The Famous Painting

Cathédrale de Rouen - Claude Monet

2011-10-28T17:59:00.000-07:00

Rouen is a hub of commerce and also the capital of Normandy. It is the fifth-largest port in France.

Former occupants include Claude Monet who endlessly painted Rouen’s Cathédrale de Notre Dame. The Rouen Cathédrale paintings, more than thirty in all, were made in 1892 and 1893.

It was painted repeatedly by Claude Monet, who was fascinated by the subtle changes of light and color on the Cathédrale’s towering French Gothic facade.

The paintings known as Les Cathédrale of Rouen, exhibited at the Durand-Ruel gallery in the spring of 1895. The series of twenty five huge canvasses, a feat requiring considerable physical endurance and indomitable perseverance.

Each canvas demonstrates the fact that the painter posses eyes marvelously sensitive to the most subtle modulations of light, and capable of the acutest analysis of luminous phenomena.

He painted more than 3o different studies of this frilly Gothic facade at a various times of the day.

Using the psychical building only as a rack upon which to hang light, mist, dusk and shadows, Monet was capturing ‘impressions’.

The paintings of Rouen Cathédrale, in particular, established Monet once and for all as among the greatest of French painters.
Cathédrale de Rouen - Claude Monet

Nude, Green Leaves and Bust

2011-09-12T17:32:00.000-07:00

Nude, Green Leaves and Bust was painted by Pablo Picasso in 1932. It was a record breaking when it was sold at a Christie’s auction for $106.5 million in May 2010.

Nude, Green Leaves and Bust created on a single day. It is one of sequence of works showing the artist’s then love, his muse and mistress Marie-Theresa Walter.

Marie-Theresa Walter, a young woman whom Spanish born Pablo Picasso first encountered in 1927 when she was 17. He kept their relations secret form his wife and only began to paint her four years later.

Marie-Theresa committed suicide in 1977, four years after Picasso’s death at the age of 91.
Nude, Green Leaves and Bust

Seaport with Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba by Lorrain Claude

2011-07-15T18:40:00.000-07:00

The Embarkation of the Queen Sheba, going to visit Solomon, formed a pendent to the preceding figure, which it resembles in its dimension. It is both a sea and landscape drawing.

This masterpiece was executed in 1648 by Lorrain Claude.

In this painting Claude employed several perspectival devise, for example, the figures and boats on the shoreline are much larger than those in the distance. Decreasing an object’s size makes it appear farther away from the viewer.

Also the top and bottom of the port building at the painting’s right side are not parallel horizontal lines, as they are in real building.

The drawing is on canvas, 4ft.11 in. high, 6 ft. 7 in. wide. It is the work of first class, breathing the inspiration of a great mind, and glowing in all the fascinating richness of luxuriant nature.
Seaport with Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba by Lorrain Claude

The Raft of Medusa

2011-06-21T02:30:00.000-07:00

The Raft of the Medusa, masterpiece by Theodore Gericault at the Musee du Louvre. ‘The Raft of Medusa’ portrays victims of a shipwreck adrift on the sea without food and water at the moment they signal to a distant ship.

The painter chose to represent a dramatic moment of the instant when survivors regain hope of rescue.

Historian often regards the Raft of the Medusa as the most important painting of French romanticism.

By locating the scene off the coast of Africa, Gericault incorporated an element of exoticism. Nature – cruel and unforgiving – is central to the scene, reflected in the turbulent sea, dark clouds and imperiled raft.

The painting concerned the situation of the shipwreck of the French fleet ship Medusa in 1819 off coast of Senegal due to human error and the catastrophic rescue effort of the survivors at sea, abandoned by the ship’s crew.
The Raft of Medusa

Mycenaean paintings

2011-04-25T20:59:00.000-07:00

Many pictures of Mycenaean warriors have been found. Most wear helmets and leg guards but no body armour.

Mycenaean painting is related to Minoan art, with military themes and abstraction becoming evident.

One of the latest examples of Mycenaean painting is the krater – bowl for mixing wine and water – commonly called the Warriors vase after to prominent frieze of soldiers marching off to war, while a woman stands and looks after them.

The painting on this vase reveals no setting and the landscape elements that characterized earlier Minoan and Mycenaean art.

However, the liveliness of the representation and the careful observation, especially in details of costume are no less apparent.

Mycenaean culture as reflected in its art was preoccupied with death and war. It is no coincidence that many of the richest finds have come form tombs.
Mycenaean paintings

White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose)

2011-03-02T19:13:00.000-08:00

The price of $72.84 m in 2007 for Mark Rothko’s 1950 work White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose).

It was painted by an artist who died in 1970, Mark Rothko’s picture does not exactly qualify as ‘contemporary.’

However it have been received the seal of public approval over a long period of time. And White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose) hold the world record for the most expensive piece of contemporary art ever sold.

Mark Rothko (1903-1970) belongs to the generation of American artists who completely revolutionized the essential and design of abstract painting. He was born in Latvia and migrated to United States at the age of ten with his parents.
White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose)

Mona Lisa

2010-08-26T07:29:00.001-07:00

Mona Lisa
Leonardo da Vinci began work on the Mona Lisa in Florence Italy in 1503, during the height of the Renaissance period.

Historically, Mona Lisa was nobody special, probably the young wife as a Florentine merchant named Gioconda.

The portrait set the standard for high Renaissance paintings in many important ways. The use of perspective, with all lines converging on a single vanishing paint behind Mona Lisa’s head, and triangular composition established the important of geometry in painting.

The original name of the painting was not Mona Lisa – it was La Gioconda.

The Mona Lisa painting is more than a piece of remarkable artwork – it is adventure into the unknown. It is a human quality to want to know and understand others, even to understands ourselves.

In this sense, the Mona Lisa, is an attempt to look through the veil of the public self and into the mystery of the real self.

A young lady appears before us, yet she is unreachable and eternally unknowable, permanent enigma that centuries of art experts have not been able to solve.

Her cross hands complement perfectly the shape of her face, the torso and the landscape background.

Leonardo kept his painting with him until the day he died saying that it was still unfinished. He even carried the remarkable painting with him as he moved form city to city.

By 1952 more than 61 versions of the Mona Lisa had been created. From Marcel Duchamp’s goateed portrait in 1919 to Andy Warhol’s silkscreen series and Jasper Johns image in 1983, the Mona Lisa is not only the most admired, but also the most reproduced image in all art.
Mona Lisa

Japanese Bridge By Monet

2010-07-21T23:13:00.000-07:00

Japanese Bridge By Monet
Late July 1895 Monet take up his paintbrushes, he executed a series of canvases featuring the Japanese bridge viewed from traditional linear perspectives. These compositions include planting the banks as well as their watery reflections.

The painting he made of the Japanese Bridge at his garden in Giverny provide some of the best example of his cataract operations affected his color perception.

In 1900 Monet exhibit his first group of pictures of the garden devoted primarily to the Japanese Bridge.
Japanese Bridge By Monet

The Massacre of the Innocents by Peter Paul Rubens

2010-06-08T06:56:00.000-07:00

The Massacre of the Innocents by Peter Paul Rubens
The Massacre of the Innocents depicts the soldiers of Herod, intent on murdering the Christ child, and the Spanish troops of the Hapsburgs, ravaging the Low Countries or equally nefarious ends.

The massacre was ordered by King Herod. He had been told by the Three Wise Men that a King of the Jews had been born, and decided to prevent him from becoming a rival.

Rubens died soon after painting his Massacre of the Innocents, his school indeed lived on, but it may nevertheless b truthfully said that he carried the great art of his country into the grave with him.

The painting languished in an Austrian monastery as the work of Jan van den Hoecke, a Rubens follower.

In 2002 reattributed to Rubens himself, the painting was sold at auction for $76 million.
The Massacre of the Innocents by Peter Paul Rubens

Rideau, Cruchon et Compotier

2010-04-30T21:52:00.001-07:00

Rideau, Cruchon et Compotier
It was painted in 1893-1894 by French artist Paul Cézanne. Born in southern France, he inherited wealth at thee early age and this wealth allowed him to devote his time to creating art.

On May 10, 1999 when Sotheby’s conducted the bidding process for Paul Cézanne work, Rideau, Cruchon et Compotier was to be estimated that the final selling price going into the auction would be $25 and $35 million, but the final hammer price with the buyer’s premium was $60,502,500.

Paul Cézanne was a great pot impressionist French artist. In all his artworks Cézanne establishes his command over color design, composition and draftsmanship of art.

It have long been recognized as among the greatest achievement, the works on which can be seem most clearly the innovations that led to the stylists development of early 20th century art.
Rideau, Cruchon et Compotier

Turquoise Marilyn by Andy Warhol

2010-04-09T17:41:00.000-07:00

Turquoise Marilyn by Andy Warhol
Warhol used a wide range of colors especially in his numerous Marilyn paintings (there are Marilyn in silver, mint, pink, blue, turquoise, lemon and other colors) to underline her image as a public symbol, a cultural product.

Andy Warhol was fascinated with fame for himself, but also of those that were famous.

He painted many other celebrities and iconic people from history.

The painting was bought by Steve Cohen in 2007 form Chicago collector Stefan Edlis for around $80 million.
Turquoise Marilyn by Andy Warhol

Eight Elvises by Andy Warhol

2010-03-20T10:18:00.000-07:00

Eight Elvises by Andy Warhol
The picture of Eight Elvis, a 12 ft canvas was part of a much larger 37 feet canvas with 16 Elvises.

In 2008 it was sold for $100 million to unknown buyer. It was reported by the Economist.

The painter Andy Warhol was born in August 6, 1928. He was known as painter, printmaker and film maker.

His art works are comprised of over 12,000 pieces of art which includes his drawings, paintings, photography, sculptures , films and prints.
Eight Elvises by Andy Warhol

Painter on his way to work by van Gogh

2010-03-01T21:29:00.001-08:00

Portrait of Joseph Roulin

2010-02-15T15:59:00.001-08:00

Portrait of Joseph Roulin
It was painted by Vincent Van Gough in 1889. Oil painted on canvas, 81.2 x 65.3 cm.

The postman was his friend that he is a “good soul and so wise and so full of feeling and so trustful” .

Van Gough did several versions of Roulin the postman, including a number of paintings and drawings.
Portrait of Joseph Roulin

Le Bassin aux Nymphéas

2010-01-21T02:56:00.000-08:00

Le Bassin aux Nymphéas
Impressionist art, which took place primarily in the 1870s and 1889s, frequently captured sensations and landscapes using light, vivid and pure colors visible brush storks, thick plaint and real life subject matters.

Impressionism was very objective and appears “cold”.

Claude Monet was a famous French impressionist painter and one of the most prominent artists of the time.

Le Bassin Aux Nymphéas is one of the series of water lilies painting by him. It is an oil canvas measuring 100.4 x 201 cm (39.5 x 78.5 in).
Le Bassin aux Nymphéas

The Birth of Venus

2010-01-02T08:18:00.001-08:00

The Birth of Venus
Visual poetry Sandra Botticelli (1444-510) remains among the best known of the artists who produces works for the Medici.

One of the works he painted in tempera on canvas for the Medici was his famous Birth of Venus. A poem on that theme by Angelo Poliziano one of the leading humanist of the day, inspired Botticelli to create this lyrical image.

Zephyrus (the west wind) blows Venus, born of the sea foam and carried on a cockle shell, to her sacred island, Cyprus. There, the nymph Pomona runs to meet her with a brocaded mantle. The lightness and bodilessness of the winds move all the figures without efforts.

The artist’s use especially on such a large scale of an ancient Venus statue of the Venus pudica (modest Venus) type - a Hellenistic variant of Praxiteles’ famous Aphrodite of Knidos – as a model could have drawn the charge of paganism and infidelity.

But in the more accommodating Renaissance culture and under the protection of the powerful Medici, the depiction went unchallenged.
The Birth of Venus

Young Peasant Woman with Straw Hat Sitting in the Wheat

2009-11-09T20:56:00.000-08:00

Young Peasant Woman with Straw Hat Sitting in the Wheat

Young Peasant Woman with Straw Hat Sitting in the Wheat is painting by Vincent van Gogh. Van Gogh went on to paint several versions of this painting.
It is oil painting on canvas 92.0 x 73.0 cm. It was painted late June 1890.

The painting has changed hands several times. In 1997, Stephen Wynn paid $47.5 million for the painting.

On October 7, 2005, it was announced that Stephen Wynn had sold the painting along with Gauguin's Bathers to Steven A. Cohen for more then $100 million.

Young Peasant Woman with Straw Hat Sitting in the Wheat

Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

2009-10-21T18:14:00.001-07:00

Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte is one of the Georges Seurat’s most famous works.

The Island of La Grande Jatte is in the Seine in Paris between La Defense and the Neuilly.

In creating the picture Seurat employed the then new pigment zinc yellow (zinc chromate), most visibly for yellow highlights on the lawn in the painting, but also in mixtures with oranges and blue pigments.

Seurat, who is known to be the ultimate example of the artist as scientist, used the technique of pointillism, or divisionism, on a massive canvas on order to depict a number of people enjoying a sunny afternoon in a park.

Seurat spent two years painting this picture, concentrating painstakingly on the landscape of the park before focusing on the people always their shapes, never their personalities.

Seurat was only 26 when he first showed Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte at the eight annual and final Impressionist Exhibition inm 1886. It immediately changed the course of vanguard painting, initiating a new direction that was baptized “Neoimpressionism.”
Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte

Les Noces de Pierrette

2009-09-25T03:46:00.001-07:00

Les Noces de Pierrette
Picasso created this painting during the most critical period of his life, when he suffering of continuous depression from the death of his friend Carlos Casagemas.

The paintings considered as a blue period masterpiece. Les Noces de Pierrette (translated as ‘The Marriage of Pierrete’) was painted in 1905, a time when Picasso faced poverty early in his career.

In this painting, Picasso uses many shades of blue. The blues help express the somber mood of the painting.

Picasso portrays rich socialites gossiping and suited up in gowns and top hats yet no person seems to express any real emotions.

This being done in one of the most down and out points of his life, Picasso was probably implying that, that was not a happy life either.

In 1989, it was sold for US$49.3 million.

Benois Madonna

2009-09-03T03:02:00.000-07:00

Benois Madonna
Madonna and Child with Flowers otherwise known as the Benois Madonna, could be one of two pictures of Madonna started painting by Leonardo da Vinci, as he remarked himself in October 1478.

It was proved to be one of Leonardo’s most popular. It was extensively copied by young painters, including Raphael, whose own version of Leonardo’s design (the Madonna of the Pinks) was acquires in 2004 by the National Gallery, London.

The motif of the Madonna with the child in her lap, a robust, chubby faced child, is still of the fifteenth century; the round head of the Madonna, with the very high forehead, the thin, curved eyebrows and the small round childish chin, is Florentine; the Gothic window in the background, here giving no view beyond, is early Florentine fifteenth century.

This oil painting demonstrated extremely realistic human features with a rich depth of expression, apparent especially in the Madonna’s facial and hand gestures.

The child in the painting has an absorbed expression of silent concentration on his face, his eyes intently observing, with hypnotic intensity, not so much the flower held out to him by his mother - the crucifera, symbol of Passion – as, along its stem, the shining berries which he squeezes between his plump fingers and which are reflected in the oval brooch of his mother in a heraldic suggestion of the Medici arms.
Benois Madonna

The Old Horse Guards by Canaletto

2009-08-12T20:06:00.001-07:00

The Old Horse Guards by Canaletto
This painting has been dated as 1748. It certainly shows the building as an active military garrison – its demolition commenced in early 1750.

The complete Guard, totaling possibly 100 all ranks, is seen on Guard Mounting parade with the Colour at its center.

The earliest surviving written orders describing such parades, with the Colour being trooped and lodged with attendant courtesies and procedures, are dated February 1749 in First Guards and Coldstream Guards.

Giovanni A. Canal was born in Venice but later simply became known as ‘Canaletto’. His father was a theoretical scene painter so, as soon as he was knee high to a palette knife, little Canaletto began helping poppa in the studio, after he went to Rome and studied perspective with Panini, the architectural artist who got him interested in painting the trendy new cityscapes known as ‘veduta’.
The Old Horse Guards by Canaletto

Codex Hammer

2009-06-02T06:38:00.000-07:00

Codex Hammer
The Codex Leicester (previously known as Codex Hammer) is a collection of largely scientific writings by Leonardo da Vinci. The codex is named after Thomas Coke, later created Earl of Leicester, who purchased it in 1717. Of Leonardo's 30 scientific journals, the Codex may be the most famous of all.

This codex consists of 36 sheets (18 double sheets) measuring approximately 29.5 x 22 cm, which Leonardo compiled mainly in the years from 1504 to 1506, with some sheets added up to 1510, according to a principle that consisted of filling each of the double sheets separately and keeping them one within another as unbound units.

It is not known whether Leonardo himself decided to put them together in the form of a bound volume; however in recent times the sheets have been disassembled and are now kept loose as they were in the original state.

It is also known as the Codex Leicester from the name of the former owner who purchased it in Italy in the early 18th century.
Codex Hammer

Wheat Field with Cypresses, 1889

2009-05-05T03:06:00.000-07:00

Wheat Field with Cypresses, 1889
A Wheatfield with Cypresses was created by Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh in 1889. The painting made its mark of being one of most famous artworks by Vincent Van Gogh.

Writing to his brother Theo from the asylum in Saint-Rémy in early July 1889, van Gogh described his latest work in the series he had begun in June: "I have a canvas of cypresses with some ears of wheat, some poppies, a blue sky like a piece of Scotch plaid; the former painted with a thick impasto . . . and the wheat field in the sun, which represents the extreme heat, very thick too."

Vincent Van Gogh created the oil painting, A Wheatfield with Cypresses in 1889 on a canvas, with 51.5 x 65 cm dimension. A Wheatfield with Cypresses was one among the many paintings created by Van Gogh during the last two years of his life.

A Wheatfield with Cypresses was created by the artist when he was in the mental asylum at St. Remy in May 1889. The painting was one of the three versions of 'A Wheatfield with Cypresses'.

Van Gogh regarded this sun-drenched landscape as one of his "best" summer canvases, and he reproduced the composition in a reed pen drawing (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam) and in two variants in oil paint (National Gallery, London, and private collection).
Wheat Field with Cypresses, 1889

Leonardo’s Madonna dei Fusi

2009-04-06T18:40:00.000-07:00

Leonardo’s Madonna dei Fusi
Leonardo da Vinci spent some five years living and working in and around Arezzo and the city is proud to host his painting ‘La Madonna dei Fusi’ for five months.

The painting was commissioned in 1501 by Florimond Robertet, secretary of state to Louis XII.

They depict the Virgin Mary with the Christ child, who looks longingly at a yarnwinder which the Virgin could use to measure off yarn.

The yarnwinder serves as a symbol both of Mary's domesticity and the Cross on which Christ was crucified, and may also suggest the Fates, understood in classical mythology as spinners.
Leonardo’s Madonna dei Fusi

No.5, 1948 by Jackson Pollock

2009-02-28T20:33:00.000-08:00

No.5, 1948 by Jackson Pollock
No. 5, 1948 is a painting by Jackson, an American painter known for his contributions to the abstract expressionist movement.

The painting was done on an 8' x 4' sheet of fiberboard, with thick amounts of brown and yellow paint drizzled on top of it, forming a nest-like appearance.

It was originally owned by Samuel Irving Newhouse and displayed at the Museum of Modern Art before being sold to David Geffen.

It is claimed by the New York Times that this painting was sold by David Geffen (of Geffen Records), to David Martinez (managing partner of Fintech Advisory).

However, a press release issued on behalf of Martinez states that he didn’t actually purchase the painting.

So the truth is shrouded in mystery, and it can only be rumored to have sold for a record-breaking $140 million.
No.5, 1948 by Jackson Pollock

Willem de Kooning – Woman III

2009-02-01T17:25:00.000-08:00

Willem de Kooning – Woman III
Another painting sold byDavid Geffen in 2006, but then bought by billionaire Steven A. Cohen. It is part of a series of 6 painted by de Kooning in the period of 1951-53, which revolved around the theme of a woman, and is allegedly the only Woman still in private hands.

It is the last painting in de Kooning’s “Women” series still in private hands. This is the most important postwar painting that is not in the museum.

The female figure was a theme to which de Kooning returned repeatedly. He began painting women regularly in the early 1940s and did so again later in that decade and more seriously in the 1950s. Often they are depicted in an almost graffitilike style, with gigantic, vacuous eyes, massive breasts, toothy smiles and clawlike hands set against colorful layers of paint.

“Woman III,” measuring 68 by 48½ inches, is one of six “Woman” paintings he numbered. The other five are all in world-class museums, all but one in the United States.
Willem de Kooning – Woman III

Gustav Klimt – Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer 1

2009-01-15T00:00:00.001-08:00

Gustav Klimt – Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer 1

This was sold by Maria Altmann, who – after a lengthy and complicated court battle – was deemed rightful owner of this Klimt and several others.

Altmann was named as an inheritor of the painting in the will of by the widowed husband of the model herself, despite the efforts of the Austrian State, as Adele Bloch-Bauer had originally left the painting to the State Gallery in her own will.

The painting was bought by Ronald Lauder for his Neue Galerie in New York, to be the centerpiece of a collection of Jewish-owned art rescued from the Nazi looting that took place in the Second World War.

In this greatest gold style paintings, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer 1, Klimt flattened the woman’s dress so that it shares the same picture plane as the background.

Then he blended them together by merging the decorative dress with an equally decorative background.

Yet the dress is still distinguishable from the background. Actually, the painting has two backgrounds: a flat wall, and a golden membrane or ornamental cocoon wrapped around Ms. Bloch-Bauer.

Sinuous lines, swirls, and large and tiny squares distinguish the membrane from the dress, which is comprised of silver arrowheads, and gold pyramids with eyes in them. The latter give the impression that the dress is watching us.

But the woman’s face, neckline, hands and forearms are classically modeled, so that she emerges from the background and her own flattened body as three dimensional woman.
Gustav Klimt – Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer 1

Garçon à la pipe by Pablo Picasso

2008-12-26T06:04:00.001-08:00

Garçon à la pipe by Pablo Picasso
So far the highest price a painting has ever fetched at auction (as the others were all sold privately), and was the first painting to break the $100 million barrier (it was sold in 2004). The strange thing is that it was never made public as to who expressed such an interest in Picasso’s portrait of a smoking Parisian.

Garçon à la pipe replaced Portrait of Doctor Gachet by Vincent Van Gogh which sold for a pittance of only $82.5 million.

The oil on canvas painting, measuring 100 × 81.3 cm (slightly over 39 × 32 inches), depicts a Parisian boy holding a pipe in his left hand. The boy in the painting was among the community of entertainers living in the Montmartre section of Paris. On May 5, 2004 it sold for $104.1 million USD at an auction in Sotheby's in New York, after having been given a pre-sale estimate of $70 million by the auction house.
Garçon à la pipe by Pablo Picasso

Dora Maar au Chat by Picasso

2008-12-15T18:05:00.001-08:00

Dora Maar au Chat by Picasso
Although Pablo Picasso (1881 – 1973), experienced financial difficulties early in his life, his paintings now sell into millions. Dora Maar au Chat fetched $95.2 million in 2006.

It was painted in 1941. It depicts Dora Maar, the painter’s Croatian mistress, seated on a chair with small cat perched on her shoulder.

The canvas was one of many portraits of Dora Maar painted by Pablo Picasso over their nearly decade long relationship. Picasso fell in love with Dora Maar at the age of 55 and soon began living with her.

This painting was done during the year 1941, when the Nazis were occupying France. In the 1940s, the painting was obtained by Chicago collectors Leigh and Mary Block. They sold the painting in 1963.
Dora Maar au Chat by Picasso

Self portrait with Bandaged Ear by Vincent van Gogh

2008-12-04T20:14:00.000-08:00

Self portrait with Bandaged Ear by Vincent van Gogh
It was painted within a short time of his having had a mental breakdown. During which he cut off part of his ear. The picture shows that van Gough must have mutilated his right ear, because it is clear this one that is bandaged in the picture. A moment’s reflection though, tells that it actually must have been his left ear that was cut, because the picture is a self portrait, carried out with him looking in a mirror and therefore inverting left and right.

Van Gogh’s self portrait makes the point that anything with asymmetry from left to right is distinct from its mirror image. But it turns out for us to be able to distinguish an object’s left and right, it also has to have asymmetries along two other axes. In the case of van Gogh’s picture, for example, these are the asymmetries from top to bottom and front to back.

He was hospitalized after the incident following an attack of his friend and then admitted himself to a mental hospital. Before that, he became very ill with heat stroke, fainting spells and seizures. In angers, he cut off part of his ear with his razor. After Vincent’s ear had healed sufficiently, his doctor advised him to avoid excitement and alcohol and to wear his hat in the sun.
Self portrait with Bandaged Ear by Vincent van Gogh

Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II

2008-11-13T08:41:00.000-08:00

Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II
Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II was painted by Gustav Klimt. Gustav Klimt was on of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement and born in July 14, 1862.

Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II was painted in 1912, was one of several that he painted of wealthy members of the Viennese Jewish community. The care with which he has delineated Bloch-Bauer’s features gives a dimensionality that contrasts strikingly with the flat pattern of her garment.

The painting was sold to unknown buyer at a price of $87.9 million.
Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II

Triptych, 1976 Painted by Francis Bacon

2008-11-08T17:38:00.000-08:00

Triptych, 1976 Painted by Francis Bacon
A new record for post war art was set as Francis Bacon’s Triptych, 1976 sold for USD86 million at a Sotheby’s auction in New York this year.

Francis bacon was born in Dublin in 1909 and died in Madrid in 1992.

The “Triptych” was painted by Francis Bacon in 1976. The two lateral panels depict a man whose oval head rests on a body that melts down into nondescript human fragments. In the central panels, ill defined body parts, possibly animal at the top and decidedly human in the lower area, hang down from the ceiling as if they made up some kind of chandelier.

Triptych, 1976 one of the most important works in Bacon’s oeuvre and a landmark of the 20th century canon. Triptych is one of the best and ranks among the greatest of Bacon’s paintings.

In Triptych, 1976, Bacon draws on Ancient Greek mythology to express his personal tragedy. In the central panel Bacon alludes to the legend of Prometheus, who as a punishment from Zeus is bound to a rock where his liver is perpetually devoured by an eagle. It is also modern day interpretation of Aeschylus’ famous trilogy The Orestia. To avenge the death of his father at the hands of his mother, Orestes commits matricide and is plagued by the three Furies, the manifestation of guilt.
Triptych, 1976 Painted by Francis Bacon

Vincent van Gogh – Portrait of Dr. Gachet

2008-10-24T07:40:00.000-07:00

Vincent van Gogh – Portrait of Dr. Gachet
Dr. Gachet was a physician who treated him in his last illness. He had painted the doctor and said, with the “heartbroken expression of out times.” Van Gogh viewed Doctor Gachet as a melancholy, thoughtful man.

Portrait of Dr. Gachet was painted six weeks before Van Gogh committed suicide in 1890. Dr. Paul Ferdinand Gachet was Homeopathic doctor and tended Van Gogh before his death.

The painting was sold at record $82.5 million to a Japanese buyer in May 15, 1990.
Vincent van Gogh – Portrait of Dr. Gachet

Le Moulin de la Galette by Pierre Auguste Renoir

2008-10-09T02:00:00.000-07:00

Le Moulin de la Galette by Pierre Auguste Renoir
It is the most expensive painting. The cost was $78,100,000 in 1990. It was painted by Pierre Auguste Renoir’s. His art celebrates life’s temporal pleasures, the ‘here and now’ of his time, more than any other impressionist artist. He preferred to paint his friends and lovers.

His masterful depictions of their candid facial features and body stances convey the youthful spirit and intimate charm that ignited the feeling of an Eden of earthly pleasures.

Pierre Auguste Renoir’s liked to go there to paint the common Parisians living and loving in the afternoon sun. The sunlight filtering though the trees creates a kaleidoscope of colors, like the 19th century equivalent of a mirror ball throwing darts of light onto the dancers.

He captures the dappled light with quick blobs of yellow staining round, the men’s jackets, and the sun –dappled straw hat. The painting glows with bright colors. Even the shadows on the ground, which should be gray or black, are colored a warm blue.

Renoir’s work is lighthearted, with light colors, almost pastels. He seems to be searching for n ideal, the pure beauty on the ground floor.
Le Moulin de la Galette by Pierre Auguste Renoir

False Start by Jasper Johns

2008-09-09T22:04:00.000-07:00

False Start by Jasper Johns
In 1988, False Start brought $17 million at the auction at Sotheby’s. In year 2006, the painting was sold to the Kenneth C. Griffin, for $80 million, making it the most expensive painting to be sold by a living artist.

The False Start is one of the popular oil paintings of Jasper Johns and was made on a canvas 170.8 centimeters long and 137.2 centimeters wide. The colorful painting has always impressed the people since the time it was released. The magnificent use of varied kinds of colors in painting is most impressive.

False Start manages to be both clotted and expansive, a field of interlocking patches and passages of red, yellow, and blue with orange and gray, each of which is named throughout the compositions. Such as it is, this composition is an allover affair with no hierarchy of parts, in good, second generation abstract expressionist.
False Start by Jasper Johns

Mona Lisa

2008-08-28T00:25:00.000-07:00

Mona Lisa
Also known as La Giocondo is a portrait of the wife of Francesco del Giocondo. The painting was painted by Leonardo between 1503 and 1505. It was painted in oil on a poplar panel.

It was sold to Francois I. It was greatly admired and considered the prototype of the Renaissance portrait.

The painting is half length portrait and depicts a woman whose expression is often described as enigmatic. Mona Lisa has slight smile which enters into the gentle, delicate atmosphere pervading the whole painting. This because Leonardo uses the sfuma technique, a gradual dissolving of the forms themselves, continuous interaction between light and shade and an uncertain sense of the time of the day.

Mona Lisa dressed on the Florentine fashion of her day and seated in a visionary, mountainous landscape. Mona Lisa subject has been adapted in turn as an aesthetic, philosophical and advertising symbol, entering eventually into the irreverent parodies of the Dada and Surrealist artists.
Mona Lisa

Mustard Race Riot by Andy Warhol

2008-08-03T21:36:00.000-07:00

Mustard Race Riot by Andy Warhol
Mustard Race Riot is a painting about civil rights protests in Alabama, United States, in the 1960s. It was sold $15.1 million in 2004. The painting depicts violence in Birmingham on one large panel, with a blank adjoining panel. Mustard race Riot was inspired by three photographs of police attacks on civil rights demonstrators in May 1963. In this painting Warhol transforms terrifying image of policeman and their dogs confronting civil rights demonstrators.
Mustard Race Riot by Andy Warhol

Madonna of the Pinks by Raphael

2008-07-23T07:32:00.000-07:00

Madonna of the Pinks by Raphael
The painting is about youth Virgin Mary playing with the Christ child and handling him carnations. Both the Virgin and Child seated in a bedchamber with a view of a sunny landscape seen through a window. The child’s attention has been caught by the delicate flowers she holds, the pinks, which are symbolic of love and betrothal. Virgin Mary is dressed in a grey and yellow dress with a blue skirt and a small white veil, and Jesus sits naked on a white pillow on her lap. A window in the top right corner shows some tumbledown building, and behind the Virgin Mary is a curtain in a dull green color.

The Madonna of the Pinks is an early devotional painting by Italian master Raphael. It was painted in oils on fruitwood. Raphael Sanzio was a painter and architect. Raphael painted the picture shortly before leaving Florence for Rome.

The painting was bought from the Duke of Northumberland in 2004 by London's National Gallery in order to keep the painting from being sent to Getty’s collection.

The Madonna of the Pinks was first deemed an original Raphael in Longhena's 1829 book about the artist. The painting was purchased in 1853 by the 4th Duke of Northumberland for Alnwick Castle. In 1991, National Gallery curator Nicholas Penny examined the picture and hailed it as a rediscovered masterpiece in an article published in Burlington Magazine the same year. Now hanging in National Gallery and considered one of the UK's national treasures.
Madonna of the Pinks by Raphael

Adoration of the magi

2008-07-05T07:19:00.000-07:00

Adoration of the magi
Adoration of the magi was painted by Andrea Mantegna in 1500. Andrea Mantegna is one of the famous painters of 15th century. It reflects the influence of the Venetian and Flemish schools. The influence of both ancient Roman sculpture and the sculptor Donatello are clearly evident in Mantegna's rendering of the human figure. One of the key artistic figures of the second half of the 15th century, Mantegna was the dominant influence on north Italian painting for 50 years. Magi is derived from the Persian word for Magician, and they were considered members of a priestly caste of Persians.

In the painting shows three kings pay homage to the Christ Child, who in turn makes a sign of blessing. Jesus Christ, his mother the Virgin Mary, and Mary's husband Joseph have haloes and wear simple garments, while the Magi are dressed in exotic clothing and jewels and bear exquisite gifts. Caspar, bearded and bareheaded, presents the Christ Child with a rare Chinese cup, made of delicate porcelain and filled with gold coins. Melchior, the younger, bearded king behind Caspar, holds a Turkish censer for perfuming the air with incense; on the right, Balthasar the Moor carries a covered cup made of agate.
The price paid by for the art work in 1985 was $10.4 million in 1985 by J. Paul Getty.
Adoration of the magi

Michelangelo

2008-06-08T02:06:00.000-07:00

Michelangelo
Born at Caprese, the son of the local magistrate, his family returned to Florence soon after his birth. Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475-1564) was a brilliant Italian artist who is best known for such masterpieces as the triumphant sculpture David, the controversial Last Judgement, and his paintings on the magnificent ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He was perhaps more a sculptor at heart than he was a painter, and thus Vasari quoted him saying, "I cannot live under pressures from patrons, let alone paint."

His mother died when he was only six years old, and Michelangelo's father, recognizing the boy's intellectual potential, enrolled him in the school of master linguist Francesco Galeota to prepare young Michelangelo for a career in business. It was here, as he studied Latin, that Michelangelo met a student of painter Domenico Ghirlandaio and decided to follow his artistic desires by agreeing to apprentice in the painter's workshop.

Soon after joining Ghirlandaio to learn the art of fresco painting, Michelangelo left his apprenticeship to study sculpture and anatomy at the school in the Medici gardens. His early success there won him an invitation to the home of Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent, and, more importantly, exposed him to noted humanists, scientists, and poets who were regulars at the Medici court.

He lives 89 years, has a 70 years art experience, his rich experience of frustration and success was mixed into his art with a dramatic effect, in both his oil paintings and sculptures. Michelangelo

Venus and Adonis

2008-05-12T01:13:00.000-07:00

Venus and Adonis
Titian is Tiziano Vecellio was the greatest artist in 16th century. He is known for his remarkable use of color in his painting.

In his painting Venus and Adonis, it relates the story of the Venus trying to restrain her lover, Adonis, from departing for the hunt. It is tragic that Adonis is destined to be killed after that by a wild boar. This story of Venus and Adonis derives from Ovid’s Metamorphoses Book 10. In this story Adonis was the first mortal lover of Venus, who’s a long companion.

Titian used rich colors, shimmering highlights, and a lush landscape to create the painting’s evocative, poignant mood. It was fetched US$13.5 million in 1991.
Venus and Adonis

Picasso - Le rêve

2008-04-04T22:09:00.000-07:00

Picasso - Le rêve
1932 painting by the 50-year old Pablo Picasso portraying his 22-year old mistress, Marie-Thérèse Walter.It is in 51 1/4 x 38 1/8 in.It belongs to Picasso's period of distorted depictions, with its oversimplified outlines and contrasted colors resembling early Fauvism. Walter’s face deliberately can be seen in two perspectives, in one of which she seems to perform fellatio, suggesting that the title of the painting may refer to Picasso’s rather than Walter’s dream.

It was been painted in one afternoon, on January 24, 1932. It belongs to Picasso's period of distorted depictions, with its oversimplified outlines and contrasted colors resembling early Fauvism.

The price was $48.4 million in 1997. Bought by Steve Wynn whose owns the casino empire 2001 hich estimated to $60 million. Le Rêve was purchased at cost only $7000 in 1941 by Victor and Sally Ganz from New York.
Picasso - Le rêve

Isaac Newton

2008-01-26T10:55:00.000-08:00

Isaac Newton appears in an oil painting of 1702 by Godfrey Kneller. The painting is in the National Portrait Gallery, in London.

This is the earliest portrait of Newton to survive. It was painted when Newton was in London as a member of the Convention Parliament, following the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688. Newton was then 46 years old. Godfrey Kneller, is a prominent portrait painter of his day. This painting shows Newton in 1702 shortly before he became President of the Royal Society.

Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) was one the greatest scientists of all time. His theory of universal gravitation provided the physical and mathematical basis for our understanding of planetary motions. He was able to show that the force of gravity that draws a falling apple to the ground is the same force that holds the Moon in its orbit about the Earth and the planets in their orbits around the Sun.

Juliet and her nurse

2007-11-17T01:24:00.000-08:00

In May 30, 1980 Juliet and Her Nurse was sell for $6.4 million. It is an oil canvas, exhibited at Royal Academy 1836. This painting was put up for auction in 1980, after passing through 8 previous owners, including Turner himself.

This large plate reproduces one of the most important and influential canvases of Turner's later career. Exhibited at the Royal Academy early in 1836, 'Juliet and her Nurse' became the subject of a vicious attack by the Reverend John Eagles in an article published in 'Blackwood's Magazine' later in the year. Eagles wrote that the picture was 'a strange jumble', but one of his chief complaints was that Turner should have chosen to set this scene from 'Romeo and Juliet' in Venice rather than Verona.

No doubt Turner's decision to place Shakespeare's famous heroine in Venice was influenced by the romantic atmosphere of the city; in the foreground she is seen musing on her new-found love.

Irises by Vincent van Gogh

2007-06-18T15:35:00.000-07:00

Famous Painting
Irises is a painting by the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh, painted while he was at the asylum at Saint Paul-de-Mausole in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France in the last year before his death in 1890. Vincent Willem van Gogh (March 30, 1853 in Zundert – July 29, 1890 in Auvers-sur-Oise) was a Dutch draughtsman and painter, classified as a Post-Impressionist.

His paintings and drawings include some of the world's best known, most popular and most expensive pieces. He suffered from recurrent bouts of mental illness — about which there are many competing theories — and during one such episode, famously cut off a part of his left ear. The Irises was painted before his first attack at the asylum. There is a lack of the high tension which is seen in his later works. He called the painting "the lightning conductor for my illness", because he felt that he could keep himself from going insane by continuing to paint.

The painting was influenced by Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints, like many of his works and those by other artists of the time. The similarities occur with strong outlines, unusual angles, including close-up views and also flattish local color (not modeled according to the fall of light). In 1987, it became the most expensive painting ever sold when it was sold for AUS $54,000,000 to Alan Bond, but he did not have enough money to pay for it and it had to be re-sold. It is now owned by the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
Famous Painting

The Last Supper

2007-04-29T04:08:00.000-07:00

The Famous Painting
Leonardo da Vinci was born near Florence. Its tone set that time by the Medici, Florence was lush with wealth and splendor. Leonardo completed few painting, for his scientific activities and numerous odd jobs for his patrons consumed much of his energy.

Some of his paintings have perished as a result of a bad luck. For instance, his famous fresco, , the Last Supper, began to deteriorate during his lifetime because the mold on the damp monastery wall in Milan destroyed the clarity of the oil pigments. Fortunately, Leonardo’s talent and his extraordinary range of interests may also be studied in drawings and notebooks.

Leonardo was an innovator, an experimenter, and never satisfied with the accepted or acceptable.

In composing The Last Supper, for instance, he departed dramatically from previous interpretations, which depicted the solemn moment of the final communion with the treachery of Judas suggested only by placing him isolation from the others, who often looked, it has been observed, as though they were sitting for a group portrait. Leonardo divided the apostles into four groups of three men each around the central figure of Christ – an innovation that was most effective psychologically.

His second departure was to choose the tense moment when Jesus announced the coming betrayal an to place Judas among the apostles, relying on facial expression and bodily posture to convey the guilt of the one and the consternation of the others.
The Famous Painting