The Four Leaf Clover is Realist painting by American artist Winslow Homer that depicts a young girl holding up a clover, a symbol of good fortune. She is in a traditional rural setting rich in the growth of vegetation. This 1873 work can be read as espousing a nostalgia for the innocence of childhood, as …
Odalisque subtitled ‘The Woman of Algiers’ is an Impressionist painting created in 1870 by French painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir. It is located in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, United States. Analysis of Renoir’s Odalisque This work belongs to the tradition of the depiction of Oriental or African women by Western artists which was …
The Visitation is a Dutch Golden Age painting that Rembrandt painted in 1640. It depicts the meeting of the Virgin Mary and her sister Elisabeth, both pregnant – Mary with Jesus and Elisabeth with John the Baptist as told in Gospel of Luke. The exquisite lighting effects come to a resolution on the two women, …
Italian Baroque artist Caravaggio painted Sleeping Cupid in Malta towards the end of his life in 1608. This work exhibits the stark lighting typical of this Baroque master painter. Although commissioned, to read this work autobiographically would mean Caravaggio’s renouncement of love and pleasure as this agent of Venus sleeps. Caravaggio’s Sleeping Cupid is in …
In Roman Woman Sleeping, Felix Auguste Clement paints a full-length nude woman sleeping on her bed. The classicising landscape in the background contrasts with the realism with which the woman is painted, while at the same time showing her as a similar artefact for visual consumption. Clement painted this in 1859 in the middle of …
The Brooding Woman is an 1891 painting in the Post-Impressionist style by the leading French artist Paul Gauguin. The Brooding Woman Analysis He painted this work, ‘Te Faaturuma’ in Tahitian, during his first period living in Tahiti in 1891. The composition is sparse, focusing attention the central figure of a woman deep in thought, perhaps …
A Boy and a Girl with a Cat and an Eel is a jovial genre picture by Dutch Golden Age painter Judith Leyster where the Dutch proverb not to ‘hold an eel by the tail’ seems to apply. However, the young girl wagging her finger holds the cat by the tail agitating it. The picture …
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Portrait of the Artist with the Idol is an 1893 painting by the leading French artist Paul Gauguin in the Post-Impressionist style. It is located in the McNay Art Museum in Antonio, Texas in the United States. Analysis of Portrait of the Artist with the Idol This self-portrait of Paul Gauguin foregrounds his likeness in …
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Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s 1893 Young Girls by the Water is highly Impressionistic in style, and Renoir’s girls here are blended by his rapid and broad brushstrokes into the surrounding rich greenery. The mood is one of languid daydreaming. Young Girls by the Water by Pierre-Auguste Renoir is in a private collection.
Saint Jerome Writing by Caravaggio shows the Catholic priest of the Church translating the bible from Greek to Latin. This version of Caravaggio’s Saint Jerome Writing is in the Galleria Borghese in Rome, Italy. Analysis of Saint Jerome Writing The skull rests on the desk as a memento mori or reminder of death and the …
A Wounded Danish Soldier by Polish-Danish painter Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann shows a young woman reading to a bedridden bearded man for consolation. She tenderly holds his hand while he, clearly melancholic, turns his face out towards the viewer. The rose on the bedside table symbolises both love and hope. Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann’s A Wounded Danish Soldier (En …
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Equality Before Death is an 1848 French academic painting by William-Adolphe Bouguereau which was his first submission to the Parisian Salon. It is located in the Musee d’Orsay, Paris. Analysis of Bouguereau’s Equality Before Death This painting was William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s first submission to the Paris Salon. It has a classical frieze-like structure, as the angel …
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The Lady in 1905’s Lady with a Fan by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso is in the act of waving goodbye. Her coolness of expression matches well with the prominent blue, while her angular features look forward to Picasso’s development of Cubism decades later. Pablo Picasso’s Lady with a Fan is in the National Gallery of …
Portrait of Jane Fleming is a 1778 painting by Joshua Reynolds, the most eminent classical painter of the English eighteenth century. Analysis of Portrait of Jane Fleming Here Joshua Reynolds produces this full-length aristocratic portrait of Jane Fleming, who was the Lady of the Bedchamber for Charlotte, the wife of King George III, who later …
Love’s Shadow shows a woman, whose model is actually the artist Frederick Sandys’ wife, biting down on the head of a flower. It isn’t clear whether this Pre-Raphaelite work shows the personification of Love’s destructive force or whether the woman is the victim of it. It was painted in 1867 towards the end of the …
Prisoners from the Front by Winslow Homer, a war artist during the American Civil War, shows the capture of Confederate soldiers by the Union officer on the right. Painted in 1866 two years after the real-life event took place in Petersburg Virginia, the mood is settled and the casual nature of the interaction is a …
Known for his lavish ancient settings and extreme brilliancy of color, Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s An Eloquent Silence from 1890 is no different. An Eloquent Silence is a genre painting in the Realist style. The silence between the upright sitting posture of the woman and the leaning man perhaps speaks of the man’s submission to both his …
In Bathers on the Beach at Trouville, Impressionist painter Eugene Boudin applies the paint thickly, lending solidity to his bathers who are fully clothed. The reason for this, as Boudin ably conveys with his color palette, is that the weather is rather cold and blustery – the disruption in the sky is evident. Boudin painted …
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Muddy Alligators by American artist John Singer Sargent was painted in 1917 towards the end of his life at age 61. Sargent serves up in this watercolor a more precise Realist style. The alligators are drawn expertly and the blanching light effects on the foreground bank and water relate a piercing heat. John Singer Sargent’s …
By the Table is a group portrait by French artist Henri Fantin-Latour of well known poets and writers in mid-century France. painted in 1872, pictured are Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, Léon Valade, Ernest d’Hervilly, Camille Pelletan, Elzéar Bonnier-Ortolan, Émile Blémont amd Jean Aicard Henri Fantin-Latour’s By the Table is in the Musée d’Orsay, donated by …
