The depiction of the nude female model by a male artist in oil painting has played a significant role in western tradition over the last 500 years. The oil painting of the female nude is subject to the artist's interpretation of her form. She is affected by the artist's desire for his model, as ...

John Brack is an artist with a distinct interest in life and people, and this fascination is reflected in many of his works. A number of his works contain symbols and representations of his views on life and how people live through it. Such examples of these types of works are "The Evening Dance,"...

Edgar Degas, after his death, was recognized as one of the masters of modern art and impressionism of the late 19th century. The proof of his genius is embedded in his paintings. He is considered an impressionistic painter but follows the beat of his own drummer when it comes to his artistic style...

Winslow Homer is regarded by many as one of North America's best painters. His work was enjoyed in the late 1800's and is still popular today. Winslow's use of colour, perspective, and subject matter is still intriguing. Winslow Homer was born in Boston, Massachusetts on February 24, 1836 and was ...

Many famous artists have attempted to capture the human spirit and essence of movement, but few have achieved the beautiful embodiment of it as Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas has. Dancers become immortalized and horses take on elegant qualities through Degas's deft, swift, Impressionist brush strokes...

Edgar Degas: Capturing the Human Spirit Many famous artists have attempted to capture the human spirit and essence of movement, but few have achieved the beautiful embodiment of it like Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas has. Dancers become immortalized and horses take on elegant qualities through Dega...

The elements of art in "The Guitar Player" are that it is a realistic and ancient painting. This painting, as well as all of Vermeer's paintings, looks realistic. His shading and color choice are so real and human-like. The facial expression gives the character life, and personality. It has cert...

Jan Vermeer (1632-1675) painted portraits and domestic scenes with great precision. Although the Dutch painter attracted little attention in his lifetime, he is now regarded by many to be an artistic genius. He left few surviving works, only 35, but what remains are engaging paintings which excelle...

Caravaggio's painting "David with the Head of Goliath" is truly an important painting expressing a known fact that every painter paints himself in a clear and defining way. It was week one in our Reading of the Arts class when I first saw this painting. My immediate aesthetic response was that i...

Edgar Degas Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas was born on July 19, 1834, at 8 rue Saint-George's in Paris. His father, Auguste, a banker, was French, and his mother, Célestine, an American from New Orleans. The family name "Degas" had been changed to "De Gas" by some family members in Naples an...

Visual perception is a function of our eyes and brain. We see images as a whole rather than in parts. However, images can be broken into their visual elements: line, shape, texture, and color. These elements are to images as grammar is to language. They, together, allow our eyes to see images and ou...

When I walked into the Philadelphia Museum of Art for the first time I could not wait to start looking at the artworks of brilliant artists of the past and present. I took my time on my first visit looking at as much as I could. "Prometheus Bound" by Peter Paul Ruben and Frans Snyders, is one of t...

This painting is a self-portrait of Frida Kahlo, in two split personalities. The Two Frida's was made in 1939. It is oil on canvas, standing at a height of 5'81/2 square. It is hanging in the Museo de Arte, in Mexico City. There are two Fridas, sitting in adjacent chairs and holding hands, staring...

General personal background: Frida Kahlo was born in Mexico City. She gave her birth date as July 7, 1910, but her birth certificate shows July 6, 1907. At the age of 18, she was involved in a serious bus accident which left her with a broken spinal column, a broken collar bone, broken ribs, a bro...

Visual perception is a function of our eyes and our brain. We see images as a whole rather than in parts. However, images can be broken into their visual elements: line, shape, texture, and color. These elements are to images as grammar is to language. They, together, allow our eyes to see images an...

Description Albert Bierstadt painted "The Yosemite Fall" in 1864. This painting is on display in the Timken Gallery in San Diego California. This is an oil painting that has been painted on canvas, with dimensions of 34 ½ x 27 1/8 in. This artist was born in Dusseldorf in 1830 but raised as an Am...

I first look at Burial at Ornans and take a dislike to it. I see a painting of a small group of people with grim expressions on their faces. The piece is oil on canvas. It's simply painted, perhaps a palette knife has been used, and the colors are harsh and real, with definite edges and color chang...

Collin Bogle grew up in Northwestern Washington. As a kid he liked to spend his time outdoors, fishing, roller-blading, or riding his mountain bike. His father, Lee Bogle, was an art teacher in high school and even when Collin showed extraordinary artistic abilities it was still thought that he wo...

Ching Hao once said, "There are six essentials in painting. The first is called spirit; the second, rhythm; the third, thought; the fourth, scenery; the fifth, the brush; and the last is the ink." This brings us to the three main steps to a successful acrylic painting: planning, preparing, and ...

Pablo Picasso is one of the most famous Modern artists of the twentieth century. Picasso's work followed the style of Cubism. Cubism was a non-objective style of painting developed in Paris in the early twentieth century. It was characterized by reducing and fragmenting natural forms into abstra...

Wassily Kandinsky was born in Moscow on 4th December 1866 to a well-to-do family. This was a period of economic and cultural prosperity. He is considered the founder of abstract painting, and although he spent most of his life in Germany and France, he always retained strong emotional ties to his ho...

"The Virgin and Child with Four Angels" was painted by Gerard David in about 1510, right in the middle of the Renaissance. The painting is rectangular in shape and appears to be about two feet long by maybe a foot and a half wide. It is oil painted on wood and it looks to be in very good condition. ...

"Weeping Willow" was painted from 1918 to 1919 by the French artist, Claude Monet. The painting is oil on canvas with a restricted palette. This painting is one of ten weeping willow paintings that he painted in his late seventies (Kimball). It was acquired by the Kimball Art Museum in Fort Worth,...

The atmosphere in the Museum of Modern Art was very tranquil - the lights aren't too bright, and the wall itself looked like a piece of artwork. I'd been walking around the museum for a while and I finally saw a painting that was what I'd been expecting to find. It was located in a big room with ...

Introduction While attending the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art I was fascinated by all the different styles, textures, and materials that were used to make art. But of all the extraordinary works of art on display, perhaps one of the smaller pieces was the one that had the biggest impact on me....