Are these cupids making music with their shells or secretly drinking wine?

These two putti are a detail from The Birth of Venus (1863) by Alexandre Cabanel.

According to mythology, they are announcing Venus' birth to the world.

 Are these cupids making music with their shells or secretly

The Bride of Belus (1885) by Henri-Paul Motte (1846-1922) shows a strange Babylonian ritual.

In the center we see a large statue of the Babylonian god Belus (or Bel). According to the ritual, there was a daily beauty contest and the winner was allowed to sit on the lap of Belus' statue overnight. She was left alone there with some guarding lions we see at the bottom of the statue. And the next day, the process was repeated and a new girl took the place of the old one.

It is not exactly clear to me what happened to the girl on Belus' lap, but the reason for that may be that the whole Babylonian ritual was made up by the artist. When he exhibited the work at the Paris Salon of 1885, he added a quote from Herodotus to it, justifying the content as I described above. But it later turned out that the artist had made up that quote and that Herodotus never wrote it.

So, in essence, it is a fanciful story that the artist made up himself. But that allows us to think about the rest of the story. Will the girl survive? Or was there an endless stock of young girls that could be offered to Belus. The way the woman on the right is guided out of the temple suggests to me that it is not going to end well in the artist’s mind...

 An intriguing scene with a twist... The Bride of Belus

Courbet's The Artist's Studio in the Musee d'Orsay is one of those paintings that is so much better in reality than when seeing an image of it. Courbet expresses his artistic vision by promoting Realism and mocking the Romantic and Academic art movements.

The longer you look at it, the more great details you discover. And then he could not even finish the painting. He wanted to paint replicas of his own works in the background, but as he did not have enough time to do that to submit the work to the Paris Salon (where it obviously got rejected), he just filled up the background with some vague colors.

 Courbet's The Artist's Studio in the Musee d'Orsay is one

In this enormous masterpiece, Gustave Courbet prefers the artistic advice of a young boy over that of a nude woman and his artistic friends.

I just made a 2-minute video in which The Artist's Studio is explained: https://youtu.be/UxHc25TGZeA

It explains what his revolutionary vision About Realism is and how the different elements in this painting in the Musee d'Orsay express that.

 In this enormous masterpiece, Gustave Courbet prefers the

Cardiff Docks (1894) is wonderful combination of industrialization, light, and smokestacks.

The capital of Wales is painted by the American artist Lionel Walden and on display in the capital of France...

OK, he did live in each of those countries, so it is probably not that surprising.

 Cardiff Docks (1894) is wonderful combination of

Love to visit art museums? Proud to announce the launch of the AMUZE app with free, professional audio tours for the best art museums in the world! Available on iOS and Android via my site amuzeapp.com.

The app contains audio tours for major museums like the Legion of Honor, Louvre, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Musee d'Orsay, National Gallery, National Gallery of Art, Prado, St. Peter's Basilica, Uffizi, and Vatican Museums.

I would appreciate all your support and feedback, and I hope this app will allow you to better enjoy your visits to these museums!

 Love to visit art museums? Proud to announce the launch of

A confident and intellectual Parisian dandy! That is how Manet painted Emile Zola, the writer who fiercely defended his controversial works and has been instrumental for the development of Impressionism and Naturalism.

 A confident and intellectual Parisian dandy! That is how

Dante and Virgil (1850) was painted by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905). It's a cruel scene in hell, but Bouguereau captures both men in the foreground with great skill. Just look at their (exaggerated) muscles.

This painting in the Musee d'Orsay shows a scene from the Divine Comedy by Dante (1265-1321) about Dante and his guide Virgil taking a journey through Hell. You can see them on the left and they are looking at a cruel scene in the foreground where two men are engaged in an eternal combat.

The combat takes place in the eighth circle of Hell (the circle for falsifiers and counterfeiters). One of the men is an alchemist and heretic named Capocchio, and he is bitten on the neck by Gianni Schicchi who had usurped the identity of a dead man in order to fraudulently claim his inheritance.

If you look at the other details in this painting, you can see the other cruel aspects of hell, with fire and people hurting. There is only one character that is enjoying all of this, and we can see him in the top center.

 There is no fun in Hell... Dante and Virgil (1850) was

Before Edgar Degas became the famous Impressionist/Realist artist that created the most beautiful sculptures and paintings of dancers, he aspired to become a traditional history painter.

He painted Scene of War in the Middle Ages in 1865.

 Before Edgar Degas became the famous Impressionist/Realist

Frédéric Bazille was close to Monet and Renoir and their artistic skills and ideas were at the same level. But whereas Monet and Renoir got 86 and 78, Bazille died at age 28.

He painted The Family Reunion in 1867, showing that he was one of the pioneers of painting outdoors.

 Frédéric Bazille was close to Monet and Renoir and their

“The brushwork lack so much in finesse that it could have been painted with a floor mop.” -- 19th century art critic about Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe.

Little did he know that this revolutionary masterpiece would become one of the masterpieces in art history.

 “The brushwork lack so much in finesse that it could have

Of all the paintings about The Birth of Venus, this one from 1879 by William-Adolphe Bouguereau is among the most spectacular! He captures the idea that Venus is the ideal beauty, just like Botticelli did that centuries before.

 Of all the paintings about The Birth of Venus, this one

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) painted The Bathers when he was 77 years old.

He continued to develop his style, even at this age, by making his bathers one with nature, something that Cézanne had started to do two decades earlier.

 Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) painted The Bathers when

Love the hallucinative background in this self-portrait by Van Gogh in the Musée d’Orsay!

Hard to believe that he is only 36 years old in this painting.

 Love the hallucinative background in this self-portrait by

It doesn't get much more Dutch than this.

Claude Monet painted this field of tulips with a windmill when he visited The Netherlands in 1886.

 It doesn't get much more Dutch than this. Claude Monet

"Everything changes, even stone." And Monet showed that by painting over 30 versions of the Rouen Cathedral under different lighting conditions. Just compare some of the different versions..

 "Everything changes, even stone." And Monet showed that by

The Orchestra at the Opera (1870) puts us, the viewer, in the audience, close to the orchestra that is supporting the dance performance. And he only shows a glimpse of the performance.

 Edgar Degas loved unusual compositions! The Orchestra at

Whistler's Mother is also known as the "Victorian Mona Lisa". James McNeill Whistler painted his mother as a modest, pious, and strict woman.

Looks like a nice mother's day gift. But, eventually, Whistler pawned the painting after the death of his mother and now it is on display in the Musee d'Orsay, making it one of the most famous American paintings abroad.

 Whistler's Mother is also known as the "Victorian Mona

Venus was born as a mature and sexual woman from the foam of the sea as Alexandre Cabanel shows in The Birth of Venus. This unique work from 1863 is on display in the Musée d’Orsay.

It follows the Academic style of painting and was positively received at the Paris Salon (unlike Manet's Olympia that was painted the same year).

 Venus was born as a mature and sexual woman from the foam

It was not the naked woman, but rather the strange, modern clothing of the men that made The Luncheon on the Grass (1863) by Édouard Manet so controversial.

I made a 2-minute video explaining this masterpiece. The link to it is in my profile.

 It was not the naked woman, but rather the strange, modern

Entrée du port de la Rochelle by Paul Signac is an amazing example of the pointillism technique. Instead of mixing different colors of paint on a palette, this technique applies many dots of unmixed paint which are mixed by the eye and mind of the viewer.

 Entrée du port de la Rochelle by Paul Signac is an amazing

Georges Seurat applied millions of dots of paint to the canvas during his short life. The Circus was his last work and was unfinished when he died at age 31.

Even the large blue frame consists of thousands of dots.

 Georges Seurat applied millions of dots of paint to the

Le Dejeuner sur l'Herbe is one of Monet's first masterpieces, painted when he was 25 years old. Only two parts of this enormous work have survived in good condition due to poor storage conditions.

He painted it in reponse to Manet's controversial painting on the same subject.

 Le Dejeuner sur l'Herbe is one of Monet's first

Art is for everybody! But in 1857, art was still reserved for the middle and upper class only. Millet's large painting about three poor gleaners was received with shock.

Why spend such a large canvas on the activities of the poor? The shock was even bigger because the subject of the painting did not have any historical value. Nowadays, it is seen as a turning point in art and inspired several of the most famous Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists.

 Art is for everybody! But in 1857, art was still reserved

Imperial Fritillaries in a Copper Vase. A year before Van Gogh started with his famous series of sunflowers, he already practiced with the fritillaries.

But unlike in his sunflower paintings, he chose strongly contrasting colors for the fritillaries. Also notice the pointillist style that Van Gogh used for the background which he learned from Paul Signac.

 Imperial Fritillaries in a Copper Vase. A year before Van

Van Gogh saw the world from a unique point of view, leading to many masterpieces.

The Starry Night over the Rhône (1888) is one such special piece, and I made a 2-minute video about it explaining Van Gogh's vision. Link is available in my bio or by copying the following:

 Van Gogh saw the world from a unique point of view, leading

Olympia by Manet in the Musée d’Orsay is one of the most controversial paintings ever. It shows an upscale prostitute who is well-off, has a servant, and receives flowers from an admirer.

This was a totally new type of a reclining nude as before artists would paint the idealized body of the goddess Venus showing off her sexuality.

 Olympia by Manet in the Musée d’Orsay is one of the most

I always like Ugolino and His Sons by Carpeaux. The sheer agony and desperation are so beautifully expressed. It tells the story of Ugolino who is sentenced to starve to death together with his children. And the statue shows the moment that Ugolino considers cannibalism.

 What are some of your favorite statues? I always like

In his portraits, Van Gogh did not aim for photographic likeness. Instead, he carefully chose a variety of colors to express the character of his sitters!

This is his second Portrait of Dr. Gachet in the Musee d'Orsay.

 In his portraits, Van Gogh did not aim for photographic

The Oreads (1902) is a display of the virtuosity of its painter, William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905), showing how the three fauns (half-human, half-goat) at the bottom are witnessing a dazzling group of nymphs flying away.

Just as Michelangelo did in some of his large frescos (like The Last Judgment), Bouguereau positions the Oreads in all sorts of twisted positions, emphasizing what a skilled draftsman and painter he was.

The Oreads are a group of mythological nymphs that resided in the mountains and grottoes. And they would help the Greek goddess Artemis (Diana in Latin) when she would go out hunting. They liked to do that during the night, and at the break of dawn (the moment in this painting) they are returning back to their mountains.