Courbet, Gustave (1819-1877) La Femme aux bas blancs (Woman with White Stockings) 1864 Oil on canvas, 65 x 81 cm Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia Traditionally, European painters made the nude subject decorous by presenting it as part of an edifying mythological narrative.…
Rousseau, Henri (1844-1910) Mauvaise surprise (Unpleasant Surprise) 1901 Oil on canvas, 194.6 x 129.9 cm Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia The large-scale jungle scenes of Henri Rousseau are rife with violent struggles between wild animals such as lions, tigers, and horses. Here, a…
Matisse, Henri (1869-1954) Nu couché (Reclining Nude) 1923–1924 Oil on canvas, 60 x 92 cm Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia Matisse painted this work in Nice, a city in the South of France that he visited frequently in the 1920s. The canvas is…
Cézanne, Paul (1839-1906) Léda au cygne (Leda and the Swan) c.1880 (possibly later) Oil on canvas, 59.7 x 74.9 cm Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia This picture is unusual in Cézanne‘s oeuvre for its specific literary subject matter. It represents the story from Ovid‘s…
Léger, Fernand (1881-1955) Femme allongée (Reclining Woman) 1922 Oil on canvas, 64.5 × 92 cm Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago Fernand Léger first saw the work of the Cubists Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso at the Paris gallery of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler.…
Zurbarán, Francisco de (1598-1664) La crucifixión (The Crucifixion) 1627 Oil on canvas, 290.3 × 165.5 cm Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago Beginning in the mid-sixteenth century, the Roman Catholic Church clarified and reaffirmed its doctrine and practices in an effort to…
El Greco (1541-1614) La Anunciación (The Annunciation) c.1576 Oil on canvas, 117 x 98 cm Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid In the course of his life, EI Greco painted numerous versions of the Annunciation, thus allowing his stylistic development to be traced through…