“These two figures are seen from behind so that the viewer may participate in their communion with nature. They have been identified as Friedrich, at right, and his friend and disciple August Heinrich (1794–1822). Fascination with the moon ran high among the German Romantics, who regarded the motif as an object of pious contemplation. This is the first version of one of Friedrich’s most famous compositions which was painted during Heinrich’s lifetime (1819; Gemäldegalerie, Dresden) and the second soon after his death (ca. 1824; Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin).⁣

🏛 (New Masters Gallery, Dresden State Art Collections)⁣

 Caspar David Friedrich⁣ Two Men Contemplating the Moon⁣

“In 1822 the art patron and collector, Heinrich Wagener, commissioned a “times of day” diptych from Friedrich. The morning picture became The Solitary Tree. A grassy landscape with groups of trees, ponds, and villages extends to the foothills of the mountains behind the spires of a Gothic town. One mighty oak stands like a statue in the middle of the composition. A shepherd shelters beneath it. Its great trunk has withstood wind and weather, but the tips of the branches of this giant tree have already died off. Above the tree, the clouds form of a kind of cupola. Transgressing against the classical laws of composition, Friedrich cuts through all the various levels of the picture with the tree as the central foreground axis. And thus, at a stroke the oak tree takes on the role of mediator between heaven and earth, between the transcendental and the mundane. As an image of nature, it embodies natural strength and the life force, while at the same time the with-ered branches point to a life beyond this one.”⁣

🏛 (Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin)⁣

 Caspar David Friedrich⁣ Solitary Tree⁣ 1822⁣ “In 1822 the

“In his representation of a remote, holy place, Friedrich subjects nature to rigorous symmetry, intimating that he pursues an approach beyond any reproduction of nature faithful to reality. Using many layers of symbols, Friedrich fuses nature and religion to form a unity that can be read as the difficult path to Christian redemption or to ideal Christianity given the stony, thorny foreground and the way the atmosphere brightens in the background. The composition culminates in a Neo-Gothic church as the epitome of transcendence. Moreover, the arrangement of the fir trees brings to mind Romanticism’s comparison of Gothic architecture and vegetable shapes. The Gothic was also associated with the sense of German nationhood. While still alive, Friedrich found his work forgotten, but was rediscovered at the beginning of the 20th century, specifically in the context of fervour for the German nation. It was at this time that the painting was acquired; the Collection includes another of his Paintings, too.”⁣

 Caspar David Friedrich⁣ The Cross in the Mountains⁣ c

“Bearden recreates a scene based on a story from the Hebrew Bible in which King Solomon ruled between two women who each claimed to be the mother of a child.”⁣

 Romare Bearden⁣ King Solomon's Judgement⁣ 1978⁣ “Bearden

“Considered one of the most important American artists of the 20th century, Romare Bearden’s artwork depicted African American culture and experience in creative and thought-provoking ways. Born in North Carolina in 1911, Bearden spent much of his career in New York City. His early works were realistic images, often with religious themes, later transitioning to abstract and Cubist style paintings in oil and watercolor. He is best known for his photomontage compositions made from torn images of popular magazines and assembled into visually powerful statements on African American life.⁣

Born September 2, 1911, in Charlotte, North Carolina, Bearden was the only child of Richard and Bessye Bearden. The family moved to New York City when he was a toddler, where their household was a gathering place for Harlem Renaissance luminaries such as W.E.B. DuBois, Langston Hughes and Duke Ellington.⁣

The works of Bearden’s cover a wide range of techniques, themes, and styles. In college, Bearden aspired to be a cartoonist, drawing for and then editing Boston College’s humor magazine in the early 1930s. He continued his cartooning after he moved to New York City to attend New York University. After college, he joined an artist group and became excited about modern art, particularly Cubism, Futurism, post-Impressionism and Surrealism. He traveled to France to study at the Sorbonne.⁣

Though Bearden was vastly prolific, he is not that widely recognized as a major American artist. The American art world possessed the same prejudices and segregation of society. Also, Bearden’s work is hard to categorize. But during this life and after, his exhibitions have received enthusiastic reviews and critical praise and he was recognized with multiple awards and honorary doctorates.”⁣

🏛 (The Kinsey African American Art & History Collection)⁣

 Romare Bearden⁣ Falling Star⁣ 1979⁣ “Considered one of the

“Bear Lake is located in an area north of Taos on Taos Pueblo land. It is a sacred site to the Taos Indians, not accessible to the public. This painting was apparently exhibited only once, at An American Place, the gallery Alfred Stieglitz opened in 1929, and the painting remained in her possession. That O’Keeffe considered it a significant work is indicated by the star that she penciled on the backing board.1⁣

The mountain at Bear Lake that dominates the painting is composed parallel to the picture plane and cropped at the sides, decisions that decrease the appearance of deep space while increasing the static dominance of the mountain. The timeless feeling thus achieved is reinforced by O’Keeffe’s decision to lessen the three-dimensionality of the mountain by eliminating smaller geological details and limiting modeling to a few carefully chosen features, such as the irregular folds of mountain walls in the right half of the painting. The startling colors of New Mexico deeply impressed O’Keeffe. Here the rich purple mountainside, accented with gray patches, is seen in shifting half lights.”⁣

 Georgia O’Keeffe⁣ Mountain at Bear Lake - Taos⁣ 1930⁣ “Bear

“With his abstractions composed of paint transformed into light, Robert Delaunay made a crucial contribution to art in the early 20th century. His new aesthetics arose out of a quest for ‘pure painting’, which he discovered in the synthesis of Impressionist series and Cubist tradition. Delaunay used 19th-century colour theories to experiment with the reflection and refraction of light, a process for which art critic Guillaume Apollinaire coined the term ‘Orphism’. Derived from the name of the mythical bard Orpheus, Orphism is a painting style based on rhythmic chromatic harmony.⁣

Delaunay’s work represents the fullest flowering of Orphism, particularly in his Circular Forms, Sun and Moon. The painting is dated 1912 to 1931 in the bottom left corner; the unusually large time span for the work’s creation is enough to signal how important the composition must have been for the artist. The subtitle ‘Sun and Moon’ bespeaks less a figuratively legible form than the atmospheric differences between the two qualities of light. Loosely assembled, floating circles are concentrated in two focal points: to the right the brilliantly glowing solar area with an assortment of mutually permeated circle fragments, and to the left the nocturnal side, comprised of many thickly applied, concentric circles. The pale moonlight is echoed in the cool blue, turquoise and red, while the prismatic fan of the sunlight is represented in warm, contrasting facets.⁣

Delaunay was inspired by more than the electric light of the Parisian metropolis. In his paintings he strove towards a space that was now becoming accessible thanks to new vehicles like the Zeppelin and the airplane, while in his rainbow-bright discs composed of simultaneously perceptible contrasts he was the first French artist to devise an abstract visual vocabulary.”⁣

 Robert Delaunay⁣ Circular forms. Sun and Moon⁣ 1912/1931⁣

Infância de Giotto [Giotto's Childhood]⁣

“The character evoked in the painting is Giotto di Bondone (1266-1337), the great artist of the first phase of the Italian Renaissance, born in the small Tuscan village of Colle Vespignano, in a family of shepherds. Who tells us his story is Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574), author of "The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects", who considered Giotto the savior and restorer of the art of painting that, for him, had been in decline since time of the Romans.⁣

According to Vasari, Giotto, as a hobby, made out sketches of animals grazing on the rocks of the fields, using the sharp point of a small stone. One day the painter Cimabue (c. 1240-1302) was traveling between Vespignano and Florence when he saw the boy drawing. The master was enchanted by the boy's natural abilities and invited him to work with him. Still according to Vasari, in a short time of learning the young shepherd surpassed the master in the art of drawing, and became the most important artist of that period.⁣

On the canvas of Pereira da Silva, one sees the young Giotto, then ten years old, sitting on a rock, with a staff in his left hand and a piece of chalk on the right. He is drawing one of the shepherding goats, in a hard posture. Pereira da Silva is not particularly faithful to the Vasari text, since he exchanges the sharp stone for a chalk and the sheep for goats. The boy carries a pan flute and wears leather pants and sandals and long socks, making him look like one of the classic representations of St. John the Baptist boy. In this screen the preponderance of color in the drawing is very evident, that is, almost in its totality, limited to cold blues and greens. This softened, diluted coloration is sometimes considered as hard and expressionless.”⁣

 Oscar Pereira da Silva⁣ Infância de Giotto [Giotto's

“This work appropriates both the cube shape and the grid, not as a conceptual condition for autonomy as did Minimalism, but as a painterly interpretation of the cube.”⁣

 Jai Kwan Kim⁣ Cube-Secrecy Collage⁣ 2002/2004⁣ “This work

Quarry at Bibémus (Carrière de Bibémus)⁣

“In the last decade of his life, Cézanne worked at the sandstone quarry of Bibémus, in the southern French region of Provence where he was born. The quarry had been abandoned for some 60 years and was by then overgrown with large pine trees. Here, Cézanne explored the interplay between the complementary colors of the central orange rock and the blues of the sky and shadows. His signature technique of ordered, parallel strokes of paint is particularly evident in the luminous greens of the encircling foliage. Cézanne's pioneering interest in complex surface pattern looks forward to Cubism.”⁣

🏛 (The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art)⁣

 Paul Cézanne⁣ Quarry at Bibémus (Carrière de Bibémus)⁣

"Where are you going, and what do you wish?"⁣

"We have come to fish for the herring fish⁣

And the wind that sped them all night long⁣

The little stars were the herring fish⁣

"Now cast your nets wherever you wish--⁣

So cried the stars to the fishermen three:⁣

Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe,⁣

And some folks thought 't was a dream they 'd dreamed⁣

But I shall name you the fishermen three:⁣

Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,⁣

And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies⁣

And you shall see the beautiful things⁣

Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three:⁣

 Maxfield Parrish⁣ Wynken, Blynken, and Nod ⁣ 1902⁣ Wynken

“An example of the poetics developed by António Carneiro along the many beaches he painted, Contemplação transforms the landscape into a mood. Given by the fluidity of the brushes' stroke, the crepuscular pink dematerializes the rocks to envelop them in a sensation of metaphoric values. The landscape is the subjective point of view of a meditative figure that contemplates it and to where the lines of composition converge.”⁣

🏛 (National Museum of Contemporary Art - Museu do Chiado)⁣

 António Carneiro⁣ Contemplation⁣ 1911⁣ “An example of the

Composition with Large Red Plane, Yellow, Black, Grey and Blue⁣

“Piet Mondrian’s 1921 painting, Composition with Large Red Plane, Yellow, Black, Grey and Blue, best represents the painter’s distinct style in which he reduced his shapes to lines and rectangles and his palette to fundamental basics pushing past references to the outside world toward pure abstraction. Mondrian’s painting conveys the influences of various modern art movements such as Luminism, Impressionism, and most importantly, Cubism. By using basic forms such as rectangles and straight lines and colors such as white, red and yellow, Mondrian believed that his vision of modern art would overcome differences in culture and become a new common language based in the pure primary colors, flatness of forms, and dynamic tension of his painting.⁣

In this painting, Mondrian limited his palette to white, black, gray, and the three primary colors, with the composition constructed from thick, black horizontal and vertical lines that delineated the outlines of the various rectangles of color or reserve. Such simple pictorial elements are representative of Mondrian’s creation of new abstract art, even distinct from Cubism. His use of blocks of color and lines echoes the varied rhythms of modern life. And although the colors and the thickness of lines are very distinct from each other, they complement each other by balancing out the differences.”⁣

 Piet Mondrian⁣ Composition with Large Red Plane, Yellow

“Inside this beautiful pram on a beautiful sunny day, one would expect to see a perfectly happy dog enjoying a stroll, however that is not the case. The dog is white and almost blends into his seat but his open growling mouth lets the viewer know he’s there and he is not happy to see you. You can almost hear his growl and the little high pitched bark that belongs to this dog. His aggressive attitude does not match the scene and is unexpected to the viewer.⁣⁣

From afar, this is a beautiful painting of an outdoor scene but upon closer view, although still beautiful, it is the home of an unfriendly dog who does not want you near his painting.”⁣⁣

🏛 (Brandywine River Museum of Art)⁣⁣

 Jamie Wyeth ⁣⁣ A Very Small Dog⁣⁣ 1980⁣⁣ “Inside this

“This dramatic and lurid oil painting was created by Rudy Nappi as the original cover for the now-infamous Jane Manning novel Reefer Girl, published by Detective House in New York under the Cameo Books imprint in 1953. The cover slug describes the work as "The frank, biting story of a young girl of the slums, and how she was caught in the toils of evil." Apparently, Reefer Girl was so biting and out of bounds for 1950s Middle America that when the book went into a  second edition in 1956 both the title and cover image were changed.”⁣

 Rudy Nappi⁣ Reefer Girl⁣ 1953⁣ “This dramatic and lurid oil

“Jacopo Bassano was a master of depicting dogs, and included them as incidentals in many of his paintings. This work was one of the earliest paintings to use dogs as its sole subject matter. The painting was commissioned by Antonio Zentani, a wealthy Venetian art collector, and depicts two hounds from his hunting kennels. The two dogs, which resemble pointers, fill the canvas, so that they are thrust into the viewer’s focus. This lends them great monumentality and puts them on the same level as the viewer, with the standing dog making direct eye contact. The realism with which they are depicted is quite extraordinary, the tactile quality of their coats convincing and the life beneath the surface of the paint almost tangible.⁣

The dogs themselves are significantly more realistic in their portrayal than the expertly painted but contrived foliage in the right foreground, and this contrast accentuates their animal quality, lending them the movement and spirit of a pair of real hunting dogs.⁣

This work set something of a precedent for the depiction of dogs, and influenced other artists, while Bassano later produced several more paintings with dogs as the sole subject.”⁣

 Jacopo Bassano⁣ Two Hunting Dogs Tied to a Tree Stump⁣

Marble statue of a pair of dogs (The Townley Greyhounds)⁣

“These dogs were found with another similar pair near Civita Lavinia. They were acquired in 1774 by Charles Townley from the painter and dealer Gavin Hamilton, who had conducted excavations at a place called 'Dog Mountain'. The appropriateness of the name was not lost on Hamilton, who also found other marble dogs there, a sphinx with dog's body and two statues of Actaeon attacked by hounds. It was once thought that the site of the find was to be identified with the ruins of a palace of the Roman emperor Antoninus Pius (reigned AD 138-161). This is no longer accepted, and the sculpture cannot therefore be firmly dated, as previously thought, to his reign. A slightly smaller and less restored pair of dogs from this group was purchased by the papal antiquary Giambattista Visconti for the Vatican Museums. As was customary in such cases, the Pope acquired the better of the two sculptures. Nevertheless, these are among the most charming representations of 'man's best friend' to come down to us from antiquity.”⁣

 Marble statue of a pair of dogs (The Townley Greyhounds)⁣

“At the age of 41, Henri Rousseau gave up his work as a customs official to devote himself entirely to painting. A self-taught artist, he developed a style characterized by distortions and unnatural proportions and perspectives. Tiny human figures promenade along an avenue lined with rows of uniform trees. In naïve manner, every detail, whether in the foreground or background, is treated equally. Rousseau is considered a precursor of Surrealism because of the way dream worlds and reality merge in his works.”⁣

 Henri Rousseau ⁣ The Avenue in the Park at Saint Cloud⁣

“The Musical Angel is a fragment of a lost altarpiece which probably depicted the Madonna and Child with Saints. Rosso was one of the principle exponents of early sixteenth century painting in Florence; both he and Pontormo were students of Andrea del Sarto. He brought Florentine mannerism to France where he was called by King Francis I to fresco the palace at Fontainebleau.”⁣

 Rosso Fiorentino⁣ Musical Angel⁣ Around 1522⁣ “The Musical

“This piece was illustrated by Haddon Sundblom for Ladies Home Journal in 1947. ⁣

Sundblom was born in Muskegon, Michigan, to a Swedish-speaking family. His father, Karl Wilhelm Sundblom, came from the farm Norrgårds in the village of Sonnboda in Föglö, Åland Islands, then part of the Russian Grand Duchy of Finland now Finland, and his mother Karin Andersson was from Sweden. Sundblom studied at the American Academy of Art.”⁣

 Haddon Sundblom⁣ The Unpossessed⁣ 1947⁣ “This piece was

“The artist, who incorporated the changing light of the sun during the day and the seasons into Venetian scenes, selected İstanbul, yet another city intertwined with the sea, as a subject for this particular work. Portraying a quiet village at the shores of the Bosphorus and the boats on the sea, the painting is dominated by the golden color of sunset. Ziem is deemed a particularly successful artist in terms of capturing the reflections of sunlight on the water. Recognizing this feature as Ziem’s forte, Théophile Gautier mentions the effects of the changing light of the sun –as part of the movement in the environment– reflecting on the water as “broken into a thousand fractions”. Although the work resembles a sketch with its relatively small size and unfinished look, all these characteristics are still evident in the painting. As in his other works, the figures have been transformed into a few color stains in this picturesque atmosphere.”⁣⁣

 Félix Ziem⁣⁣ View of İstanbul⁣⁣ Second half of the 19th

“Self Portrait shows Tanning as a young woman with her head on her hand looking out at the viewer in a typically reflective artist's pose. Her drawing shows good technical skill and gives special attention to the detail of her hair. The isolated study of the eye to the left of the page is perhaps the most interesting aspect of the picture and links to Surrealist tendencies that would later emerge. Both André Breton and Salvador Dalí were interested in eyes, and often particularly in the disembodied eye - as in the case of illustrations included in Breton's novel, Nadja (1928). Attention is drawn to the eye as a window to the unconscious world, but also by seeming contradiction, as the organ wrongly attributed to sight. For to 'see' into the depths, as is demonstrated by Tanning and by other Surrealist artists, is actually a more complex and internal process.”⁣

 Dorothea Tanning⁣ Self Portrait⁣ 1936⁣ “Self Portrait shows

“By the late 1990s, Tanning's focus had shifted again from painting, to sculpture, to poetry. By this time she was living in New York, having returned from France after Max Ernst had died. Tanning had some hand-stretched canvases that had been in storage since her life in Paris. She recalls how this particular purple flower came to her as, "a vision", and in turn led to the creation of a series of twelve similarly abstract flower paintings. The series were exhibited together two years later in a show called "Another Language of Flowers" in which Tanning incorporated her new found love of poetry by inviting 12 poets to write poems to accompany each of the paintings. Her good friend, James Merrill, provided the verse to compliment this image. ⁣

All of the flower paintings glow with soft and illuminating depth. There are often areas of dark void complimented by golden highlights. At once suggestive of female genitalia and the far away cosmos, the work of Georgia O'Keeffe becomes an obvious reference at this late point in Tanning's career. The women's flower representations are equally meditative as they both quietly and powerfully uncover secrets that lie in the creases and in between the folds.”⁣

🏛 (Dorothea Tanning Foundation, NY)⁣

 Dorothea Tanning⁣ Merrillium Trovatum⁣ 1997⁣ “By the late

“Sakai’s undulating compositions are instantly recognizable as part of his signature aesthetic. What makes his paintings distinct from those of other artists engaging with geometric abstraction is how the fluidity and synthesis of colors that form curvatures and undulations juxtapose the rigidity of the clearly defined bands of color. His work was thereby defined by a dialogue between organic form and precise structure. For Sakai, color harmonies produced a sense of purity by reducing the compositions on the canvas to the rhythms produced from the interactions between different hues.”⁣

🏛 (Inter-American Development Bank)⁣

 Kazuya Sakai⁣ Chromatology II⁣ 1975⁣ “Sakai’s undulating

Medium: watercolor, pen and ink, gouache, collage and pencil⁣

“This costume study was carried out for the ballet "Tristan Fou", libretto, curtain, sets and costumes by Salvador Dali, choreography by Léonide Massine, music by Wagner, 1st in New York on December 15, 1944.”⁣

 Salvador Dali⁣ Costume Pisentlit pour Tristan Fou⁣ 1944⁣

“One of the most interesting fields within Vytautas Kasiulis’ work are genre pieces depicting interior scenes that have almost no externally evident activity. This means the painter can concentrate on new aesthetic studies and the search for unexpected colour resolutions on the canvas. The artist thinking is one of the most decorative compositions of Vytautas Kasiulis that was created in the 1950s in Paris. The familiar and frequently variated motif takes on a new resonance as the artist has chosen two contrasting blurs of colour that appear to divide the total composition in half. The poster-like openess of the red and faded green expanses, painted in small, vertical strokes, take on the resonance of stained glass.”⁣

🏛 (Lithuanian National Museum of Art)⁣

 Vytautas Kasiulis⁣ The Artist Thinking ⁣ 1950s⁣ “One of the

“Big Self-Portrait is a watershed painting that virtually showcases Close's unique method. Abandoning the full-body view, Close turned to one of the oldest traditions anywhere in art history, the self-portrait. Close had partially set out to refute the critic Clement Greenberg's claim that it was impossible for an "advanced" artist to work in portraiture. Closes's untraditional approach involved conceiving of and creating a unique kind of "mug shot," a black-and-white idiom that exacerbated the subject's blemishes and the original photographic distortion caused by the camera. The devotion to the idea of an unsparing, head-on view led him to refuse all commissions, as Close used only his own "mug" and that of close friends for his subjects.”⁣

 Chuck Close⁣ Big Self-Portrait⁣ 1967-68⁣ “Big Self-Portrait

“From 1871, when he returned from England, until 1878, Monet lived in the commune of Argenteuil near Paris. During this period he often featured his wife Camille in his paintings, with their eldest son Jean, born in 1867. He is pictured here, inside the second house that Monet lived in in Argenteuil, with a figure, probably Camille, in shadow in the background.⁣⁣⁣

The foreground here consists of a symmetrical décor: hangings with coloured motifs, green plants, and decorative vases, seen in other paintings by Monet. This composition gives the impression of a curtain opening on to a stage. The viewer's eye is drawn towards the back of the room, towards the illuminated area near the window. In the very centre of the picture, the herringbone pattern of the parquet reinforces the symmetry of the overall view, whilst emphasising the perspective. Then, one after another, one can make out Jean standing slightly to the right, the lamp and the table in the centre, and Camille sitting on the left.⁣⁣⁣

The child's silhouette is reflected on the parquet floor, lit by the daylight from the window.⁣⁣⁣

In this interior, "there is a serious attempt to introduce air and light", as the art critic Gustave Geffroy pointed out in 1894.This silent, intimate scene, an image of everyday family life in Argenteuil, is recreated in a blue-tinted space. This range of colour evokes an atmosphere of tranquillity and poetry, reminiscent of the childhood world of the author Marcel Proust, as he would later describe it in In Search of Lost Time (1913).”⁣⁣⁣

 Claude Monet⁣⁣⁣ A Corner of the Apartment⁣⁣⁣ 1875⁣⁣⁣ “From

The Gallery of H.M.S. Calcutta (Portsmouth)⁣

“Tissot often painted a man with two women in order to explore the subtle nuances of flirtation and attraction through body language and facial expression. Here a chaperone separates the young naval officer from the object of his attentions, the woman hiding her enjoyment of his flirtation behind her fan. Tissot focuses here on the boundaries of Victorian propriety and social convention, and their transgression. The languid pose of the nearest woman, and Tissot’s frank concentration on her fashionable hour-glass figure, inevitably led to the picture being criticised when it was first exhibited. The author Henry James dismissed it as ‘hard, vulgar and banal’.⁣

 James Tissot⁣ The Gallery of H.M.S. Calcutta (Portsmouth)⁣

“The signed and dated painting was completed for the altar of St. Ansanus in the transept of Siena cathedral, dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. In the painting, the Archangel Gabriel appears to the Virgin Mary to tell her of the forthcoming birth of Jesus and greets her with the words shown on the raised inscription on the gold background: “AVE GRATIA PLENA DOMINUS TECUM”. The angel's appearance is sudden, as suggested by the fluttering cloak and spread wings. Mary is distressed, drawing back and wrapping herself in her cloak. The surrounding environment of the scene is not defined, but the few elements which are depicted - the marble floor, the elaborately engraved throne, the precious fabrics, the book that Mary was reading before the celestial apparition - can be traced back to the lifestyle of the wealthiest classes in the fourteenth century.⁣

Above, in the center of the scene, the Holy Spirit is depicted in the form of a dove surrounded by angels, in line with the vase of lilies, a symbol of the Son of God and the purity of the Virgin Mary. The scrolls held by the prophets depicted in the tondos set into the frame allude to the mystery of the incarnation: from the left, Jeremiah, Ezechiel, Isiah and Daniel.⁣

The depictions on either side of the Annunciation show the martyr Ansanus, one of the patron saints of Siena and bearing the banner with the city’s colors, and a holy martyr, possibly Maxima, the mother of Ansanus, or Margaret; the inscription at her feet, which identifies her as Judith, is incorrect.”⁣

🏛 (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence)⁣

 Simone Martini⁣ The Annunciation and the Two Saints⁣ 1333⁣

“Kirchner executed “Dance of Colours” in conjunction with the decoration of a ceremonial hall in the Folkwang Museum in Essen – a project that ultimately came to nought. The print reveals a close interrelationship with the artist’s paintings. The theme is the breaking down of white sunlight into the three pure spectral colours: red, yellow and blue. The dancers symbolize the coloured light and thus also the rhythm and musicality of the colours.”⁣

 Ernst Ludwig Kirchner⁣ Dance of Colours 1933⁣ “Kirchner

“This remarkable drawing correctly and precisely records the anatomy of the exotic animal; it is thus one of the earliest European depictions of an elephant to be drawn directly from life. The sheet shows the white Asian elephant who had been named Hanno, after the Carthaginian sovereign and seaman. The elephant was born in Cochin (India) in 1510 and then shipped to King Manuel I in Lisbon. In 1514, he then sent the elephant to Pope Leo X as a diplomatic gift; the latter accepted it enthusiastically. With his spirited tricks and his remarkable charms, Hanno effortlessly won the Pope’s heart. Leo X was inconsolable when the elephant died in 1518 – perhaps because of stress caused by his being exposed to ever-greater masses of spectators – and had Raphael paint a life-sized fresco portrait of Hanno on the wall of the Vatican's gatehouse. The fresco and the architectural element were later destroyed during a modernization project. This sheet bears a contemporary copy of Raphael’s preliminary drawing.”⁣

🏛 (Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin)⁣

Caspar David Friedrich⁣ Two Men Contemplating the Moon⁣

Caspar David Friedrich⁣ Solitary Tree⁣ 1822⁣ “In 1822 the

Caspar David Friedrich⁣ The Cross in the Mountains⁣ c

Romare Bearden⁣ King Solomon's Judgement⁣ 1978⁣ “Bearden

Romare Bearden⁣ Falling Star⁣ 1979⁣ “Considered one of the

Georgia O’Keeffe⁣ Mountain at Bear Lake - Taos⁣ 1930⁣ “Bear

Robert Delaunay⁣ Circular forms. Sun and Moon⁣ 1912/1931⁣

Oscar Pereira da Silva⁣ Infância de Giotto [Giotto's

Jai Kwan Kim⁣ Cube-Secrecy Collage⁣ 2002/2004⁣ “This work

Paul Cézanne⁣ Quarry at Bibémus (Carrière de Bibémus)⁣

Maxfield Parrish⁣ Wynken, Blynken, and Nod ⁣ 1902⁣ Wynken

António Carneiro⁣ Contemplation⁣ 1911⁣ “An example of the

Piet Mondrian⁣ Composition with Large Red Plane, Yellow

Jamie Wyeth ⁣⁣ A Very Small Dog⁣⁣ 1980⁣⁣ “Inside this

Rudy Nappi⁣ Reefer Girl⁣ 1953⁣ “This dramatic and lurid oil

Jacopo Bassano⁣ Two Hunting Dogs Tied to a Tree Stump⁣

Marble statue of a pair of dogs (The Townley Greyhounds)⁣

Henri Rousseau ⁣ The Avenue in the Park at Saint Cloud⁣

Rosso Fiorentino⁣ Musical Angel⁣ Around 1522⁣ “The Musical

Haddon Sundblom⁣ The Unpossessed⁣ 1947⁣ “This piece was

Félix Ziem⁣⁣ View of İstanbul⁣⁣ Second half of the 19th

Dorothea Tanning⁣ Self Portrait⁣ 1936⁣ “Self Portrait shows

Dorothea Tanning⁣ Merrillium Trovatum⁣ 1997⁣ “By the late

Kazuya Sakai⁣ Chromatology II⁣ 1975⁣ “Sakai’s undulating

Salvador Dali⁣ Costume Pisentlit pour Tristan Fou⁣ 1944⁣

Vytautas Kasiulis⁣ The Artist Thinking ⁣ 1950s⁣ “One of the

Chuck Close⁣ Big Self-Portrait⁣ 1967-68⁣ “Big Self-Portrait

Claude Monet⁣⁣⁣ A Corner of the Apartment⁣⁣⁣ 1875⁣⁣⁣ “From

James Tissot⁣ The Gallery of H.M.S. Calcutta (Portsmouth)⁣

Simone Martini⁣ The Annunciation and the Two Saints⁣ 1333⁣

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner⁣ Dance of Colours 1933⁣ “Kirchner

Raffaello Sanzio (school of)⁣ The Elephant Hanno⁣ 1516⁣