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Colonisation: The Great City of Tenochtitlan by Diego Rivera, 1945, Mural from the National Palace, Mexico City.
Diego Rivera was an active and outspoken Communist who painted these murals (featuring the world of the Aztec people) after the Mexican Revolution as a way to give the Mexican people a sense of identity and pride in their history.
Breton Girls Dancing, Pont-Aven by Paul Gauguin, 1888, National Gallery of Art.
Known as the Volpini Suite, Gauguin's ground-breaking show that is widely considered to be the first exhibition of Symbolist Art.
Rebel in the Making: Schoolboys Exercising, with One Eating an Apple (Japan, 1936), Fritz Henle,
I saw a wonderful show of the photography of Fritz Henle at that Ransom Center at the University of Texas, Austin in 2009. Henle was a master of many different types of photography. There is an excellent catalog of the exhibition published by the University of Texas Press called Fritz Henle In Search of Beauty.
Red Canna by Georgia O'Keeffe, 1923, University of Arizonia Art Museum.
Everyone has many associations with a flower - the idea of flowers. Still-in a way - nobody sees a flower - really - it is so small - we haven' t the time...So I said to myself - I'll paint what I see - what the flower looks like to me but I'll paint it big and they will be surprised into taking time to look at it. - Georgia O'Keeffe,
Georgia O'Keeffe, Viking, 1973.
Woman Lying on a Bench by Carl Larsson, 1913, Louvre
I guess it is pretty obvious what I would like to be doing....
The New Novel by Winslow Homer, 1877, Museum of Fine Art, Springfield MA
This work is a favorite among avid readers and book clubs for obvious reasons. The orange of the dress and the girl's hair provide a warm contrast against the background dominated by shades of brown and green.
Prosperity - The Holy Place by Damien Hirst, 2006.
This work is created out of butterflies and the perfect symmetry of the insects is mirrored in the perfect symmetry of the work. At first glance it appears to be a stained glass window.
Detail
Cranes (detail) by Ogata Korin, Edo Period c. 1700, Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian
This is part of a larger work (a screen). The repetition of the from of the group of Cranes gives the work a lighthearted charm.
Sosus of Pergamon: The Unswept Floor, Roman Mosaic, 2nd century CE
A Roman mosaic based on an earlier painting. It depicts the remnants of a dinner party scattered all over the floor of a dining room. Do you see the mouse?
Augustus of Primaporta, Early 1st century CE, reconstructed copy of marble, that is a copy of bronze, with paint.
Sometimes as we look at the art left behind by ancient civilizations we expect that they intended their sculpture to be viewed as the bleached white examples we see today however, that is not the case. The sculpture of the Greeks and the Romans was painted. We know this because remnants of the color survive and in rarer cases, sculpture with the paint still applied survives.
First Communion by Pablo Picasso, 1895-96.
Picasso's father was a painter who taught his son the skills of an artist at a young age. That allowed him to complete this work at the age of 15.
Peeling Paint on Iron Bench, Kyoto, 1981 by Ernst Haas.
Achilles and Ajax Playing a Game by Exekias, Greek amphora c. 540 BCE.
In this scene on a Greek pot we see warriors of the Trojan battle taking time out to play a quick game of dice. We know who they are because the artist put their names by them and signed the pot with "Exekias made me."
Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash, Giacomo Balla, 1912.
A member of a group of Italian artists who struck by the changing world around them at the dawn of the 20th century, Balla vowed to paint dynamically and to portray movement on canvas. The movement was known as "Futurism."
"Zodiac Man" from the calendar pages of the Tres Riches Heures of Jean Duc de Berry, 15th Century, France.
Found at the end of the calendar pages in this beautifully illustrated Book of Hours, the "zodiac man" illustrates the alignment on the body of the signs of the Zodiac.
A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai), Jeff Wall, 1993.
Ejira in Suruga Province, Hokusai, from Thirty-six Views of Mt. Fuji, c, 1831.
Ti Watching a Hippopotamus Hunt, Tomb of Ti, Fifth Dynasty, Old Kingdom Egypt, c. 2450 - 2325 BCE.
Ti was a commoner, but a very rich commoner since he was able to build a large tomb for himself that contained this wonderful painting/sculpture. Ti is the large figure standing on the boat with all of the "river creatures" depicted below and the "land creatures" among the papyrus on the shore.
Regatta at Cowes, Raoul Dufy, 1934, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
I could not resist posting this, it is so wonderful with the colors and the boats. Dufy is one of the fauve painters and each piece of his is better than the last.
Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room, designed by James McNeill Whistler, 1876-77.
Whistler was asked by the room's owner to paint the room to compliment the painting that Whistler had done that is seen over the fireplace. When the owner returned he was stunned and horrified at what Whistler had done. Luckily, he did not destroy it and the room is now found at the Freer Gallery in Washington D.C.
