harvesting. One needed a licence to be allowed to do this, and only the poorest would undertake it. The main figures in this painting are of very low social status. The Gleaners is the work of French artist Charles Millet, one of the leaders of the Barbizon School. A champion of the rural working class, he often depicts people working in the fields, such as in The Sower (1850) or The Angelus (1857-59).

Honoré Daumier The Laundress Daumier's Laundress is one of many paintings from the era of Realism in France during the 19th century. This painting shows the reality of the fighting men in The Uprising by showing the everyday life of lower class women. Daumier used the sam e dark painterly strokes typical of his depiction of the first class. Painting by French artist Charles Daumier, believed to be the largest and possibly the last of three versions of the composition. Artist's pigments have deteriorated, obscuring the last digit of the date inscribed at the lowe r l e f t , b u t i n 1 8 9 3 i t w a s recorded as 1863.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot The Woman of the Pearl ‘Woman with a Pearl’, originally known as ‘La Femme a la Perle’, was one of the most important works of French realist painter Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, from the Barbizon School. Camille Corot's 'The Woman with a Pearl' was exhibited at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1997. John Goodrich wrote that no work shows better the nature of painting how so powerful an expression of a human moment arises, startlingly from the abstract romping of colors and lines.

James Abbott McNeill Whistler Portrait of the Artist#39;s Mother This painting is one of the most significant works by a US artist living outside of the country. The style of this painting is faithful to Whistler's career, using subdued colour schemes. Many North American artists would become inspired by the styles appearing across Europe during the 19th century. Painting was to cause a rift between Whistler and the British Art establishment. The artist was upset by their near-refusal to display this painting. It is now on display in one of the world's most prestigious art galleries, the Louvre Abu Dhabi.

John Singer Sargent Luxembourg Gardens at Twilight The Luxembourg Gardens began as part of the Palais du Luxembourg which was built in 1620 for Marie de Médicis, widow of Henri IV. They are part formal garden with terraces and gravel paths, part "English garden" of lawns, and part amusement centre. John Francis Sargent painted "The triumph of Maria de Medici" for the remodeled Palais du Luxembourg in 1877. The Paris Commune had just ended and the Third Republic was rebuilding the city. Carolus-Duran was commissioned to paint this work for the new Palace.