Storm (1925). By Zdzisław Jasiński (Polish;1863-1932). Oil on canvas. 📍National Museum, Warsaw.

 Storm (1925). By Zdzisław Jasiński (Polish;1863-1932). Oil

Mariana, (1851). By John Everett Millais (1829-1896).

_art oil on wood, 49.5 x 59.7 cm. 📍Tate Britain

 Mariana, (1851). By John Everett Millais (1829-1896)

Ophelia. By Friedrich Wilhelm Theodor Heyser (1857-1921), oil on canvas, 90.5 x 181.5 cm. 📍private collection.

 Ophelia. By Friedrich Wilhelm Theodor Heyser (1857-1921)

Scene with Bacchantes, (1653). By Jacob van Loo, (1614 - 1670). Oil on canvas, 63 x 55 cm.

 Scene with Bacchantes, (1653). By Jacob van Loo, (1614 -

Hylas and the Nymphs, (detail) (1896) . By John William Waterhouse (1849 - 1917). Oil on canvas, 132.1 cm x 197.5 cm.

 Hylas and the Nymphs, (detail) (1896) . By John William

Evening Street, (1906). By Jakub Schikaneder (1855 - 1924).

_art . oil on canvas, 📍National Gallery in Prague

 Evening Street, (1906). By Jakub Schikaneder (1855 - 1924)

The Fortune Teller, (1906). By  Deutsch, Ludwig (1855 - 1935). Oil on panel,  80.6 x 64.1 cm.

 The Fortune Teller, (1906). By  Deutsch, Ludwig (1855 -

The hospital room during the visit of the chief physician, (1889). By Luis Jiménez Aranda (1845-1928), oil on canvas, 290 x 445 cm, 📍Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla

 The hospital room during the visit of the chief physician

In brilliant detail, Claude-Joseph Vernet captured the gorgeous weather and leisurely activities of a day by the sea. Fishermen clean the day's catch on a stone pier while several people chat nearby, one of them pointing toward the large ship in the bay. Meanwhile, a man sits and smokes his pipe, the tobacco glowing a bright red. A cumulus cloud, perhaps the remnant of a distant storm, towers to the left of the setting sun. Warm tones of yellow, orange, and red predominate, suggesting a hazy sunset after a bright day.

In A Calm, Vernet portrayed a completely peaceful scene in striking contrast to its pendant, A Storm on a Mediterranean Coast . Taken together, the two works show, on the one hand, nature's benevolence, and on the other, nature's fury.

A Calm at a Mediterranean Port, 1770 by Claude-Joseph Vernet.

 In brilliant detail, Claude-Joseph Vernet captured the

“The Scene of Christ in the Temple”, continues Bartolomeo’s series of motifs of children and the family, which seem to have taken over from his earlier mysticism. This shows the infant Jesus brought by Mary and Joseph to the Temple in Jerusalem, when he was forty days old, in accordance with the law of Moses for first-born male children.

Traditionally this is known as The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, with Mary and Joseph meeting Simeon and Anna, a pious widow. Simeon recognised the infant as the Messiah, praised God, and said that he could now die at peace in the knowledge that the Messiah had come – a prayer known from its opening words in Latin as Nunc dimittis. It is remembered in the festival of Hypapante (Greek for meeting), which is now widely known as Candlemas in northern Europe.

The Scene of Christ in the Temple, 1516 by Fra Bartolomeo.

🏛: Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria.

 “The Scene of Christ in the Temple”, continues Bartolomeo’s

Moreau seems to have worked first on an oil painting showing just Jupiter and Semele (1889-95). This contains a curious composite of the story, in which Semele has not yet been harmed by thunderbolts, but the foetal Bacchus appears to be resting against her, and Jupiter has assumed his divine form. At the foot of the painting is Jupiter’s attribute of an eagle.

Jupiter and Semele, 1889-95 by Gustave Moreau.

 Moreau seems to have worked first on an oil painting

This present painting, by the American artist Alice Pike Barney (c.1857-1931), is a curious mix of family portrait and mythology. Alice Pike Barney used the face of her daughter, Laura, as the model for the painting. As myths go, Alice made an intriguing choice in deciding which tale she wanted to bring to life with her daughter’s visage. She picked the tragic myth of the ill-fated Gorgon, Medusa from Metamorphosis written by the Roman poet Ovid (c.43 BCE-17 CE)

Medusa was once an exceedingly beautiful maiden,

whose hand in marriage was jealously sought by an army of suitors. Her marvelous hair

was her crowning glory. The story goes that Neptune the sea god

raped this glorious creature inside the shrine of Minerva.

Jove’s daughter screened her virginal eyes with her aegis in horror, and punished the sin, by transforming the Gorgon’s beautiful hair into horrible snakes.

Such was the origin story of the snake-haired Medusa, whose gaze could turn people into stone. To further add to her woes, Medusa was fated to be slain and decapitated by the hero, Perseus. An odd myth, indeed, in which to feature one’s own daughter.

Medusa (Laura Dreyfus Barney), 1892 by Alice Pike Barney.

 This present painting, by the American artist Alice Pike

One of Bastien-Lepage's finest works, particularly popular among Russian artists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. ‘The Village Lovers’ was much admired by Valentin Serov, Mikhail Nesterov and Lev Tolstoy. The ability to combine a realistic subject with a lyrical landscape, to record moments of harmony between man and nature with such remarkable precision, brought Bastien-Lepage widespread fame as a 'poetic realist'.

One early reading, by Mette, the wife of Paul Gauguin, held that the girl was under age, and the relationship accordingly beyond the pale. The girl not only faces away from the viewer, but her whole body is turned away, leaving that issue unresolved and unresolvable.

The Village Lovers, 1882 by Jules Bastien-Lepage.

 One of Bastien-Lepage's finest works, particularly popular

Taken from another well known and often painted Old Testament story, The Toilet of Esther (1841) is less strongly narrative. It shows Esther, an orphan daughter of a Benjamite who had been living in exile in Persia. After becoming a member of King Ahasuerus’ harem, Esther dressed in her finest in order to successfully persuade the king to spare the life of her former guardian Mordecai, and to execute his anti-Semitic grand vizier Haman.

The Toilet of Esther, 1841 by Théodore Chassériau. Oil on canvas, 45.5 x 35.5 cm.

 Taken from another well known and often painted Old

“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

Emma Hart, Lady Hamilton as Circe ,(Details) (1782), By George Romney (1734–1802). Oil on canvas, 240 x 142 cm.

 Emma Hart, Lady Hamilton as Circe ,(Details) (1782), By

Italian Peasant Kneeling with Child. By William-Adolphe Bouguereau (French, 1825 - 1905). watercolor and graphite underdrawing, 19 cm x 27.1 cm.

 Italian Peasant Kneeling with Child. By William-Adolphe

Aman-Jean (Portrait of Edmond François Aman-Jean) (1882– 83). By Georges Seurat (1859 - 1891). Conté crayon on Michallet paper, 62.2 × 47.5 cm.

 Aman-Jean (Portrait of Edmond François Aman-Jean) (1882–

"La ninfa Egeria dictando a Numa Pompilio las leyes de Roma"  The Nymph Egeria Dictating to Numa Pompilius the Laws of Rome, (1886). By  Ulpiano Checa, (1860 - 1916). Oil on canvas, 300 x 200 cm.

_art 📍Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, Spain

 "La ninfa Egeria dictando a Numa Pompilio las leyes de

Witches going to their Sabbath, (1878). By Luis Ricardo Falero, (1851 - 1896).

As Christianity began to take hold of Europe in the late medieval era, wild stories of witches and their Sabbath rituals became popular. Often these stories implicated and scapegoated women who were easy targets, especially older women who were beyond child-bearing years and healers. At times a single spectral huntsman would be involved too. They would travel to their secret place in the woods and hold their coven, eat babies and fetuses, and copulate with the devil. They would ride a flying goat, the goat being an incarnation of the devil himself.

Falero gives us all the familiar symbols in this fantastical vision meant to titillate. The witches swirl and writhe in the stormy convoy, implying sexual frenzy. The witch at center stares at us and draws us into the scene, with both evil and lust in her eyes

 Witches going to their Sabbath, (1878). By Luis Ricardo

Nature Unveiling Herself Before Science, (1899). By Louis-Ernest Barrias, (1841 - 1905). 📍Musée d'Orsay

The sculpture depicts a woman personifying Nature removing a veil to reveal her face and bare breasts. The sculpture, which is in the Musée d'Orsay, was commissioned for the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers. Underneath the veil, Nature wears a gown held up by a scarab. The figure is made of marble, with the gown made of Algerian onyx, and the scarab of malachite. The sculpture has also been reproduced in other media.1905

 Nature Unveiling Herself Before Science, (1899). By

The Survivor, (1884). By Ivan Aivazovsky, (Russian, 1817–1900).

 The Survivor, (1884). By Ivan Aivazovsky, (Russian

Played ! (1885). By John Lavery (1856 - 1941). Oil on panel, 35.5 x 30 cm.

 Played ! (1885). By John Lavery (1856 - 1941). Oil on

The Magdalen Reading, (1438). By Rogier van der Weyden  (1399/1400 - 1464). Oil on mahogany, 62.2 cm × 54.4 cm.

A young lady in an extravagant green dress sits on the floor, reading. Although she wears fifteenth-century clothing and is in a medieval room, she is a biblical figure: Saint Mary Magdalene. The pot of oil with which she anointed Christ’s feet  the object traditionally associated with her  stands on the floor beside her casting a strong shadow. Her figure forms a semi-circle, with her head and legs curving around her bent knees, emphasising her absorption in her book.

This painting was originally the lower right corner of what must have been a large altarpiece of the Virgin and Child with saints, painted for a church in Brussels. You can see part of a man behind Mary while another kneels to the left; his toes poke out from under his voluminous red robe.

 The Magdalen Reading, (1438). By Rogier van der

Falling star, (1884). By Witold Pruszkowski (1846-1896),

_art Oil on canvas, 168 x 132 cm. 📍National Museum in Warsaw