“Birthday is a seminal work for Dorothea Tanning; it is the work that saw her noticed by the likes of Max Ernst and Peggy Guggenheim, it placed her strong individual character firmly on the artistic stage, and introduced motifs that would recur throughout her career. She paints herself in the foreground of a room that recedes to become an infinite passageway of many open doors. Her costume combines nature and culture as her skirt grows with seaweed-like foliage whilst the blouse from which her breasts peak out recalls aristocracy, made of silk and lace. Next to her feet is an animal familiar that has been identified by art historian, Whitney Chadwick, as a winged lemur. Lemurs have long since been associated with the night and with the spirit world. As a symbol of the unconscious released through dream, Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo, and Valentine Hugo have all also depicted the magical lemur. ⁣⁣

Indeed, this self-portrait by Tanning has much in common with Carrington's Self-Portrait (c.1938). The two paintings fuse together fantasy and reality as the lone artist is portrayed in only creaturely company. Both images present otherworldly framing devices; the door in the case of Tanning and the window in the case of Carrington, and ultimately both herald the significance of a woman's creative and visionary powers. The organic growth that entwines to make Tanning's skirt bears reference to her portrait of the same year, Arizona Landscape, as well as to an earlier portrait of another woman, Deirdre (1940), whose hair is replaced by leaves. Robert Motherwell photographed Tanning herself wearing a crown of leaves in 1945. Like that of her skirt in Birthday, this tentacle/antennae-like feature at once suggests connection to higher realms but also hauntingly recalls a crown of thorns, therefore uniting the pains and joys of life.” ⁣

 Dorothea Tanning⁣⁣ Birthday⁣⁣ 1942⁣⁣ “Birthday is a seminal

“Seated Woman evolved out of a commission for a portrait. Around this time, Elaine Fried (they were not yet married) often modeled for de Kooning (one can see a resemblance of her, in the auburn-colored hair). The woman, wearing a low-cut yellow dress, sits on a chair with one leg crossed over the other. One arm rests in her open lap while the other seems to bend up toward her face, although there is no hand attached to it. As curator John Elderfield points out, all of her body parts, which seem more like shapes, float around her body, not quite connected to one another. De Kooning wrote in the early 1950s, "With intimate proportions I mean the familiarity you have when you look at somebody's big toe when close to it, or a crease in a hand or a nose - or lips or a ty [thigh]. The drawing those parts make are interchangeable one for the other and become so many spots of paint or brushstrokes." Given the struggles de Kooning had with painting certain body parts, it makes sense that he would reduce them to so many shapes, flipping, rotating, and using them in various contexts. ⁣

One can also see de Kooning's artistic influences on display in this painting. The fractured form of the figure certainly recalls Picasso, but Arshile Gorky's The Artist and his Mother (c.1926-c.1942), with all of its erasures and seemingly unfinished state, is also evident. The background of oranges, greens, and blues has been scraped down many times, creating a smooth, almost jewel-like surface. The planes of color hint at a Cubist space but also Mondrian's Neo-Plastic paintings. The squares also suggest the artist's studio walls, with various canvases tacked and piled against the wall.”⁣

 Willem de Kooning⁣ Seated Woman⁣ 1940⁣ “Seated Woman

“A woman sits on a wooden rocking chair and gazes ahead, deep in thought. A golden light brightens her face and left hand as well as the shawl that drapes onto the floor. She wears a long navy dress, and her black leather shoes are just visible beneath it. She appears relaxed, holding a palm leaf fan in one hand and gently resting the other against her cheek. Her pose and facial expression suggest that she is a strong and thoughtful woman.⁣

African American artist Henry Ossawa Tanner painted this portrait⁣

of his mother, Sarah Elizabeth Miller Tanner, in 1897. When Sarah was a child, her mother put her and her siblings on an oxcart bound for Pennsylvania to escape slavery in Virginia via the Underground Railroad. Later, she married Benjamin Tucker Tanner, a highly educated minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and they had nine children. Their son Henry showed an early interest in art and studied painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. In 1891 he moved to Paris to pursue a successful artistic career and escape the racial discrimination he experienced in America.⁣

Tanner created this portrait on a visit home after a long time abroad. He based the composition on James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s famous 1871 painting known as “Whistler’s Mother.” However, while Whistler’s portrait is cold and austere, Tanner’s is warm and affectionate. In the bottom right corner, Tanner wrote, “To my dear mother, H. O. Tanner.” This sensitive portrayal and endearing inscription capture the love and admiration the artist felt for his mother, the center of his large and distinguished family.”⁣

 Henry Ossawa Tanner⁣ Portrait of the Artist’s Mother⁣ 1897⁣

“Juliane Harms documented The Last Drop in 1908. At that time, the moralizing figure of the skeleton had been painted out and a lamp stood in its place. The skeleton of The Last Drop was only known because of a studio copy. In the 1990s, the canvas was put under the examination of raking light and X-ray photography.⁣

The painting has since been restored, removing the painted lamp and revealing the skeleton. The now unconcealed skeleton demonstrates that later generations were not beholden to the image of death in the middle of the painting. This moral representation was despised enough for someone to commit the act of overpainting the skeleton. ⁣

The costume that the standing figure wears over his clothes suggests that the setting is vastenavond, the night before the beginning of Lent, when people frequently went on binges in order to prepare themselves for fasting and abstinence. This painting speculates on the consequences of such overindulgence. In their dissipated state, the gay cavalier and his companion ignore the menacing presence of the skeleton, which bears an ominous hourglass in one bony hand and a skull in the other.”⁣

 Judith Leyster⁣ The Last Drop (The Gay Cavalier)⁣ c. 1639⁣

“Three Musicians is the title of two similar collage and oil paintings by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. They were both completed in 1921 in Fontainebleau near Paris, France, and exemplify the Synthetic Cubist style; the flat planes of color and "intricate puzzle-like composition" echoing the arrangements of cutout paper with which the style originated. These paintings each colorfully represent three musicians wearing masks in the tradition of the popular Italian theater Commedia dell'arte.⁣

Each painting features a Harlequin, a Pierrot, and a monk, who are generally believed to represent Picasso, Guillaume Apollinaire, and Max Jacob, respectively. Apollinaire and Jacob, both poets, had been close friends of Picasso during the 1910s. However, Apollinaire died of the Spanish flu in 1918, while Jacob decided to enter a monastery in 1921.⁣

The first version is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City; the second version is in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.”⁣

 Pablo Picasso⁣ The Three Musicians⁣ 1921⁣ “Three Musicians

Staircase Group (Portrait of Raphaelle Peale and Titian Ramsay Peale I)⁣

“Originally titled "Portrait of Raphaelle Peale and Titian Ramsay Peale," the so-called "Staircase Group" by Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) is arguably the first major original painting in American art. Other significant portraits and history paintings preceded it, but they were invariably indebted to the compositions and conventions of English and European precedents. Peale belonged to a generation of intellectual revolutionaries who were declaring not just political but cultural and artistic independence from the Old World. His bold and visually arresting double portrait of his sons was startlingly new in its format, finish and presentation.”⁣

 Charles Willson Peale⁣ Staircase Group (Portrait of

The Death of Sardanapalus by Delacroix in the Louvre shows an incredibly cruel picture of how the Assyrian king killed all his mistresses before setting himself an his possessions on fire!

Read more about this fascinating work on my blog.

 The Death of Sardanapalus by Delacroix in the Louvre shows

At the Moulin Rouge: The Dance by Toulouse-Lautrec in the Philadelphia Museum of Art shows the can-can dance in the middle of the Moulin Rouge in 1890!

 At the Moulin Rouge: The Dance by Toulouse-Lautrec in the

Manet was not among the many spectators of The Battle of the Kearsarge and the Alabama in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Instead Manet recreated this painting based on the extensive newspaper coverage of this battle near the coast of France.

 Manet was not among the many spectators of The Battle of

When first exhibited, Little Dancer Aged Fourteen by Edgar Degas was not liked and compared with a monkey. Now it is on display all over the world!

 When first exhibited, Little Dancer Aged Fourteen by Edgar

The contrast between colors in the Crucifixion Diptych (c. 1460) by Rogier van de Weyden in the Philadelphia Museum of Art is so beautiful that the painting is already amazing from a large distance!