Pet Portrait Artist & Fine Art Gallery: Artist Reviews

Fine Art Mary Seton Watts, "Art Nouveau's unsung heroine"

21/06/11

Mary Seton Watts (1849–1938) was a symbolist fine art craftswoman, designer and social reformer. more....

The Story of the Fine Art Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood

27/06/11

"In the first place Pre-Raphaelitism was essentially a revolutionary movement and a revolutionary movement against technically bad painting". more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Pablo Picasso (1881 - 1973

01/07/11

PABLO PICASSO (1881 - 1973) – A Spanish painter, sculptor, draughtsman and ceramicist and probably the most versatile and influential fine art artist of the twentieth century. No, actually he was the most versatile and influential artist of the twentieth century. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Giotto Di Bondone (c.1267 - 1337)

01/07/11

GIOTTO DI BONDONE (c.1267-1337) – One of the founding fathers of the Renaissance, Giotto was revered by early commentators as the greatest fine art artist since antiquity. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519)

04/07/11

LEONARDO DA VINCI (1452-1519) – For better or for worse, Leonardo will be forever known as the author of the most famous fine art painting of all time, the "Gioconda" or "Mona Lisa". more....

Fine Art Classic in close up – Paul Cezanne (1839 – 1906)

05/07/11

"Cezanne is the father of us all." One of the best fine art painters of all time. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up – Rembrandt van Rijn (1609 – 1669)

05/07/11

Rembrandt is the great master of Dutch fine art painting, and, along with Velázquez, the main figure of 17th century European Painting. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Diego Velazquez (1599 - 1660)

06/07/11

Along with Rembrandt, Diego Velazquez was one of the summits of Baroque fine art painting. But unlike the Dutch artist, the Seville painter spent most of his life in the comfortable but rigid courtesan society. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Wassily Kandinsky (1866 - 1944)

07/07/11

Black is like the silence of the body after death, the close of life.
-- Wassily Kandinsky, 1911 (Fine Artist) more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Caravaggio (1571-1610)

12/07/11

CARAVAGGIO (1571-1610) – The tough and violent Caravaggio is considered the father of Baroque fine art painting, with his spectacular use of lights and shadows. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up – Claude Monet (1840 – 1926)

13/07/11

The importance of Monet in the history of fine art is sometimes "underrated". more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Albrecht Dürer (1471 - 1528)

16/07/11

The real Leonardo da Vinci of Northern European Renaissance was fine art artist Albrecht Dürer, a restless and innovative genius, master of drawing and colour. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up – Lucian Freud

25/07/11

I am saddened to hear that Lucian Freud has passed away, aged 88. He was widely acknowledged as one of the most important fine art painters of the 20th century and his honesty will be sorely missed. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Jackson Pollock (1912 - 1956)

22/08/11

Jackson Pollock was the major figure of fine art American Abstract Expressionism. Pollock created his best works, his famous drips, between 1947 and 1950. After those fascinating years, comparable to Picasso’s blue period or van Gogh’s final months in Auvers, he abandoned the drip, and his latest works are often bold, unexciting works. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - William Michael Rossetti

31/08/11

William Michael Rossetti was one of the seven founder members of the fine art group Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848, and became the movement's unofficial organizer and bibliographer. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Thomas Woolner

31/08/11

Thomas Woolner RA was an English sculptor and poet who was one of the founder-members of the fine art group Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He was the only sculptor among the original members. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Frederic George Stephens

01/09/11

Frederic George Stephens was one of the two 'non-artistic' members of the fine art group Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and an art critic. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - John Everett Millais

01/09/11

Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet, PRA was one of the founders of the fine art group Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood formed in 1948 and certainly had the greatest natural facility as a painter. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - James Collinson

02/09/11

James Collinson was a Victorian fine art painter who was a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood from 1848 to 1850. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal

02/09/11

Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal (25 July 1829 – 11 February 1862) was an English fine artists' model, poet and artist who was painted and drawn extensively by artists of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Giorgio De Chirico

28/10/11

Giorgio De Chirico (1888-1978) – Considered the father of metaphysical fine art painting and a major influence on the Surrealist movement. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

28/10/11

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867) – Ingres was the most prominent disciple of the most famous neoclassicist fine art painter, Jacques Louis David, so he should not be considered an innovator. He was, however, a master of classic portrait. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Fernand Leger

28/10/11

Fernand Leger (1881-1955) – At first a fine art cubist, Leger was increasingly attracted to the world of machinery and movement, creating works such as "The Discs" (1918). more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Georgia O'Keefe

28/10/11

Georgia O'Keefe (1887-1986) – A leading figure in the 20th century American Fine Art, O'Keefe single-handedly redefined the Western American painting. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Roy Lichtenstein

01/11/11

Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1977) – Along with Andy Warhol, the most famous figure of the fine art American Pop-Art. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Gustave Moreau

01/11/11

Gustave Moreau (1826-1898) – One of the key figures of fine art symbolism, introverted and mysterious in life, but very free, exotic and colourful in his works. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Jackson Pollock

03/01/12

JACKSON POLLOCK (1912-1956) – The major figure of fine art American Abstract Expressionism, Pollock created his best works, his famous drips, between 1947 and 1950. After those fascinating years, comparable to Picasso’s blue period or van Gogh’s final months in Auvers, he abandoned the drip, and his latest works are often bold, unexciting works of fine art. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI

03/01/12

MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI (1475-1564) – Michelangelo, along with Picasso, is the greatest artistic genius of all time, but the fact is that Michelangelo defined himself as "sculptor", and even his painted masterpiece (the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel) are often defined as 'painted sculptures'. Nevertheless, that unforgettable masterpiece is enough to guarantee him a place of honour in the history of fine art painting. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - PAUL GAUGUIN

03/01/12

PAUL GAUGUIN (1848-1903) – One of the most fascinating figures in the history of fine art painting, his works moved from Impressionism (soon abandoned) to a colourful and vigorous symbolism, as can be seen in his 'Polynesian paintings'. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - FRANCISCO DE GOYA

03/01/12

FRANCISCO DE GOYA (1746-1828) - Goya is an enigma. In the whole History of Fine Art few figures are as complex as the artist born in Fuendetodos, Spain. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - VINCENT VAN GOGH

03/01/12

VINCENT VAN GOGH (1853-1890) – Few names in the history of fine art painting are now as famous as Van Gogh, despite the complete neglect he suffered in life. His works, strong and personal, are one of the greatest influences in the twentieth century painting, especially in German Expressionism. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - ÉDOUARD MANET

10/01/12

ÉDOUARD MANET (1832-1883) – Manet was the origin of fine art Impressionism, a revolutionary in a time of great artistic revolutions. His (at the time) quite polemical "Olympia" or "Déjeuner sur l'Herbe" opened the way for the great figures of Impressionism. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - HENRI MATISSE

10/01/12

HENRI MATISSE (1869-1954) – fine Art critics tend to regard Matisse as the greatest exponent of twentieth century painting, only surpassed by Picasso. This is an exaggeration, although the almost pure use of color in some of his works strongly influenced many of the following avant-gardes. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - MARK ROTHKO

10/01/12

MARK ROTHKO (1903-1970) – The influence of Rothko in the history of fine art painting is yet to be quantified, because the truth is that almost 40 years after his death the influence of Rothko's large, dazzling and emotional masses of color continues to increase in many painters of the 21st century. more....

Gerhard Richter At 80

14/01/12

Born in Dresdon in 1932, Gerhard Richter moved to West Germany from the East before the erection of the Berlin Wall. Settling in Dusseldorf, he had had the ‘Socialist Realist’ modes of his early education challenged by exposure to Fluxus’ anti-formalist ethos, and ‘Pop’ works by the likes of Lichtenstein and Warhol. more....

Do you know what it is yet?

20/01/12

One day last week I was at a loss as to what to do. Sure, I had loads to do but of the "to do" list, nothing really grabbed me and so the question was "What to do?". more....

Fine Art Classic in Close Up - William Holman Hunt

25/01/12

William Holman Hunt OM (2 April 1827 – 7 September 1910) was an English fine art painter, and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. more....

Aesthetic Pre-Raphaelitism

25/01/12

The second form of Pre-Raphaelitism, which grew out of the first under the direction of D.G. Rossetti, is Aesthetic Pre-Raphaelitism, and it in turn produced the Arts and Craft Movement, modern functional design, and the Aesthetes and Decadents, Art Nouveau in France and Symbolism in Europe. more....

The PRB Female Models

25/01/12

To attain models for their artwork, the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood typically approached beautiful women in public areas and requested them to pose as subjects in their paintings. more....

Fine Art classic in close up - DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

26/01/12

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI (1828-1882), English poet, illustrator, fine art painter and translator, whose full baptismal name was Gabriel Charles Dante, was born on the 12th of May 1828, at 38 Charlotte Street, Portland Place, London. more....

Fine Art Classic in Close Up - RAPHAEL

13/02/12

RAPHAEL (1483-1520) – Equally loved and hated in different eras, no one can doubt that Raphael is one of the greatest geniuses of the fine art Renaissance period, with an excellent technique in terms of drawing and colour. more....

Fine Art Classic in Close Up - JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT

13/02/12

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1960-1988) - Basquiat is undoubtedly the most important and famous member of the fine art "graffiti movement" that appeared in the New York scene in the early'80s, an artistic movement whose enormous influence on later painting is still to be measured. more....

Fine Art Classic in Close Up - EDVARD MUNCH

14/02/12

EDVARD MUNCH (1863-1944) – Modernist in his context, Munch could be also considered the first expressionist fine art painter in history. Works like "The Scream" are vital to understanding the twentieth century painting. more....

Fine Art Classic in Close Up - PIET MONDRIAN

15/02/12

PIET MONDRIAN (1872 -1944) – Along with Kandinsky and Malevich, Mondrian is the leading figure of early abstract fine art painting. After emigrating to New York, Mondrian filled his abstract paintings with a fascinating emotional quality, as we can see in his series of "boogie-woogies" created in the mid-40s. more....

Fine Art Classic in Close Up - PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA

16/02/12

PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA (1420-1492) - Despite being one of the most important figures of the quattrocento, the Fine Art of Piero della Francesca has been described as “cold”, “hieratic” or even “impersonal”. But with the apparition of Berenson and the great historians of his era, like Michel Hérubel -who defended the “metaphysical dimension” of the paintings by Piero-, his precise and detailed Art finally occupied the place that it deserves in the Art history. more....

Fine Art Classic in Close Up - JOAN MIRÓ

20/02/12

JOAN MIRÓ (1893-1983) – Like most geniuses, Miro is an unclassificable fine art artist. His interest in the world of the unconscious, those hidden in the depths of the mind, link him with Surrealism, but with a personal style, sometimes closer to Fauvism and Expressionism. His most important works are those from the series of "Constellations", created in the early 40s. more....

Fine Art Classic in Close Up - ANDY WARHOL

20/02/12

ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987) – Brilliant and controversial, Warhol is the leading figure of pop-art and one of the icons of contemporary fine art. His silkscreen series depicting icons of the mass-media (as a reinterpretation of Monet's series of Water lilies or the Rouen Cathedral) are one of the milestones of Contemporary Fine Art, with a huge influence in the Art of our days. more....

Fine Art Classic in Close Up - MARC CHAGALL

20/02/12

MARC CHAGALL (1887-1985) – Artist of dreams and fantasies, Chagall was for all his life an immigrant fascinated by the lights and colours of the places he visited. Few names from the School of Paris of the early twentieth century have contributed so much -and with such variety of ideas- to change modern Fine Art as this man "impressed by the light," as he defined himself. more....

Fine Art Classic in Close Up - PETER PAUL RUBENS

20/02/12

PETER PAUL RUBENS (1577-1640) – Rubens was one of the most prolific fine art painters of all time, thanks in part to the collaboration of his study. Very famous in life, he travelled around Europe to meet orders from very wealthy and important clients. His female nudes are still amazing in our days. more....

Fine Art Classic in Close Up - TOMASSO MASACCIO

20/02/12

TOMASSO MASACCIO (1401-1428) – Masaccio was one of the first old fine art masters to use the laws of scientific perspective in his works. One of the greatest innovative painters of the Early Renaissance. more....

The Story Behind Jack Vettriano in His Own Words

05/03/12

To me Jack Vettriano is a legend - not just because of his painting abilities or his contempt for the establishment, but for how he has got to where he is now. more....

A Romantic Artist that is Angela Smyth

05/03/12

On the face of it Angela Smyth might appear to only show the frivolous, lusty side of romance. But is there more to it than that? more....

Classic in close up Andrea Mantegna

01/05/12

ANDREA MANTEGNA (1431-1506) – One of the greatest exponents of the Quattrocento, interested in the human figure, which he often represented under extreme perspectives ("The Dead Christ"). more....

Classic in close up Caspar David Friedrich

01/05/12

CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH (1774-1840) – Leading figure of German Romantic painting, Friedrich is still identified as the painter of landscapes of loneliness and distress, with human figures facing the terrible magnificence of nature. more....

Classic in close up Edgar Degas

02/05/12

EDGAR DEGAS (1834-1917) – Though Degas was not a "pure" impressionist painter, his works shared the ideals of that artistic movement. Degas paintings of young dancers or ballerinas are icons of late 19th century painting. more....

Classic in close up El Greco

02/05/12

EL GRECO (1541-1614) – One of the most original and fascinating artists of his era, with a very personal technique that was admired, three centuries later, by the impressionist painters. more....

Classic in close up Eugene Delacroix

06/05/12

EUGÈNE DELACROIX (1798-1863) – Eugène Delacroix is the French romanticism painter "par excellence" and one of the most important names in the European painting of the first half of the 19th century. His famous “Liberty leading the People” also demonstrates the capacity of Painting to become the symbol of an era. more....

Classic in close up Fra Angelico

06/05/12

FRA ANGELICO (1387-1455) – One of the great colorists from the early Renaissance. Initially trained as an illuminator, he is the author of masterpieces such as The Annunciation in the Prado Museum. more....

Classic in close up Francis Bacon

06/05/12

FRANCIS BACON (1909-1992) - Maximum exponent, along with Lucian Freud, of the so-called "School of London", Bacon's style was totally against all canons of painting, not only in those terms related to beauty, but also against the dominance of the Abstract Expressionism of his time. more....

Classic in close up Frida Kahlo

06/05/12

FRIDA KAHLO (1907-1954) – In recent years, Frida's increasing fame seems to have obscured her importance in Latin American art. On September 17th, 1925, Kahlo was almost killed in a terrible bus accident. She did not died, but the violent crash had terrible sequels, breaking her spinal column, pelvis, and right leg. After this accident, Kahlo's self-portraits can be considered as quiet but terrible moans. more....

Classic in close up Georges Seurat

07/05/12

GEORGES SEURAT (1859-1891) - Georges Seurat is one of the most important post-impressionist painters, and he is considered the creator of the "pointillism", a style of painting in which small distinct points of primary colours create the impression of a wide selection of secondary and intermediate colours. more....

Classic in close up Giorgione

07/05/12

GIORGIONE (1478-1510) - Like so many other painters who died at young age, Giorgione (1477-1510) makes us wonder what place would his exquisite painting occupy in the history of Art if he had enjoyed a long existence, just like his direct artistic heir - Titian. more....

Classic in close up Gustav Klimt

09/05/12

GUSTAV KLIMT (1862-1918) – Half way between modernism and symbolism appears the figure of Gustav Klimt, who was also devoted to the industrial arts. His nearly abstract landscapes also make him a forerunner of geometric abstraction. more....

Classic in close up Gustave Courbet

09/05/12

GUSTAVE COURBET (1819-1877) – Leading figure of realism, and a clear precedent for the impressionists, Courbet was one of the greatest revolutionaries, both as an artist and as a social-activist, of the history of painting. Like Rembrandt and other predecessors, Courbet did not seek to create beauty, but believed that beauty is achieved when and artist represents the purest reality without artifice. more....

Classic in close up Hans Holbein

09/05/12

HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER (1497-1543) – After Dürer, Holbein is the greatest of the German painters of his time. The fascinating portrait of The Ambassadors is still considered one of the most enigmatic paintings of art history. more....

Classic in close up Jan Vermeer

10/05/12

JAN VERMEER (1632-1675) – Vermeer was the leading figure of the Delft School, and for sure one of the greatest landscape painters of all time. Works such as View of the Delft"are considered almost Impressionist due to the liveliness of his brushwork. He was also a skilled portraitist. more....

Classic in close up Jasper Johns

10/05/12

JASPER JOHNS (born 1930) – The last living legend of the early Pop Art, although he has never considered himself a 'pop artist'. His most famous works are the series of Flags and Targets. more....

Classic in close up Jean-Antoine Watteau

11/05/12

JEAN-ANTOINE WATTEAU (1684-1721) – Watteau is today considered one of the pioneers of rococo. Unfortunately, he died at the height of his powers, as it is evidenced in the great portrait of "Gilles" painted in the year of his death. more....

Classic in close up Kasimir Malevich

11/05/12

KASIMIR MALEVICH (1878-1935) – Creator of Suprematism, Malevich will forever be one of the most controversial figures of the history of art among the general public, divided between those who consider him an essential renewal and those who consider that his works based on polygons of pure colours do not deserve to be considered Art. more....

Classic in close up Marcel Duchamp

16/05/12

MARCEL DUCHAMP (1887-1968) – One of the major figures of Dadaism and a prototype of "total artist", Duchamp is one of the most important and controversial figures of his era. His contribution to painting is just a small part of his huge contribution to the art world. more....

Classic in close up Max Ernst

16/05/12

MAX ERNST (1891-1976) – Halfway between Surrealism and Dadaism appears Max Ernst, important in both movements. Ernst was a brave artistic explorer thanks in part to the support of his wife and patron, Peggy Guggenheim. more....

Classic in close up Nicolas Poussin

01/06/12

NICOLAS POUSSIN (1594-1665) – The greatest among the great French Baroque painters, Poussin had a vital influence on French painting for many centuries. His use of colour is unique among all the painters of his era. more....

Classic in close up - Paolo Uccello

01/06/12

PAOLO UCCELLO (1397-1475) – “Solitary, eccentric, melancholic and poor”. Giorgio Vasari described with these four words one of the most audacious geniuses of the early Florentine Renaissance, Paolo Uccello. more....

Classic in close up - Paul Klee

01/06/12

PAUL KLEE (1879-1940) – In a period of artistic revolutions and innovations, few artists were as crucial as Paul Klee. His studies of colour, widely taught at the Bauhaus, are unique among all the artists of his time. more....

Classic in close up - Salvador Dali

02/06/12

SALVADOR DALÍ (1904-1989) – "I am Surrealism!" shouted Dalí when he was expelled from the surrealist movement by André Breton. Although the quote sounds presumptuous (which was not unusual in Dalí), the fact is that Dalí's paintings are now the most famous images of all the surrealist movement. more....

Classic in close up - Sandro Botticelli

02/06/12

SANDRO BOTTICELLI (1445-1510) – "If Botticelli were alive now he would be working for Vogue", said actor Peter Ustinov. As well as Raphael, Botticelli had been equally loved or hated in different eras, but his use of colour is one of the most fascinating among all old masters. more....

Classic in close up - Tintoretto

02/06/12

TINTORETTO (1518-1594) - Tintoretto is the most flamboyant of all Venetian masters (not the best, such honour can only be reclaimed by Titian or Giorgione) and his remarkable oeuvre not only closed the Venetian splendour till the apparition of Canaletto and his contemporaries, but also makes him the last of the Cinquecento masters. more....

Classic in close up Titian (Tiziano Vecellio)

08/06/12

TITIAN (c.1476-1576) – After the premature death of Giorgione, Titian became the leading figure of Venetian painting of his time. His use of color and his taste for mythological themes defined the main features of 16th century Venetian Art. His influence on later artists -Rubens, Velázquez and others, is extremely important. more....

Classic in close up Willem de Kooning

08/06/12

WILLEM DE KOONING (1904-1997) – After Pollock, the leading figure of abstract expressionism, though one of his greatest contributions was not to feel limited by the abstraction, often resorting to a heartbreaking figurative painting (his series of "Women" are the best example) with a major influence on later artists such as Francis Bacon or Lucian Freud. more....

Classic in close up William Blake

08/06/12

WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827) – Revolutionary and mystic, painter and poet, Blake is one of the most fascinating artists of any era. His watercolors, prints and temperas are filled with a wild imagination (almost crazyness), unique among the artists of his era. more....

Classic in close up Winslow Homer

08/06/12

WINSLOW HOMER (1836-1910) – The main figure of American painting of his era, Homer was a breath of fresh air for the American artistic scene, which was "stuck" in academic painting and the more romantic Hudson River School. Homer's loose and lively brushstroke is almost impressionistic. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1881)

02/12/12

Turner is the best landscape painter of Western painting. Whereas he had been at his beginnings an academic painter, Turner was slowly but unstoppably evolving towards a free, atmospheric style, sometimes even outlining the abstraction, which was misunderstood and rejected by the same critics who had admired him for decades. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Jan Van Eyck (1390-1441)

02/12/12

Van Eyck is the colossal pillar on which rests the whole Flemish paintings from later centuries, the genius of accuracy, thoroughness and perspective, well above any other artist of his time, either Flemish or Italian. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - John Constable (1776-1837)

02/12/12

John Constable is, along with Turner, the great figure of English romanticism. But unlike his contemporary, he never left England, and he devoted all his time to represent the life and landscapes of his beloved England. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900)

02/12/12

Church represents the culmination of the Hudson River School: he had Cole's love for the landscape, Asher Brown Durand's romantic lyricism, and Albert Bierstadt's grandiloquence, but he was braver and technically more gifted than anyone of them. Church is without any doubt one of the greatest landscape painters of all time, perhaps only surpassed by Turner and some impressionists and postimpressionists like Monet or Cézanne. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919)

02/12/12

One of the key figures of Impressionism, he soon left the movement to pursue a more personal, academic painting. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Frans Hals (c.1580-1666)

02/12/12

One of the most important portraitists ever, his lively brushwork influenced early impressionism. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Claude Lorrain (1600-1682)

02/12/12

His works were a vital influence on many landscape painters for many centuries, both in Europe (Corot, Courbet) and in America (Hudson River School). more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - David Hockney (Born 1937 )

02/12/12

David Hockney is one of the living myths of the Pop Art. Born in Great Britain, he moved to California, where he immediately felt identified with the light, the culture and the urban landscape of the 'Golden State'. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Umberto Boccioni (1882-1916)

02/12/12

The maximum figure of Italian Futurism, fascinated by the world of the machine, and the movement as a symbol of contemporary times. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Joachim Patinir (1480-1524)

02/12/12

Much less technically gifted than other Flemish painters like Memling or van der Weyden, his contribution to the history of art is vital for the incorporation of landscape as a major element in the painting. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Duccio di Buoninsegna (c.1255/60 – 1318/19)

02/12/12

While in Florence Giotto di Bondone was changing the history of painting, Duccio of Buonisegna provided a breath of fresh air to the important Sienese School. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Rogier Van der Weyden (1399-1464)

04/12/12

After Van Eyck, the leading exponent of Flemish painting in the fifteenth century; a master of perspective and composition. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825)

04/12/12

David is the summit of neoclassicism, a grandiloquent artist whose compositions seem to reflect his own hectic and revolutionary life. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Arshile Gorky (1905-1948)

05/12/12

Armenian-born American painter, Gorky was a surrealist painter and also one of the leaders of abstract expressionism. He was called "the Ingres of the unconscious". more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Hieronymus Bosch (1450-1516)

05/12/12

An extremely religious man, all works by Bosch are basically moralising, didactic. The artist sees in the society of his time the triumph of sin, the depravation, and all the things that have caused the fall of the human being from its angelical character, and he wants to warn his contemporaries about the terrible consequences of his impure acts. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1528-1569)

06/12/12

Many scholars and art critics claim to have found important similarities between the works by Hyeronimus Bosch and those by Brueghel, but the truth is that the differences between both of them are abysmal. Whereas Bosch's fantasies are born of a deep deception and preoccupation for the human being, with a clearly moralizing message, works by Bruegel are full of irony, and even filled with a love for the rural life, which seems to anticipate the Dutch landscape paintings from the next century. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Simone Martini (c1284–1344)

06/12/12

One of the great painters of the Trecento, he was a step further and helped to expand its progress, which culminated in the "International Style". more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Edward Hopper (1882-1967)

06/12/12

Hopper is widely known as the painter of urban loneliness. His most famous work, the fabulous Nighthawks (1942) has become the symbol of the solitude of the contemporary metropolis, and it is one of the icons of the 20th century Art. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Lucio Fontana (1899-1968)

06/12/12

Father of the White Manifesto, in which he stated that "Matter, colour and sound in motion are the phenomena whose simultaneous development makes up the new art". His Concepts Spatiales are already icons of the art of the second half of the twentieth century. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Franz Marc (1880-1916)

06/12/12

After Kandinsky, the great figure of the Expressionist group "The Blue Rider" and one of the most important expressionist painters ever. He died at the height of his artistic powers, when his use of colour was even anticipating the later abstraction. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Egon Schiele (1890-1918)

07/12/12

Another "died too young" artist, his strong and ruthless portraits influenced the works of later artists, like Lucian freud or Francis Bacon. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - El Lissitzky (1890-1941)

07/12/12

One of the main exponents of Russian avant-garde painting. Influenced by Malevich, he also excelled in graphic design. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Rene Magritte (1898-1967)

07/12/12

One of the leading figures of surrealism, his apparently simple works are the result of a complex reflection about reality and the world of dreams. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - James Whistler (1856-1921)

08/12/12

Along with Winslow Homer, the great figure of American painting of his time. Whistler was an excellent portraitist, which is shown in the fabulous portrait of his mother, considered one of the great masterpieces of American painting of all time. more....

Fine Art Classic in close up - Theodore Gericault (1791-1824)

08/12/12

A key figure in romanticism, revolutionary in his life and works despite his bourgeois origins. In his masterpiece, The Raft of the Medusa, Gericault creates a painting that we can define as "politically incorrect", as it depicts the miseries of a large group of castaways abandoned after the shipwreck of a French naval frigate. more....