The Peasant Wedding by Pieter Bruegel The Elder, 1567.
In this 16th century wedding celebration we see the bride sitting in front of a cloth and very proudly surveying the festivities on “her day.” The lore is that Bruegel would dress up as a peasant and did his research first hand. Notice the Bride sitting in front of the green cloth with a crown above her head.
Seahorse Brooch, 1902 – 1905 by René Lalique.
Another example of Lalique’s amazing art nouveau jewelry designs. Nature and natural objects were favorite subjects of art nouveau artists.
The Midnight Mass, 1911 by Edward Timothy Hurley, Cincinnati Art Museum.
A beautiful night time snow scene showing the rooftops and the majority of the light coming from the church as the faithful have left their homes to attend.
Madame Jacques-Louis LeBlanc (Francoise Poncelle), 1823 by Jean-August-Dominique Ingres.
Ingres did over two dozen preliminary drawings in preparation for this painting. His work is clear and sharp and seems more like a photograph than a painting. Portraits are an artist’s bread and butter.
The Builders, 1920 by Fernand Leger.
A follower of the Cubist movement, elements of it can be seen in this work of workers on a high rise. He was trained in an architect’s office where he could study construction firsthand. Starting in the late 1920’s through the 1950’s America experienced an unprecedented growth in skyscrapers as the architects and moguls competed to make taller and taller structures.
Le Talisman, 1888 by Paul Serusier
Serusier was strongly influenced by Post Impressionist Paul Gauguin’s bright and bold works and this painting represents nature broken into blocks of color. What makes the Nabis artists different from the Abstract Expressionists who saw their work as a revolution, is that the Nabis saw theirs as a bold new interpretation of their world, rather than a revolution against tradition.
Woman, Bird by Moonlight by Joan Miro.
Miro was one of the most prominent members of the Surrealist movement. His artwork is filled with fantasy and color and he brings the viewer inside his fantasy world. Miro’s work is said to resemble pre-historic cave paintings.
The Swing by Jean-Honore Fragonard.
Fragonard is considered the greatest artist of a short period known as Rococo. This 18th century style followed the Baroque period where it utilized all the ornament and fashion of the Baroque, but left out the drama.
Fountain by Marcel Duchamp.
In 1917 French Dadaist artist turned the art world on it’s ear when he exhibited this piece signed by “R.Mutt.” He said Mr. Mutt did not need to create the object, his mere choice of it and applying his signature could serve as its consideration as art. Thus began a movement known as Found Object.
The Concert, 1660 by Johannes Vermeer, The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (stolen 1990).
The FBI has a website which lists stolen art and gives a description of the crime. More often than not, when notorious works like the ones taken from the Gardner Museum are stolen, they are “requests” from collectors who will never try to sell or publicly display the artwork in their possession.
In 2021 Netflix released a documentary about the art heist called This is a Robbery: The World’s Biggest Art Heist.
Your Daily Art 