Gauguin, Paul (1848-1903) Nevermore 1897 Oil paint on canvas, 60.5 x 116 cm Courtauld Institute of Art, London Paul Gauguin painted Nevermore in February 1897, during his second and final stay in Tahiti, an island in the southern Pacific colonised by France. Intended…
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) 1899–1901 Oil on canvas, 194.5 x 129.5 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…
Renoir, Pierre-Auguste (1841-1919) Avant le bain (Before the Bath) c.1875 Oil on canvas, 82 x 66.5 cm Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia When Renoir first exhibited this painting publicly, at an 1875 auction in Paris, audiences were shocked by its naturalism. Rather than…
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…
Dalí, Salvador (1904-1989) L’invention des monstres (Invention of the monsters) 1937 Oil on canvas, 51.4 x 78.1 cm Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago © Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, 2018 Salvador Dalí, Surrealism’s most…
Dalí, Salvador (1904-1989) Sueño causado por el vuelo de una abeja alrededor de una granada un segundo antes del despertar (Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second before Waking) 1944 Oil on panel, 51…
Cranach, Lucas the Elder (1472-1553) The Nymph at the Fountain c.1530–1534 Oil on panel, 75 x 120 cm Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid Together with Albrecht Dürer, Lucas Cranach was among the most important 16th-century German painters. His oeuvre includes religious compositions as…
Corot, Jean-Baptiste-Camille (1796-1875) Le Bain de Diane, La Fontaine (Diana Bathing, The Fountain) 1869–1870 Oil on canvas, 72.1 x 41 cm Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid ©Carmen Thyssen Collection According to Alfred Robaut, Corot painted this work between 1869 and 1870 in the…