Rembrandt (1606-1669) The Holy Family with St Anne 1640 Oil on panel, 41 x 34 cm Musée du Louvre, Paris The Christian meaning of the painting has often been obliterated in favor of a purely secular interpretation: for example at…
Derain, André (1880-1954) Madame Derain au châle blanc (Madame Derain in a White Shawl) c.1919–1920 Oil on canvas, 195.5 x 97.5 cm Tate Britain, London In this portrait of his wife Alice, Derain has adopted some of the compositional and stylistic…
Derain, André (1880-1954) Le peintre et sa famille (The Painter and his Family) c.1939 Oil on canvas, 176.5 x 123.8 cm Tate Britain, London This symbolic painting represents the life of an artist. It is an invented scene. Despite usually working…
Chagall, Marc (1887-1985) Paris par la fenêtre (Paris Through the Window) 1913 Oil on canvas, 136 x 141.9 cm Guggenheim Museum, New York After Marc Chagall moved to Paris from Russia in 1910, his paintings quickly came to reflect the latest…
Renoir, Pierre-Auguste (1841-1919) Jeune fille endormie au chat (Sleeping Girl with a cat) 1880 Oil on canvas, 120.3 x 91.9 cm Clark Art Institute, Williamstown A young woman dozes in a chair, her striped stockings and plain skirt suggesting her humble background.…
Velázquez, Diego (1599-1660) Las hilanderas, o La fábula de Aracne (The Spinners or The Fable of Arachne) 1655–1660 Oil on canvas, 220 x 289 cm Museo del Prado, Madrid This painting is the result of two acts carried out in…
Courbet, Gustave (1819-1877) L’Atelier du peintre (The Painter’s Studio) 1854–1855 Oil on canvas, 361 x 598 cm Musée d’Orsay, Paris The enormous Studio is without doubt Courbet‘s most mysterious composition. However, he provides several clues to its interpretation: “It’s the whole world…
Goya, Francisco de (1746-1828) Don Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zúñiga 1787–1788 Oil on canvas, 127 x 101.6 cm Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Outfitted in a splendid red costume, the son of the count and countess of Altamira is shown between…
Manet, Édouard (1832-1883) Olympia 1863 Oil on canvas, 130.5 x 191 cm Musée d’Orsay, Paris With Olympia, Manet reworked the traditional theme of the female nude, using a strong, uncompromising technique. Both the subject matter and its depiction explain the scandal…
Rousseau, Henri (1844-1910) Portrait de Monsieur X (Pierre Loti) 1906 Oil on canvas, 61 x 50 cm Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich See also: • Loti, Pierre (1850-1923)