Biography of Paul Cézanne (0)

“When I judge art, I take my painting and put it next to a God-made object like a tree or flower. If it clashes, it is not art.” – Paul Cézanne

Post-Impressionist French painter Paul Cézanne is one of the most influential artists in the history of twentieth-century painting. Artists Matisse and Picasso said of him, “He is the father of us all.” He formed the bridge between late 19th century Impressionism and the early 20th century’s artistic inquiry and Cubism.

Paintings and Illustrations of Children (0)

We all love to see paintings or Illustrations of a child or children. We enjoy their spontaneity, carefree happiness, playfulness and pure enjoyment of life. It’s nostalgic and brings back memories of our own childhood or makes us think of our children when they were little. Until the mid-eighteenth century, children were thought of as … [View Details]

The Exciting Time of the Golden Age of Illustration (0)

Never before – nor since – has there been such a dramatic and vital development in art form as that which occurred during the Golden Age of Illustration. The distinction between commercial and fine artists became non-existent, and the separation between fine art and popular art was no longer sharply defined. A new avenue of exposure was created for artists through the pages of periodicals, magazines and books. Artists now consciously directed their work towards this mass audience, developed in this very unique era.

Biography of James Jacques-Joseph Tissot (0)

Jacques-Joseph Tissot (tee-soh) was born October 15, 1836 in Nantes, France, to a family of Italian descent. His father, Marcel Théodore Tissot was a successful drapery merchant and his mother, Marie Durand, designed hats and assisted her husband in his business. Tissot was brought up in a pious Catholic home. His youth was spent in … [View Details]

Édouard Manet (0)

Edouard Manet was a defiantFrench painter who broke new ground by ignoring the traditional techniques of artistic representation. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to choose modern and post modern life as the subjects of his paintings, and was pivotal in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.

Claude Monet – In His Own Words (0)

Claude Monet was one of the world’s greatest painters and the original founder and practitioner of the French Impressionist movement. He was the most consistent and enthusiastic supporter of the movement’s philosophy as applied to plein-air landscape painting (painting outdoors). The term Impressionism was derived from the title of his painting Impression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant).

In 1900, after Claude Monet had become famous, he wrote an autobiography of his life at the request of Thiébault-Sisson, a French journalist. It was published in the November 26, 1900, issue of one of Paris’s most important daily newspapers, “Le Temps,” and later translated by Louise McGlone Jacot-Descombes. We have included this autobiography to give you an insight into his personal thoughts. We have first, however, given you the highlights and history of his life.

Vincent van Gogh – a Tortured Life (0)

Vincent van Gogh, one of the world’s greatest artists, lived a short and very tortured life, never finding the love and recognition he so much craved and needed. Although he lived only 37 years and did not begin painting until his late twenties, he produced more than 2,100 works of art, completing many of his best-known works during the last two years of his life. He produced 860 oil paintings and more than 1,300 watercolors, drawings, sketches and prints.

Johannes Vermeer – the Netherlands’ Most Cherished Painter (0)

Johannes Vermeer, now acknowledged as one of the greatest painters of the Dutch Golden Age, lived a modest, quiet life with his wife and eleven children . . . very much an under-rated artist. After his death, his small amount of celebrity status disappeared into obscurity. His great talent and paintings went undiscovered for two centuries.

History of Travel Posters (0)

 “Posters reflect our culture and are like visual graphic icons of the times in which they were created.”  Robin Shepherd, travel poster collector. Travel posters not only advertised travel destinations, they were used by hotels, airlines, railroads and tourism companies to graphically represent themselves to the public. Many of them were considered works of art … [View Details]

Impressionist Art Movement (0)

The Impressionism art movement first developed in France in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a rebellion against the rigid and dark style of the standards prescribed by the French Academy of Fine Arts and France’s annual official art exhibition, The Salon. Impressionism showed optical realism by expressing an actual visual experience of … [View Details]