Important Artworks to Memorize

Royal Mosque, Isfahan, Iran, 1612-1637

Built during the Safavid Empire, it is regarded as one of the masterpieces of Persian architecture in the Islamic era. Its splendor is mainly due to the beauty of its seven-colour mosaic tiles and calligraphic inscriptions. Gothic arches.

Eugene Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People, 1830, France.

If Jacques-Louis David is the most perfect example of French Neoclassicism, and his most accomplished pupil Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, represents a transitional figure between Neoclassicism and Romanticism, then Eugène Delacroix stands (with, perhaps, Theodore Gericault) as the most representative painter of French romanticism. Neoclassicists relied on drawing and line for their compositions. Romanticists instead elevated color over line. Romanticism, first defined as an aesthetic in literary criticism around 1800, gained momentum as an artistic movement in France and Britain in the early decades of the nineteenth century and flourished until mid-century. With its emphasis on the imagination and emotion, Romanticism emerged as a response to the disillusionment with the Enlightenment values of reason and order in the aftermath of the French Revolution of 1789. Delacroix's oil on canvas painting, Liberty Leading the People, at first seems to be overpowered by chaos, but on closer inspection, it is a composition filled with subtle order. The first thing a viewer may notice is the monumental—and nude to the waist—female figure. Her yellow dress has fallen from her shoulders, as she holds a bayonetted musket in her left hand and raises the tricolor—the French national flag—with her right. This red, white, and blue arrangement of the flag is mimicked by the attire worn by the man looking up at her. She powerfully strides forward and looks back over her right shoulder as if to ensure those who she leads are following. Her head is shown in profile—like a ruler on a classical coin—and she wears atop her head a Phrygian cap, a classical signifier of freedom. She serves as an allegory—in this instance, a pictorial device intended to reveal a moral or political idea—of Liberty. But if the female figure represents an allegory, those who surround her represent different types of people. The man on the far left holds a briquet (an infantry saber commonly used during the Napoleonic Wars). His clothing—apron, working shirt, and sailor's trousers—identify him as a factory worker, a person in the lower end of the economic ladder. His other attire identifies his revolutionary leanings.

Yakshi, Sanchi, India, first cent. B.C. Buddhist

She is representational of fertility, etc. (as seen by her enlarged breasts) at the entryway to a stupa. It is a sculpture made of sandstone.

Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights, The Netherlands, 1505-1510

The first panel depicts God, looking like a mad scientist in a landscape animated by vaguely alchemical vials and beakers, presiding over the introduction of Eve to Adam (which, in itself, is a rather rare subject). Although they are precisely located in the centre foreground, in scale Adam and Eve—as well as God—are precisely as important as the other creatures in this paradisiacal garden, including an elephant, a giraffe (straight out of Piero de' Cosimo) a unicorn and other more hybrid and less recognizable animals, along with birds, fish, other aquatic creations, snakes and insects. The introduction of woman to man, in this setting, is clearly intended to highlight not only God's creativity but human procreative capacity. In the hierarchy of God's handiwork, Adam and Eve represent his most daring achievement, as though after he'd made everything else he thought he needed to leave a signature on the world in which he could recognize himself. It's a matter of conjecture, when one proceeds to the central panel, as to whether Bosch is saying that the creation of man, on whom God conferred free will, might have been a divine mistake. This is the panel from which the title Garden of Earthly Delights was derived. Here Bosch's humans, the offspring of Adam and Eve, gambol freely in a surrealistic paradisiacal garden, appearing as mad manifestations of a whimsical creator—sensate cogs of nature alive in a larger, animate machine. It is a matter of divided opinion as to what, exactly, the humans are actually doing in this delightful, dense and nonsensical landscape, alive with a dizzying array of some of Bosch's most delectable creatures and dotted with his alembic architecture. It is almost as though he imagined the world of creation as a terrific Willy Wonka series of machines with humans as their product. Given Bosch's emphasis on nude figures, some of which are engaged in amorous activities —although none in flagrante—this central scene has often been interpreted as a warning against lust, particularly in conjunction with the third panel, depicting Hell (the Spanish Hapsburgs, in fact, referred to the work as "La Lujuria" — lust). I wonder though. Bosch's depiction of humans cavorting in the elemental world of God's creation, seems, to me, less inculpatory than simply a commentary on the fact that there's little to differentiate man from animals from plants. In the end, there is folly and there is much that is visceral, but there's no real vice. Bosch saves the best for last. Earlier visions of Hell, if indeed that's what Bosch intended here, are pretty tame in comparison to this. Against a backdrop of blackness, prison-like city walls are etched in inky silhouette against areas of flame and everywhere human bodies huddle in groups, amass in armies or are subject to strange tortures at the hands of oddly-clad executioners and animal-demons. Dotted about are more crazy machine-like structures that seem designed to process human flesh. Some of these are strikingly disturbing. Near the center, a bird-like creature seated in a latrine chair, like a king on a throne, ingests humans and excretes them out again; nearby a wretched human is encouraged to vomit into a well in which other human faces swirl beneath the water. In general, the bodies purge themselves or are purged of demons, black birds, vomitus fluids, blood; as in any good Boschian world, bottoms continue to be prodded with various instruments. But the general emphasis is on purgation. Overall, there is a marked emphasis on musical instruments as symbols of evil distraction, the siren call of self-indulgence, and the large ears, which scuttle along the ground although pierced with a knife, are a powerful allusion to the deceptive lure of the senses. In fact, many of the symbols and the tortures here are pretty standard in the catalogue of the Seven Deadly Sins, in which our senses deceive our thoughts into self-indulgent over-consumption. One key element here, however, requires some explication—the central, Humpty-Dumpty-ish figure who gazes out of the scene, his cracked-shell body impaled on the limbs of a dead tree. The art historian Hans Belting thought this was a self-portrait of Bosch, and a lot of people believe this, but it's impossible to verify. Still, it quite strikingly illustrates the presence of a controlling, human consciousness in the centre of all this tortured imagining. And this is where my interpretation parts ways with those who have come before. Oil painting on oak panel.

Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith and Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes, c. 1625Italian Baroque

The story of Judith and Holofernes is recounted in the Book of Judith, a 2nd century text deemed apocryphal by the Jewish and Protestant traditions, but included in Catholic editions of the Bible. Like the story of David and Goliath, it was a popular subject of art in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Rivulets of blood run down the white sheets, as Judith, a pious young widow from the Jewish city of Bethulia, beheads Holofernes, general of the Assyrian army that had besieged her city. Moved by the plight of her people and filled with trust in God, Judith took matters into her own hands. She coiffed her hair, donned her finest garments and entered the enemy camp under the pretense of bringing Holofernes information that would ensure his victory. Struck by her beauty, he invited her to dine, planning later to seduce her. As the biblical text recounts, "Holofernes was so enchanted with her that he drank far more wine than he had drunk on any other day in his life" (Judith 12:20). Judith saw her opportunity; with a prayer on her lips and a sword in her hand, she saved her people from destruction. This particular painting, executed by Artemisia Gentileschi in Florence c. 1620 and now in the Uffizi, is one of the bloodiest and most vivid depictions of the scene, surpassing the version by Caravaggio, arch-realist of Baroque Rome, in its immediacy and shocking realism. Artemisia was certainly familiar with Caravaggio's painting of the subject; her father Orazio, who was responsible for her artistic training, was Caravaggio's friend and artistic follower. Caravaggio's painting inspired, and perhaps even challenged, the young Artemisia. A comparison between the two reveals not only her debt to the older artist, but also a series of pointed modifications that heighten the intensity of the physical struggle, the quantity of blood spilled, and the physical and psychological strength of Judith and her maidservant, Abra. In Artemisia's painting the bloody sheets are in the immediate foreground, close to the viewer's space. Holofernes's muscular body projects dynamically into the depicted space as bold areas of light and dark draw attention to his powerful limbs. Artemisia depicts two strong, young women working in unison, their sleeves rolled up, their gazes focused, their grips firm. The sword, here longer and held more vertically, prominently marks the painting's central axis which extends from Abra's arm to the blood that runs down the edge of the bed. This powerful visual axis reinforces the strength of the women and the violence of the deed. It is no accident that Judith's sword-clenching fist is at the very center of the composition; imbued with divine strength, this widow's hand is now the hand of God protecting the Israelites from their enemies. People thought that the painting was so good that there was no way a women could have painted it, and for a while they gave the credit to her father. Eventually they figured out that it was Artemisia who painted it, not her father.

Crowned Head of an Oni, Nigeria, 12-15th century Africa, copper alloy, Yoruba people

This is an idealized portrait of an Oni king, however it is very naturalistic. These were typically used in funeral rites.

Peter Harrison, Touro Synagogue, 1759-1763, Newport, Rhode Island

The Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island is the only Jewish house of worship that survives from the American colonial period. Built at the threshold of America's Revolutionary period, it survived the war and the damaging occupation of Newport by British troops. After the war, the congregation returned and the synagogue formed the focal point for the affirmation by President Washington himself of the religious freedom protected in the new nation. The outside of the building is fairly simple, without too much ornamentation. The inside is not spectacular but is beautiful, with a great chandelier, etc.

Michaelangelo, David, 1501-1504

This is a marble carving from the High Renaissance, which stands about 14ft tall, in a contrapposto position. David is a biblical hero who defeated the Goliath with only a sling, rock, and his courage. He has an extremely idealized form and seems to be in the prime of his age, maybe in his twenties. It is often compared to the David by Donatello as well as one by Bernini.

Giselbertus, The Last Judgement, Autun, France, c.1130

This is at the entryway of a cathedral in France, during the Romanesque period of Europe, right before the High Middle Ages (medieval era) in which Gothic style dominated. It depicts the weighing of the souls by Christ. It is a relief.

J. M. W. Turner, The Slave Ship, 1840, British, Romanticism

"The Slave Ship" (1840), by Joseph Mallord William Turner, is a perfect example of a romantic landscape painting. His style is expressed more through dramatic emotion, somtimes taking advantage of the imagination. Instead of carefully observing and portraying nature, William Turner took a landscape of a stormy sea and turned it into a scene with roaring and tumultuous waves that seem to destroy everything in its path. Turner's aims were to take unique aspects of nature and find a way to appeal strongly to people's emotions. It depicts an incident that happened in 1783, involving a ship filled with slaves. Many of the slaves onboard were sick, but the captain's insurance company would not pay him for slaves that died on board the ship. He would only be paid for the slaves that were lost at sea. In order to earn the money he wished, he ordered all the sick and dying to jump off the ship and into the sea. It was a gruesome scene that influenced Turner to create his landscape. William Turner used many techniques typical to Romantic painters. In this painting he does not have defined brush stokes, this makes the picture appear blurry and makes the viewer uses their imagination more. Also, the most vibrant colors can be found in the orange around the sun and some of the blue in the ocean. This is typical of Romantic art because it is focusing on nature, and the power that nature has over man.

Gordon Parks, American Gothic, Washington D.C., 1942

African American photographer Gordon Parks spent his youth in Minnesota and later became prominent in documentary journalism from the 1940s through 1970s, focusing on issues of civil rights and poverty. A year-long fellowship with the Information Division of the Farm Security Administration in 1942 supported his work documenting black lives in Washington, D.C. He later said of this photograph, a portrait of government cleaning woman Ella Watson: "I had experienced a kind of bigotry and discrimination here that I never expected to experience. . . . At first, I asked [Ella Watson] about her life, what it was like, and [it was] so disastrous that I felt that I must photograph this woman in a way that would make me feel or make the public feel about what Washington, D.C., was in 1942. So I put her before the American flag with a broom in one hand and a mop in another. And I said, 'American Gothic'—that's how I felt at the moment."

Raphael, School of Athens (1510-11), Vatican, Italy

Again, this is from the High Renaissance. It is a giant fresco in the Vatican. Raphael took some inspiration from Masaccio's Holy Trinity, as can be seen by the vaulted ceilings. Depicts an ideal community full of intellectuals from the Classical era. In the center, Plato and Aristotle are meant to be discussing different ideologies, etc.

Edward Hopper, Nighthawks, 1942

An oil on canvas painting Nighthawks, which was created at the beginning of America's involvement in World War II, depicts people in a downtown diner late at night. (They were probably all worried about being bombed). The scene was supposedly inspired by a diner (since demolished) in Greenwich Village, Hopper's neighborhood in Manhattan. Despite these real-life details, the empty composition and flat, abstracting planes of color give the canvas a timeless feel, making it an object onto which one can project one's own reality. Perhaps this is why it has lent itself to so well to many parodies, even appearing as a motif on an episode of The Simpsons. The painting's modern-day appeal can also be understood because of its ability to evoke a sense of nostalgia for an America of a time gone-by. Despite its surface beauty, this world is one measured in cups of coffee, imbued with an overwhelming sense of loneliness, and a deep desire, but ultimate inability, to connect with those around us.

Vincent Van Gogh, The Night Cafe, 1888

An oil painting created by Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh in September 1888 in Arles, France, in a post-impressionist style. He wrote to his brother Theo, "In my picture of the Night Café I have tried to express the idea that the café is a place where one can ruin oneself, go mad or commit a crime. So I have tried to express, as it were, the powers of darkness in a low public house, by soft Louis XV green and malachite, contrasting with yellow-green and harsh blue-greens, and all this in an atmosphere like a devil's furnace, of pale sulphur. And all with an appearance of Japanese gaiety, and the good nature of Tartarin." Unlike typical Impressionist works, the painter does not project a neutral stance towards the world or an attitude of enjoyment of the beauty of nature or of the moment. The painting is an instance of Van Gogh's use of what he called "suggestive colour" or, as he would soon term it, "arbitrary colour" in which the artist infused his works with his emotions, typical of what was later called Expressionism.

Robert Smithson Spiral Jetty, 1970Earth ArtLocation: Utah

Art & Place is a celebration of the most awesome and outstanding examples of site-specific art in the Americas, ranging from rock carvings by ancient tribes to magnificent frescoes and modern, outdoor installations. Take, for example, Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty (1970) located at Rozel Point, Great Salt Lake, Utah. With its beautiful, lakeside setting and the vastness of its scale, it's little wonder the book's editors chose this as the cover image. Robert Smithson made the decision to move his work into the great outdoors in the late 1960s, when he became disenchanted with the galleries, which he described as "mausoleums for art", too bound up with commodification and commercialism, which were alien to the true and free artistic spirit. Smithson wanted to reconnect with the environment - hence works like Spiral Jetty, which also reflected his interest in science and geology. To create the 457 metre long spiral, Smithson bulldozed material from the shore into the lake. It is a man-made, artistic creation but unlike most gallery art, it lies horizontal and dwarfs the human spectator, who feels that sense of smallness he or she experiences when in the presence of nature's beauty, or perhaps contemplating the stars. Outer space was very much on Smithson's mind when he created Spiral Jetty. In 1969, just prior to its creation, Neil Armstrong had become the first human to set foot on the moon, and mankind was reevaluating its relationship with the cosmos. The jetty resembles a galaxy in its shape. However, the spectator walks around it in an anti-clockwise direction, and is thereby prompted not just to consider cosmology but also to move backwards through geological time.

Shiva as Nataraja, Lord of the Dance, India, c. 1000

As a symbol, Shiva Nataraja is a brilliant invention. It combines in a single image Shiva's roles as creator, preserver, and destroyer of the universe and conveys the Indian conception of the never-ending cycle of time. Although it appeared in sculpture as early as the fifth century, its present, world-famous form evolved under the rule of the Cholas. Shiva's dance is set within a flaming halo. The god holds in his upper right hand the damaru (hand drum that made the first sounds of creation). His upper left hand holds agni (the fire that will destroy the universe). With his lower right hand, he makes abhayamudra (the gesture that allays fear). The dwarflike figure being trampled by his right foot represents apasmara purusha (illusion, which leads mankind astray). Shiva's front left hand, pointing to his raised left foot, signifies refuge for the troubled soul. The energy of his dance makes his hair fly to the sides. The symbols imply that, through belief in Shiva, his devotees can achieve salvation. Sculpture. The one in the picture is a copper alloy but there are many recreations and sculptures of similar types.

Jacques-Louis David, Death of Marat, 1793, French, Neo-classical style

At the height of the Reign of Terror in 1793, David painted a memorial to his great friend, the murdered publisher, Jean Marat. Neo-classical art is art that recaptures Greco-Roman grace and grandeur. David, Marat's colleague in the Convention, had visited him only the day before the murder, and he recalled the setting of the room vividly, the tub, the sheet, the green rug, the wooden packing case, and above all, the pen of the journalist. He saw in Marat a model of antique "virtue." The day after the murder, David was invited by the Convention to make arrangements for the funeral ceremony, and to paint Marat's portrait. He accepted with enthusiasm, but the decomposed state of the body made a true-to-life representation of the victim impossible. This circumstance, coupled with David's own emotional state, resulted in the creation of this idealized image.

Vasily Kandinsky, Improvisation No. 27, (Garden of Love), 1912

Believing that an engagement with the spiritual could ennoble his artwork, in the early twentieth century Wassily Kandinsky began turning away from the idea that art should convey a faithful likeness of things in nature. Instead, he sought to reveal the "soul" of his subjects, which did not rely on outward appearance. With his established goal being the communication of inner essences, Kandinsky created works that were increasingly abstract. By calling this painting The Garden of Love, Kandinsky makes a clear reference to the Garden of Eden. However, his interest in the spiritual was too broad for a strictly literal interpretation of a bible story. While a shining sun is identifiable at the center of the canvas, very little else in the scene is recognizable. Rather than depicting human figures and animals, Kandinsky merely suggests them. Rough sketches of couples, for instance, meld into single shapes, attesting to Kandinsky's belief that the idea of the Garden of Love could be expressed without explicit representation of the physical world. Ultimately, Kandinsky wanted his art to be able to communicate on its own terms, independent of naturalistic signs. He looked to lines and color as the foundations of this visual "language" that he likened to that of music, which expressed pure emotion free of representation. Kandinsky's interest in the connection between art and music is revealed in the titles of his paintings, which often describe the works as musical forms. The Garden of Love, for instance, was alternately called Improvisation 27. Kandinsky was Russian but this painting was bought by Alfred Stieglitz at the Armory show in New York. Abstract expressionism; oil on canvas.

Le Corbusier, Notre Dame du Haut, 1950-1955, France

Completed in 1954, the Ronchamp chapel was built for a Catholic church on a pre-existing pilgrimage site. The previous stone building had been largely destroyed during the second world war. It is considered one of the most important buildings of the 20th century, and represents a key shift away from the sparse, functionalist form of Modernism that Le Corbusier displayed in his earlier projects. In the Ronchamp work Le Corbusier demonstrates his ability to interpret expressionistic aspects, in a sharp break with the prevalently Cubist and Rationalist character underlying most of his work. In fact here we can see an approach similar to the one that led Picasso from Analytic Cubism in the 1910s to the emotional release of Guernica (1937). Its greatest contribution has been the way it proposes new freedom in designing religious space, now independent of Holy Cross symbolism. Here the church loses its traditional symmetry and, therefore, its authoritarian structure, which had always been based on a clear separation of spaces for the clergy and for the congregation. Le Corbusier returns the church to its function as a space for community

Jean-Honore Fragonard, The Swing, France, 1767

Considered to be Fragonard's most successful painting, The Swing stands alone today as an emblem of Rococo art. The combination of insouciant attitude, tongue-in-cheek eroticism, pastel swirls, and pastoral scenery creates an irresistible testament to the beauty of youth and illegitimate affairs. In the foreground the playboy Baron himself is depicted, reclining in the lush shrubbery, one arm outstretched towards the maiden's skirts, his other arm holding his balance. He gave very specific instructions to Fragonard, stating "Place me in a position where I can observe the legs of that charming girl. " In the background of the composition one can see what was originally going to be the Bishop requested by the perverse Baron, but which was changed to the mistress's husband by Fragonard. The husband plays a lesser role, being immersed in shadow while the Baron is illuminated under the maiden's dress. The inanimate objects add to the story as well. Two cherubs below the swing appear concerned by the sordid actions of the humans above them, one looking up at the women in trepidation and the other looking away from the action with a scowl. On the left side of the image is a stone statue of Cupid who raises a finger to his lips to point out the secretive nature of the impending affair. Overall Fragonard's The Swing, rich with symbolism, not only manages to capture a moment of complete spontaneity and joie de vivre, but also alludes to the illicit affair that may have already been going on, or is about to begin. Oil on canvas.

Aztec Marriage Couple, Codex Mendoza, Mexico

Created fourteen years after the 1521 Spanish conquest of Mexico with the intent that it be seen by Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor & King of Spain. The figures are very flat - this was during the same time as the High Renaissance in Europe however the Aztecs had not discovered depth by orthogonal lines and vanishing points. They had writing to explain what was going on during this ceremony. Cultures invent/use what is important to them. They thought it was important to convey the meaning of their rituals, and so they did - they did not think that the realistic aspects of their art was too significant, so they didn't work too much on that.

Eduard Manet, Déjeuner sur l'Herbe, 1863

Dejeuner sur l'Herbe," 1863 was one of a number of impressionist works that broke away from the classical view that art should obey established conventions and seek to achieve timelessness. The painting was rejected by the salon that displayed painting approved by the official French academy. The rejection was occasioned not so much by the female nudes in Manet's painting, a classical subject, as by their presence in a modern setting, accompanied by clothed, bourgeois men. The incongruity suggested that the women were not goddesses but models, or possibly prostitutes.

Raphael Sanzio, Madonna of the Meadow, c. 1505

Depicts Madonna and Christ, and John the Baptist in a highly serene, highly idealized way. They are in somewhat of a triangular formation, representing balance and stability. The color palette is light and there are no harsh edges, even in the background, though chiaroscuro is used (the contrast between light and dark) - again, everything is soft and balanced and peaceful. Aerial perspective was used to create depth (there is a horizon line in the back). This was painted during the High Renaissance.

Joe Rosenthal, Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, 1945

During the bloody Battle for Iwo Jima, U.S. Marines from the 3rd Platoon, E Company, 2nd Battalion, 28th Regiment of the 5th Division take the crest of Mount Suribachi, the island's highest peak and most strategic position, and raise the U.S. flag. Marine photographer Louis Lowery was with them and recorded the event. American soldiers fighting for control of Suribachi's slopes cheered the raising of the flag, and several hours later more Marines headed up to the crest with a larger flag. Joe Rosenthal, a photographer with the Associated Press, met them along the way and recorded the raising of the second flag along with a Marine still photographer and a motion-picture cameraman.The photo was the centerpiece of a war-bond poster that helped raise $26 billion in 1945.

Edvard Munch, The Scream, 1893, Norway, Expressionism

For all its notoriety, The Scream is in fact a surprisingly simple work, in which the artist utilized a minimum of forms to achieve maximum expressiveness. It consists of three main areas: the bridge, which extends at a steep angle from the middle distance at the left to fill the foreground; a landscape of shoreline, lake or fjord, and hills; and the sky, which is activated with curving lines in tones of orange, yellow, red, and blue-green. Foreground and background blend into one another, and the lyrical lines of the hills ripple through the sky as well. The human figures are starkly separated from this landscape by the bridge. Its strict linearity provides a contrast with the shapes of the landscape and the sky. The two faceless upright figures in the background belong to the geometric precision of the bridge, while the lines of the foreground figure's body, hands, and head take up the same curving shapes that dominate the background landscape. Munch's approach to the experience of synesthesia, or the union of senses (for example the belief that one might taste a color or smell a musical note), results in the visual depiction of sound and emotion. As such, The Scream represents a key work for the Symbolist movement as well as an important inspiration for the Expressionist movement of the early twentieth century. Munch sought to express internal emotions through external forms and thereby provide a visual image for a universal human experience.

Norman Rockwell, Freedom from Want, covers for the Saturday Evening Post, 1943

Freedom from Want, also known as The Thanksgiving Picture or I'll Be Home for Christmas, is the third of the Four Freedoms series of four oil paintings by American artist Norman Rockwell. The works were inspired by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1941 State of the Union Address, known as Four Freedoms.The work depicts a group of people gathered around a dinner table for a holiday meal. Having been partially created on Thanksgiving Day to depict the celebration, it has become an iconic representation of the Thanksgiving holiday and family holiday gatherings in general. The Post published Freedom from Want with a corresponding essay by Carlos Bulosan as part of the Four Freedoms series. Despite many who endured sociopolitical hardships abroad, Bulosan's essay spoke on behalf of those enduring the socioeconomic hardships domestically, and it thrust him into prominence. The painting has had a wide array of adaptations, parodies, and other uses, such as for the cover for the 1946 book Norman Rockwell, Illustrator. Although the image was popular at the time in the United States and remains so, it caused resentment in Europe where the masses were enduring wartime hardship. Artistically, the work is highly regarded as an example of mastery of the challenges of white-on-white painting and as one of Rockwell's most famous works.

Constantin Brancusi's Bird in Space, 1927 Romanian, also worked in France

From the 1920s to the 1940s, the theme of a bird in flight preoccupied Brancusi. He concentrated on the animals' movement, rather than their physical attributes. In Bird in Space, the sculptor eliminated wings and feathers, elongated the swell of the body, and reduced the head and beak to a slanted oval plane. Balanced on a slender conical footing, the figure's upward thrust appears unfettered. This sculpture is part of a series that includes seven marble sculptures and nine bronze casts. Highly polished bronze. The reflectivity of the bronze highlights that the work is about light and movement, the literal depiction of the flight of a bird. The lights moves and glints off it, giving it a sense of being kinetic. Abstract.

Polykleitos, Doryphoros (Spear-Bearer), Roman after Greek original of 450-440 B.C.

From the Early Classical Period, Doryphoros is a Roman marble copy after a Greek bronze original from c. 450-440 B.C.E. Polykleitos sought to capture the ideal proportions of the human figure in his statues and developed a set of aesthetic principles governing these proportions that was known as the Canon or "Rule." In formulating this "Rule," Polykleitos created a system based on a simple mathematical formula in which the human body was divided into measured parts that all related to one another. The body of the Doryphoros stands in contrapposto position. He is meant to be the ideal form of the perfect Greek/Roman male.

Georgia O'Keeffe, Two Calla Lilies, United States, 1928

Georgia O'Keeffe once remarked, "What is my experience of the flower if not color?" This painting of two calla lilies is an extraordinary example of her floral compositions, made of sweeping, broad waves of subtly blended hues. The white petals, highlighted in green, are arranged against a pink backdrop, and from each one emerges a bright yellow pistil. Many have interpreted O'Keeffe's depictions of floral anatomy in relation to sexuality and gender, but the artist always resisted these interpretations, considering them too specific and limiting. O'Keeffe was constantly inspired by nature and hoped that her paintings of enlarged flowers would draw the attention of busy New Yorkers and encourage them to appreciate the beauty in intricacy of nature that might otherwise pass them by. This piece depicts a close up of two lilies, a regularly repeated subject that earned O'Keeffe the nickname 'The Lady of the Lily', first coined by caricaturist Miguel Covarrubias in the New Yorker. American modernism. Oil on canvas.

Picasso, Girl with a Mirror, Paris, 1932

Girl before a Mirror shows Picasso's young mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter, one of his favorite subjects in the early 1930s. Her white-haloed profile, rendered in a smooth lavender pink, appears serene. But it merges with a more roughly painted, frontal view of her face—a crescent, like the moon, yet intensely yellow, like the sun, and "made up" with a gilding of rouge, lipstick, and green eye-shadow. Perhaps the painting suggests both Walter's day-self and her night-self, both her tranquillity and her vitality, but also the transition from an innocent girl to a worldly woman aware of her own sexuality. It is also a complex variant on the traditional Vanity—the image of a woman confronting her mortality in a mirror, which reflects her as a death's head. On the right, the mirror reflection suggests a supernatural x-ray of the girl's soul, her future, her fate. Her face is darkened, her eyes are round and hollow, and her intensely feminine body is twisted and contorted. She seems older and more anxious. The girl reaches out to the reflection, as if trying to unite her different "selves." The diamond-patterned wallpaper recalls the costume of the Harlequin, the comic character from the commedia dell'arte with whom Picasso often identified himself—here a silent witness to the girl's psychic and physical transformations. Cubism; Oil on canvas.

Grant Wood, American Gothic, 1930

Grant Wood was not all he seemed. In the 1930s he became famous in the US as one of the leading figures in the Regionalist movement, an anti-modern, anti-European campaign for a purely and folklorically American art. Regionalist painters rejected the big cosmopolitan cities and depicted, in quite homely ways, rural America. This was the one American art movement that came from, and identified with, the midwestern heartland, rather than the east coast or California. The models pose in front of an 1880s wood-frame house - which still exists as a tourist attraction in the Iowa town of Eldon - built in the American Gothic or Carpenter's Gothic style. They are keeping us out of their world rather than showing it off. The close-packed bodies of the 19th-century farmer and his spinster daughter form a wall between us and the white wooden house. The house itself is a second closing of space, its front wall impenetrably neat, with blinds pulled down over the windows. Only behind that do we glimpse the blue sky and round puffy trees of pastoral joy. The farmer is at once genteelly studious, like a clerk, and aggressive, as if he has a serious temper. He looks at us in a no-nonsense way, and that pitchfork he holds is extremely phallic and sharp: it could do you a nasty injury. Her gaze is anxiously sidelong. She might be watching some boys, wondering if they are about to steal apples, or seeing a man she had feelings for ride past with his new city wife.

Piet Mondrian, Broadway Boogie Woogie, 1942-1943abstract artborn in the Netherlands; worked in Paris, London, and New York

Here, the horizontal and vertical lines of the painting are actually composed of rectangles and squares of red, blue, yellow, and white and gray. And they're navigating you across the canvas much like streets would in a cityscape, or much like dancers would across a dance floor. You have a feeling here, too, of music, I think; you have a feeling of the way that a canvas, which is obviously an inanimate thing, could possibly feel as if it were animated. This is strikingly different from the quite ascetic and sober earlier Mondrian. And it's quite a remarkable thing because Mondrian had come to New York during World War II, as an exile from Europe, had to begin a whole new life as an older man, and adapted to New York City with such enthusiasm and such alacrity. He developed a passionate enthusiasm for boogie-woogie, for American jazz. He also was a great dancer, loved going out and dancing to live bands at places around midtown Manhattan. The title of the painting, Broadway Boogie-Woogie, is a nice collision of two delighted references to things that made Mondrian so enthusiastic about his new life in New York City: Broadway, a very busy, broad thoroughfare full of interesting stores, but also full of theaters representing the novelty and the liveliness of the American musical tradition, and boogie-woogie, the jazz music that Mondrian discovered here and loved so much. That combination of references in the title is really a tribute to New York City at that moment. Oil on canvas; abstract art.

Francisco Goya, The Third of May, 1808 (1814), Museo Del Prado, Madrid

In 1807, Napoleon, bent on conquering the world, brought Spain's king, Charles IV, into alliance with him in order to conquer Portugal. Napoleon's troops poured into Spain, supposedly just passing through. But Napoleon's real intentions soon became clear: the alliance was a trick. The French were taking over. Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's brother, was the new king of Spain. On May 2, 1808, hundreds of Spaniards rebelled. On May 3, these Spanish freedom fighters were rounded up and massacred by the French. Their blood literally ran through the streets of Madrid. Goya uses Christian iconography in how the man in the middle being shot is standing as if he was hung on a cross. The twisted, in pain, terrified bodies of the victims help the viewer feel their horror and fear. On the contrary, the firing squad is in a very cold, emotionless position and their faces are covered, almost dehumanizing them. Goya was very against war; he stops making it look heroic. Diverging from the traditions of Christian art and traditional depictions of war, it has no distinct precedent, and is acknowledged as one of the first paintings of the modern era. It was created during the Romantic era, however, most romantic paintings conformed to more idealized styles of beauty, etc. His was unique for the time.

John Sloan, Movies 5 Cents, 1907, American

In Movie, 5 Cents 1907, the emphasis is on the humanity of the individuals and the democratic diversity of the audience. Sloan's picture celebrates the physical intimacy of the movie theatre and the communal qualities of the experience it makes possible. A slumped vagrant sits behind two well-dressed women, while behind him a single black child enjoys the show and serves as a sign of integration and ideal community. The image projected on the screen reinforces the theme of community and human intimacy. New realism, genre painting. Oil on canvas.

Chris Ofili, The Holy Virgin Mary, 1996British artist of Nigerian parents

In October of 1999, Sensation opened at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, where it was Chris Ofili's iconic painting, The Holy Virgin Mary that incited the most heated debate. Mayor Rudy Giuliani threatened to close the city-funded institution on the grounds that this artwork was offensive to religious viewers. Two months later, the painting, which rests upon two large balls of elephant dung, was desecrated by an elderly visitor who smeared white paint over its surface, claiming that the image was "blasphemous." At first glance it seems easy to discern why the painting raised a few eyebrows: the inclusion of real shit and collaged pornography might be enough to offend conservative viewers. However, Ofili's work is more nuanced than it appeared to his detractors; the piece reflects on art historical precedents while addressing identity politics, religion and pop culture. To grasp its complexity, one must look beneath the surface—as dazzling and shocking as it may be. Set against a shimmering gold background comprised of carefully placed dots of paint and glitter, the central figure in Ofili's painting stares directly at her beholder, with wide eyes and parted lips. Her blue gown flows from the top of her head down to the amorphous base of her body, falling open to reveal a lacquered ball of elephant dung where her breast would be. Collaged images of women's buttocks surround the Virgin; cut from pornographic magazines, they become abstract, almost decorative forms that refuse to signify until confronted up-close. The two balls of dung beneath the canvas are adorned with glittering letters spelling out the work's title. Formally, the use of gold and the front-facing Virgin link the work to Medieval icons, making the vulgarity of the pornographic images all the more stark. Yet, the artist claims that the sacred and the profane are not always opposed, even in traditional religious art. It is perhaps Ofili's final statement above that indicates the source of his critics' anxieties. As Carol Becker has explained, Ofili is "transforming the Holy Virgin into an exuberant, folkloric image. (...) probably most controversial of all, he made his own representation of the Virgin, defiant of tradition."[2] The "parody-like African mouth" and exaggerated facial features call attention to racial stereotypes, as well as to the assumed whiteness of biblical figures in Western representations. Ofili's icon asks us to confront the possibility of a black Virgin Mary. Other works express Ofili's interest in black culture more explicitly: paintings like the Afrodizzia series and No Woman No Cry make references not only to hip-hop and reggae but also to contemporary racial politics.

Gianlorenzo Bernini, Ecstasy of St. Theresa, 1645-1652

In her writings, Theresa describes how she would feel suddenly consumed by the love of God, feel the bodily presence of Christ or of angels, and be lifted to an exalted state of ecstasy. The Ecstasy of St. Theresa is considered by many as the apogee of Bernini's oeuvre and is notable for the following qualities; Bernini's St. Theresa is often described as a gesamtkunstwerk (a German word meaning "total work of art") for the artist's incorporation of a variety of elements: sculpture, painting, and lighting effects all presented in a theatrical setting. Although some art historians insist that Bernini could not possibly have intended to imbue this subject with an erotic energy, as that would have been inconceivably heretical for that time, in reality the concupiscent implications of this work are unmistakable: the beautiful, bare-chested young angle gently opens Theresa's dress, preparing to penetrate her with his arrow, while the saint throws back her head with an expression of ecstasy. Even more so than in his previous works, in The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa Bernini takes the principles of the Baroque (drama, emotion, theatricality) to unknown heights. Note the emphasis on the dramatic qualities of light, as well as the virtuoso and utterly fantastic mass of fluttering draperies. Sculpture in the round.

Georges Seurat, La Grande Jatte, France, 1884-86

In his best-known and largest painting, Georges Seurat depicted people relaxing in a suburban park on an island in the Seine River called La Grande Jatte. (It is oil on canvas). The artist worked on the painting in several campaigns, beginning in 1884 with a layer of small horizontal brushstrokes of complementary colors. He later added small dots, also in complementary colors, that appear as solid and luminous forms when seen from a distance. Seurat's use of this highly systematic and "scientific" technique, subsequently called Pointillism, distinguished his art from the more intuitive approach to painting used by the Impressionists. It encouraged critic Félix Fénéon to invent the name 'Neo-Impressionism.' (Seurat is considered a post-impressionist artist) The artist said that his ambition was to "make modern people in their essential traits move about as they do on [ancient Greek] friezes and place them on canvases organized by harmonies."

Hung Liu, Odalisque, 1992

In the Mao Regime in which Hung Liu grew up, an individual's rights were subordinated to the interests of the State. When she was a high school senior, she, along with thousands of other educated Chinese citizens, was forcibly "re-educated" as part of the disastrous Cultural Revolution. Her task was to pick rice in the countryside for four years. When she was allowed to return to Beijing, she earned a BFA degree in 1975 from the prestigious Central Academy of Fine Art. In 1984 she was permitted to emigrate to the U.S. In China Hung Liu discovered and fell in love with old photographs—fading portraits of Emperors, their wives and concubines. These sad faces had the same look as the faces of the Chinese women around her, toiling at hard labor without hope. They contradicted the Regime's upbeat version of Chinese history. Her personal experience confirmed to her the reality beneath the propaganda. In effect, Liu turns old photographs into new paintings, liberating the rigid methodology of socialist realism, the style in which she was trained. She has an improvisational painting style that dissolves propaganda art into a fresh kind of history painting. In her unique, exciting way, she converts socialist realism into social realism.

Ben Shahn, This is Nazi Brutality, 1942, American

In the early 1940s, Ben Shahn created paintings which became the basis of anti-war posters sponsored by the United States government. Shahn's This is Nazi Brutality is one of the most famous posters he designed during his position at the Office of War Information (OWI). In response to the Nazis total destruction of the town of Lidice, Czechoslovakia, and its inhabitants, Shahn's powerful image features a male figure whose head is covered by a hood and whose fisted hands, positioned firmly at his sides, are shackled. He stands beneath a dark and ominous sky and is backed both from behind and on his left side by a red brick wall. The title of the work as well as its theme are stated in bold red letters in front of the figure below which, the news of the event, as it was translated from a radio broadcast. The text reads: RADIO BERLIN.--IT IS OFFICIALLY ANNOUNCED: -ALL MEN OF LIDICE - CZECHOSLOVAKIA - HAVE BEEN SHOT: THE WOMEN DEPORTED TO A CONCENTRATION CAMP: THE CHILDREN SENT TO APPROPRIATE CENTERS--THE NAME OF THE VILLAGE WAS IMMEDIATELY ABOLISHED. 6/11/42/115P. Astonishingly, the OWI officials rejected Shahn's designs as too "violent" and "not appealing enough." Fed up with such disagreements, Shahn resigned after one year. Shahn's confrontational posture towards officials conveys a great strength of conviction in his topics. Through the means of bold, graphic design, using an economy of words, coupled with an image freed from the types of details that typify Shahn's figural words, the reaction to this haunting work is powerful and viscerally felt.

Van Gogh, The Sower, 1888, The Netherlands

Inspired by Millet's The Sower of 1850; A Post-Impressionist who was inspired by a Realist. Peasant imagery and especially that of the 'Sower' was something that Van Gogh turned to numerous times throughout his career. His affiliation with this subject was partly as a response to the work of the romantic Realists such as Millet, and a reflection of his own socialist ideals. The sower in particular was a figure that Van Gogh saw in terms of representing the eternal cycle of agricultural life, of honorable endeavor and tradition, and symbolized these qualities to the artist. The sun was also a symbolic element for Van Gogh, and in many of these paintings it shines with an unearthly luminescence. Here he has created a great orb of light, from which short precise brushstrokes radiate outwards so that the whole sky becomes bathed in golden rags. The rest of the canvas is made up of short, quick brushstrokes that lend the ground a textured and slightly surreal feel. Barely perceptible are two crows that emerge from the fractured background, while the figure appears to be part and parcel of the land on which he works.

Henri Matisse, Joie de Vivre, 1905-06, French, Fauvism

It is a large-scale painting depicting an Arcadian landscape filled with brilliantly colored forest, meadow, sea, and sky and populated by nude figures both at rest and in motion. As with the earlier Fauve canvases, color is responsive only to emotional expression and the formal needs of the canvas, not the realities of nature. Like Cézanne, Matisse constructs the landscape so that it functions as a stage. In both works trees are planted at the sides and in the far distance, and their upper boughs are spread apart like curtains, highlighting the figures lounging beneath. And like Cézanne, Matisse unifies the figures and the landscape. Cézanne does this by stiffening and tilting his trunk-like figures. In Matisse's work, the serpentine arabesques that define the contours of the women are heavily emphasized, and then reiterated in the curvilinear lines of the trees. Additionally, Matisse references Titian. For like Titian's Bacchanal of the Andrians, the scene depicted in Bonheur de Vivre is an expression of pure pleasure. Here is a place full of life and love and free from want or fear. Instead of a contemporary scene in a park, on the banks of the Seine, or other recognizable places in nature, Matisse has returned to mythic paradise. But do not be misled by his interest in myth—Matisse is not joining in with Bouguereau or any other Salon artist. This is the epitome of Fauvism, a radical new approach that incorporate purely expressive, bright, clear colors and wildly sensual forms. Matisse's painting s perhaps the first canvas to clearly understand Cézanne's great formal challenge, and to actually further the elder master's ideas. In fact, despite its languid poses, Joie de Vivre was regarded as the most radical painting of its day. Because of this, Matisse became known, briefly, as the most daring painter in Paris.

Winslow Homer, Prisoners from the Front, 1866

It represents an actual scene from the war in which a Union officer, Brigadier General Francis Channing Barlow (1834-1896), captured several Confederate officers on June 21, 1864. The background depicts the battlefield at Petersburg, Virginia. It is a scene without exciting action or schematic devices, yet a kind of nobility and emotional drama pervades the canvas. Homer expertly characterized the range of personalities involved in the war, from the young, uncertain boy being captured to the bearded old man, humbly submitting to his fate, to the proud challenging stance of the third man still dressed in Confederate uniform. We feel the tension between Barlow and the Confederated soldier, yet it never threatens the stability of the image. Homer seemed to emphasize the sense of unity and spirit of a nation acknowledging a new direction. Oil on canvas painting - Homer was a famous American civil war artist, but also just American landscapes, etc.

The Pantheon, Rome, Italy, c. 118-125 A.D.

It was a temple to ALL the Gods, but is now a Christian church and museum. The building is circular with a portico of large granite Corinthian columns (eight in the first rank and two groups of four behind) under a pediment. A rectangular vestibule links the porch to the rotunda, which is under a coffered concrete dome, with a central opening (oculus) to the sky. Almost two thousand years after it was built, the Pantheon's dome is still the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome. Inspired Thomas Jefferson when he was designing the library for the University of Virginia.

Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, Spain, 1907

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon is one of the most important works in the genesis of modern art. The painting depicts five naked prostitutes in a brothel; two of them push aside curtains around the space where the other women strike seductive and erotic poses—but their figures are composed of flat, splintered planes rather than rounded volumes, their eyes are lopsided or staring or asymmetrical, and the two women at the right have threatening masks for heads. The space, too, which should recede, comes forward in jagged shards, like broken glass. In the still life at the bottom, a piece of melon slices the air like a scythe. The faces of the figures at the right are influenced by African masks, which Picasso assumed had functioned as magical protectors against dangerous spirits: this work, he said later, was his "first exorcism painting." A specific danger he had in mind was life-threatening sexual disease, a source of considerable anxiety in Paris at the time; earlier sketches for the painting more clearly link sexual pleasure to mortality. In its brutal treatment of the body and its clashes of color and style (other sources for this work include ancient Iberian statuary and the work of Paul Cézanne), Les Demoiselles d'Avignon marks a radical break from traditional composition and perspective. The start of Cubism; oil on canvas.

Ma Yuan, Apricot Blossoms, China, Southern Song Dynasty, early 13th centuryink and color on silk, 10" high

Ma Yuan, a fourth-generation member of a family of painters, was a leading artist at the Southern Song painting academy in Hangzhou. A city of unsurpassed beauty, Hangzhou was graced with pavilions, gardens, and scenic vistas. In this album leaf, which shows a gentleman in a garden-like setting, the jagged rhythms of the pine tree and garden contrast with the quiet mood of the scholar, who gazes pensively into the bubbling rapids of the cascade.

Michelangelo, Vatican, Italy, Pietá, 1499

Michelangelo carved a number of works in Florence during his time with the Medici, but in the 1490s he left Florence and briefly went to Venice, Bologna, and then to Rome, where he lived from 1496-1501. In 1497, a cardinal named Jean de Billheres commissioned Michelangelo to create a work of sculpture to go into a side chapel at Old St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. The resulting work - the Pieta - would be so successful that it helped launch Michelangelo's career unlike any previous work he had done. The scene of the Pieta shows the Virgin Mary holding the dead body of Christ after his crucifixion, death, and removal from the cross, but before he was placed in the tomb. This is one of the key events from the life of the Virgin, known as the Seven Sorrows of Mary, which were the subject of Catholic devotional prayers. The subject matter was one which would have probably been known by many people, but in the late fifteenth century it was depicted in artworks more commonly in France and Germany than in Italy. In her utter sadness and devastation, she seems resigned to what has happened, and becomes enveloped in graceful acceptance. Michelangelo's talent in carving drapery is matched by his handling of the human forms in the Christ and the Virgin, both of whom retain a sweet tenderness despite the very tragic nature of this scene. Michelangelo was a highly religious man who primarily worked for the Catholic church. He therefore believed in piety and the sin of lust. In his Pieta Mary is seen as a youthful figure cradling her adult son. When asked why he had sculpted the face of Mary as a young girl Michelangelo replied that Mary had not aged because she was free from desire. According to Michelangelo's theory chaste, virgin women would not have the sins of their lives etched onto their faces. Rather they would remain pure and youthful forever. Furthermore in Michelangelo's work, Mary is a large figure who is easily able to hold an adult Jesus in her arms and this inversion of sizes was a commonly used tool during the High Renaissance. It allowed Michelangelo to balance his art and give Mary equal standing to Jesus in the sculpture. Sculpture in the round; marble. There is a pyramid shape, because in the renaissance, they valued balance, etc.

Taj Mahal, 1632-53, Mughal architecture, Agra, India

Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan had the Taj Mahal built as a mausoleum to his wife after her death. It is exceptional for its monumental scale, stunning gardens, lavish ornamentation, and its overt use of white marble. It is also used as a Mosque (there are minarets and domes, typical of islamic architecture) and a museum. While minarets in Islamic architecture are usually associated with mosques—for use by the muezzin who leads the call to prayer—here, they are not functional, but ornamental, once again underscoring the Mughal focus on structural balance and harmony.

Eduard Manet, Olympia, 1863

Olympia features a nude woman reclining upon a chaise lounge, with a small black cat at her feet (image above), and a black female servant behind her brandishing a bouquet of flowers. It struck viewers—who flocked to see the painting—as a great insult to the academic tradition. And of course it was. One could say that the artist had thrown down a gauntlet. The subject was modern—maybe too modern, since it failed to properly elevate the woman's nakedness to the lofty ideals of nudity found in art of antiquity —she was no goddess or mythological figure. As the art historian Eunice Lipton described it, Manet had "robbed," the art historical genre of nudes of "their mythic scaffolding..." Nineteenth-century French salon painting was supposed to perpetually return to the classical past to retrieve and reinvent its forms and ideals, making them relevant for the present moment. In using a contemporary subject (and not Venus), Manet mocked that tradition and, moreover, dared to suggest that the classical past held no relevance for the modern industrial present. As if to underscore his rejection of the past, Manet used as his source a well-known painting in the collection of the Louvre—Venus of Urbino, a 1538 painting by the Venetian Renaissance artist Titian (image above)—and he then stripped it of meaning. To an eye trained in the classical style, Olympia was clearly no respectful homage to Titian's masterpiece; the artist offered instead an impoverished copy. In place of the seamlessly contoured voluptuous figure of Venus, set within a richly atmospheric and imaginary world, Olympia was flatly painted, poorly contoured, lacked depth, and seemed to inhabit the seamy, contemporary world of Parisian prostitution. It was for this reason Manet is often referred to as the father of Impressionism. Oil on canvas.

reliquary figure of the Bakota people, Gabon, Africa

On each of these baskets containing the ancestor's bones 'sat' a reliquary guardian figure, the 'mbulu ngulu' ('reliquary basket with figure'). They were carved from wood and covered with brass plates or copper discs. The figures towered over each basket. The lower diamond shape reached into the vessel and was attached. The baskets were only brought out for important whole-village ceremonies. They were opened and their contents - the skulls of their ancestors - were presented, explained and ritually honoured. And so the venerated ancestors took part in the lives of their descendants. It is generally assumed that the ancestor cult of the Kota people, with its baskets and famous reliquary guardian figures, began in the 18th century and by roughly 1940 was extinct. Towards the end of the 19th century the first reliquary guardian figures came to Europe and became some of the most coveted collectors' pieces within the field of African art, which they still are today. The 'modernist' artists living in Paris in the early 20th century were especially fascinated by the radical abstraction of the human body manifested in the Kota 'mbulu ngulu'. The development of 'cubism' in European art would not have been conceivable without the awareness of these Kota reliquary figures and other African art objects. Superstar Pablo Picasso naturally had a large, beautiful Kota figure as part of his extensive collection of so-called 'primitive art'.

Andrea Mantegna, The Dead Christ, Italy, c. 1501

One of the greatest Renaissance paintings of the quattrocento, this tempera painting by the Padua artist Andrea Mantegna is probably the most famous example of foreshortening in the history of art. Also known simply as The Dead Christ or The Lamentation, it shows the corpse of Christ lying on a marble slab, watched over by the grieving Virgin Mary and Saint John, who are weeping for his death. Unlike most religious art of the Early Renaissance, this is not an idealized portrait of Jesus: the nail holes in the hands and feet, the discoloration of the skin, and the dramatic perspective of the foreshortened body lend it a coldness and a realism belonging to the mortuary slab. It also gives the viewer, positioned at Christ's feet, a dramatic close-up of Christ's dead body: the physicality and naturalism are extraordinary - it looks completely lifeless. This uncomfortably realistic representation of death, further enhanced by the picture's muted colour scheme, and wax-like flesh tones, leaves no room for idealized musings or religious rhetoric. This picture is about the banal physicality of death - the end of earthly life. A fact and a prospect which is only relieved by our faith in God and a life after death. This may be the key message of the work. Tempera painting.

Rembrandt van Rijn, Sortie of Captain Banning Cocq's Company of the City Guard (Night Watch), 1642

One of the greatest portrait paintings (oil) of the 17th century Dutch Baroque era (as can be seen by the dynamic movement and contrast in light), The Night Watch was executed by Rembrandt at the height of his career in Amsterdam. Originally called The Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch, it is a group portrait of a militia company, commissioned and paid for by the members concerned, and was intended for the Great Room of the Kloveniersdoelen (the Musketeers Assembly Hall). It was given its popular but misleading title in the late 18th-century, based on the false assumption that it depicted a nocturnal scene. In fact, its subdued lighting was caused by the premature darkening of its multi-layered varnish. The picture was a huge success at the time, not least because it turns a fairly humdrum subject into a dynamic work of art. Unlike other Baroque portraits of militia companies, which traditionally portrayed members lined up in neat rows or sitting at a banquet, Rembrandt's painting shows the company fully equipped, ready for action, and about to march. The golden girl in the middle is a personified abstraction of the guard.

Norman Rockwell, Rosie the Riveter, covers for the Saturday Evening Post, 1943

Painted for the cover of the May 29, 1943 edition of The Saturday Evening Post, Norman Rockwell's Rosie the Riveter gave visual form to this phenomenon and became an iconic image of American popular culture. Rockwell portrayed Rosie as a monumental figure clad in overalls and a work-shirt with the sleeves rolled up to reveal her powerful, muscular arms. Seated against the backdrop of a rippling American flag, she is shown pausing for lunch, with a riveting machine and a tin lunch box balanced on her substantial lap, her visor and goggles pushed back on her head and a ham sandwich clasped in her hand. Despite her massive bulk, sturdy work clothes and the smudges on her arms and cheeks, Rosie's painted fingernails, lipstick and the tidy arrangement of her bright red curls wittily convey her underlying femininity. Pausing between bites, she gazes into the distance with a detached air of supreme self-assurance, while casually crushing a tattered copy of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf under her feet. During WW11 when men were all overseas fighting the war and women had to work in the factories, etc. Painting.

Adolphe William Bouguereau, Nymphs and Satyr, 1873

Painted in 1873, Nymphs and Satyr is a painting of oil on canvas. A large, almost life like picture, it shows a group of nymphs bathing in a secluded pool. The picture shows a lustful satyr surprising the nymphs. In the painting, several of the nymphs have withdrawn into the shadows on the right. The other nymphs that remain are braver. We know this as we see them in the picture trying to dampen the satyr's lust by dragging him into the pond's cold water. Even though one of his hooves is already wet, he doesn't want to go any further. He was a french academic painter; oil on canvas.

Picasso, Guernica, 1937, Spain.

Probably Picasso's most famous work, Guernica is certainly the his most powerful political statement, painted as an immediate reaction to the Nazi's devastating casual bombing practice on the Basque town of Guernica during Spanish Civil War. Guernica shows the tragedies of war and the suffering it inflicts upon individuals, particularly innocent civilians. This work has gained a monumental status, becoming a perpetual reminder of the tragedies of war, an anti-war symbol, and an embodiment of peace. The discarding of color intensifis the drama, producing a reportage quality as in a photographic record. Guernica is blue, black and white, 3.5 metre (11 ft) tall and 7.8 metre (25.6 ft) wide, a mural-size canvas painted in oil. Interpretations of Guernica vary widely and contradict one another. This extends, for example, to the mural's two dominant elements: the bull and the horse. Art historian Patricia Failing said, "The bull and the horse are important characters in Spanish culture. Picasso himself certainly used these characters to play many different roles over time. This has made the task of interpreting the specific meaning of the bull and the horse very tough. Their relationship is a kind of ballet that was conceived in a variety of ways throughout Picasso's career." On first glance, Guernica's composition appears confusing and chaotic; the viewer is thrown into the midst of intensely violent action. Everything seems to be in flux. The space is compressed and ambiguous with the shifting perspectives and multiple viewpoints characteristic of Picasso's earlier Cubist style. However, there is in fact an overriding visual order. Picasso balances the composition by organizing the figures into three vertical groupings moving left to right, while the center figures are stabilized within a large triangle of light.

Salvador Dali, The Persistence of Memory, 1931

Salvador Dalí frequently described his paintings as "hand painted dream photographs." He based this seaside landscape on the cliffs in his home region of Catalonia, Spain. The ants and melting clocks are recognizable images that Dalí placed in an unfamiliar context or rendered in an unfamiliar way. The large central creature comprised of a deformed nose and eye was drawn from Dalí's imagination, although it has frequently been interpreted as a self-portrait. Its long eyelashes seem insect-like; what may or may not be a tongue oozes from its nose like a fat snail from its shell. Time is the theme here, from the melting watches to the decay implied by the swarming ants. Mastering what he called "the usual paralyzing tricks of eye-fooling," Dalí painted this work with "the most imperialist fury of precision," but only, he said, "to systematize confusion and thus to help discredit completely the world of reality." There is, however, a nod to the real: the distant golden cliffs are those on the coast of Catalonia, Dalí's home. Salvador Dalí was very interested in Sigmund Freud's writings on psychology. The general interpretation is that the painting, which portrays many melting watches, is a rejection of time as a solid and deterministic influence. Surrealism, oil on canvas.

Augustus Saint-Gaudens, General Sherman Monument, 1903, Fifth ave. and 59th st. NY

Sherman was an important Union general during the Civil War. Saint-Gaudens's admiration for the general only grew stronger after listening to his many stories; his appreciation for Sherman is evident in the monument's elegant and dignified portrayal of the war hero. Saint-Gaudens labored over every detail of the piece, splitting his time between his studio in Cornish, New Hampshire and Paris, France. Harriette ("Hettie") Eugenia Anderson posed for the allegorical figure of peace leading Sherman. An African-American from Georgia, Anderson was described by the artist as "certainly the handsomest model I have ever seen of either sex." Cast bronze sculpture.

Nam June Paik, TV Buddha, 1974-1982

TV Buddha comprises of a statue of Buddha placed in front of a television monitor with a closed-circuit video camera directed from the top of the monitor onto Buddha; Buddha silently observes himself on the screen in an infinite temporal loop. TV Buddha is one of Paik's most well known pieces, perhaps due to the fact that the Buddha Statue can iconographically be easily identified and objected. Yet, Paik does something that defies the East v. West symbolism and moves towards the surface. The Buddha statue is presented in a quiet meditation mudra, however the video camera is simultaneously recording the statue and displaying the image on the television screen . In this closed circuit loop, the buddha is sitting opposite his own projected image, disallowing his transcendence from his own physicality. Instead he is caught in his own reflection, doomed to stay on the surface of reality. Media Theorist Marshall McLuhan, stated in his seminal 1964 book, Extensions of Man. "It is the continuous embrace of our own technology in daily use that puts us in the Narcissus role of Subliminal awareness and numbness in relation to these images of ourselves." Like Zen for TV, the TV Buddha denied the image the act of transcendence, instead it captured it in an entropic stasis.

Andy Warhol, Campbell's Soup, 1968American Pop Artist

The 1968 Soup Cans prints represent a refinement of that work. They realize a concept that Warhol expressed often and variously throughout his career, but never more succinctly than when he said: "I want to be a machine." With the use of the mechanical silkscreen technique, he removed the direct hand of the artist from the artistic process. "Traditional, manual virtuosity no longer mattered," in light of Warhol and his silkscreens, write art historians Tony Scherman and David Dalton. "The result alone mattered: whether or not it was a striking image. Making art became a series of mental decisions." This notion turned centuries of fine art orthodoxy on its head. After Warhol, artists would be seen not only as makers of compelling objects such as painting and sculpture, but also as makers of ideas. The medium is a screenprint.

Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party, 1979 Feminist Art,American

The Dinner Party is an installation artwork by feminist artist Judy Chicago. Widely regarded as the first epic feminist artwork, it functions as a symbolic history of women in Western civilization. There are 39 elaborate place settings arranged along a triangular table for 39 mythical and historical famous women. Sacajawea, Sojourner Truth, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Empress Theodora of Byzantium, Virginia Woolf, Susan B. Anthony, and Georgia O'Keeffe are among the guests. Each unique place-setting includes a hand-painted china plate, ceramic flatware and chalice, and a napkin with an embroidered gold edge. Each plate, except the one corresponding to Sojourner Truth, depicts a brightly-colored, elaborately styled vulva form. The settings rest upon elaborately embroidered runners, executed in a variety of needlework styles and techniques. The dinner table stands on The Heritage Floor, made up of more than 2,000 white luster-glazed triangular-shaped tiles, each inscribed in gold scripts with the name of one of 999 women who have made a mark on history. It was produced from 1974 to 1979 as a collaboration and was first exhibited in 1979. Subsequently, despite art world resistance, it toured to 16 venues in six countries on three continents to a viewing audience of 15 million. It was retired to storage until 1996, as it was beginning to suffer from constant traveling.[1] Since 2007, it has been on permanent exhibition in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, New York.

Koran with Kufic Script, 10th to 11th century calligraphy

The Kufic script is named after the town of Kufa in Iraq which was one of the main Islamic cultural centers in the early period. It is characterized by more static and angular upright letters that were well suited to writing on parchment as well as to use in architecture and decorative objects. During the Abbasid period, Qur'an manuscripts were produced on horizontally-oriented parchment to match the style of kufic script in which letters were usually extended to create justified margins (37.142). In some cases, individual words were even split across two lines for aesthetic reasons.

Peter Paul Rubens, Arrival of Marie d'Medici at Marseilles, 1622-25

The Landing of Marie de Medici at Marseilles is one of Rubens' most famous pieces from this cycle. He depicts the moment a young Marie walks upon the red carpeted gang plank onto French territory, her new home and soon-to-be new kingdom. King Henry IV could not attend as he had other duties to undertake. Rubens brings together an array of ancient and mythical Roman figures in these works as symbols to characterize the scene and Marie herself. To the top is Fame, heralding his trumpet as the young, beautiful Queen enters Marseilles. On the awning of the boat is the Medici's Coat of Arms representing Marie's heritage. In a rich velvet blue cloak, is France represented as soldier who bears the fleur-de-lys, the national symbol. He opens his arms to welcome Marie. This is a political allegory. This is an oil painting from the Baroque era, as seen by the dramatic lighting and contrast, as well as all the dynamic movement. It is much more dramatic than the renaissance.

Jan van Eyck, Giovanni Arnolfi and His Bride, 1434, Northern Renaissance: The Netherlands

The Northern Renaissance advanced a lot in oil paintings, as can be seen in this one. The bride is holding her clothes in a way that makes it look like she is pregnant. There is a lot of religious imagery - their shoes are off, so they are standing on holy ground. Only one candle is lit, representing the presence of the Holy Spirit. There are apples by the window.

Van Gogh, The Starry Night, 1889, Dutch

The Starry Night is an oil on canvas by the Dutch post-impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh. It is regarded as among Van Gogh's finest works and is one of the most recognized paintings in the history of Western culture. Starry Night was painted while Vincent was in the asylum at Saint-Rémy and his behaviour was very erratic at the time, due to the severity of his attacks. Unlike most of Van Gogh's works, Starry Night was painted from memory and not outdoors as was Vincent's preference. This may, in part, explain why the emotional impact of the work is so much more powerful than many of Van Gogh's other works from the same period. The night sky depicted by van Gogh in the Starry Night painting is brimming with whirling clouds, shining stars, and a bright crescent moon. The setting is one that viewers can relate to and van Gogh´s swirling sky directs the viewer´s eye around the painting, with spacing between the stars and the curving contours creating a dot-to-dot effect. These internal elements ensure fluidity and such contours were important for the artist even though they were becoming less significant for other Impressionists. Thus Starry Night´s composition was distinct from the Impressionist technique of the 19th century. The artist was aware that his Starry Night composition was somewhat surreal and stylized and in a letter to his brother he even referred to "exaggerations in terms of composition. " The vivid style chosen by van Gogh was unusual - he chose lines to portray this night scene when silhouettes would have been a more obvious choice. In Starry Night contoured forms are a means of expression and they are used to convey emotion. Many feel that van Gogh´s turbulent quest to overcome his illness is reflected in the dimness of the night sky. The village is painted with dark colors but the brightly lit windows create a sense of comfort. The village is peaceful in comparison to the dramatic night sky and the silence of the night can almost be felt in Starry Night. The steeple dominates the village and symbolizes unity in the town. In terms of composition, the church steeple gives an impression of size and isolation. In the left foreground is a curvy cypress tree which is typically associated with mourning. It is painted in the same way as the sky with fluid lines which enhances the flow of the Starry Night painting well as its easiness on the eye.

Frederick Hart, Statue for Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 1984

The Three Soldiers (also known as The Three Servicemen) is a bronze statue on the Washington, DC National Mall commemorating the Vietnam War. It was created and designed to complement the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, by adding a more traditional component to the Memorial. In order to portray the major ethnic groups that were represented in the ranks of U.S. combat personnel that served in Vietnam, the statue's three men are purposely identifiable as European American (the lead man), African American (man on right), and Latino American (man on left). These three figures were based on six actual young men, of which two (the Caucasian-American and the African-American) were active-duty Marines at the time that the sculpture was commissioned. Negative reactions to Maya Lin's design for the Memorial wall were so strong that several Congressmen complained, and Secretary of the Interior James G. Watt refused to issue a building permit. Hart's sculpture was commissioned to stand beside the wall in order to appease those who wanted a more traditional approach. Bronze sculpture in the round. Clay was modeled and then a most was made around it and bronze was poured in to create it.

Maya Lin, Vietnam Veteran Memorial, 1981-1983

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a national memorial in Washington, D.C. It honors U.S. service members of the U.S. armed forces who fought in the Vietnam War, service members who died in service in Vietnam/South East Asia, and those service members who were unaccounted for (Missing In Action) during the War. Its construction and related issues have been the source of controversies, some of which have resulted in additions to the memorial complex. The memorial currently consists of three separate parts: the Three Soldiers statue, the Vietnam Women's Memorial, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, which is the best-known part of the memorial. When a visitor looks upon the wall, his or her reflection can be seen simultaneously with the engraved names, which is meant to symbolically bring the past and present together. One wall points toward the Washington Monument, the other in the direction of the Lincoln Memorial. There is a pathway along the base of the Wall, where visitors may walk, read the names, make a pencil rubbing of a particular name, or pray. This is modern/post modern architecture. Because modern architecture adopted modern industry, new materials and technology resulted in characteristics such as simplicity of forms; functional, flexible, and flowing spaces; exposed structure; visual weightlessness; and lack of ornamentation.

Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Stein, 1906

The famous writer and expatriate Gertrude Stein was among the first Americans to respond enthusiastically to European avant-garde art. For Picasso, Stein's early patronage and friendship was critical to his success. He painted this portrait of her between 1905 and 1906 at the end of his so-called "Rose Period." (This period signifies the time when the style of Pablo Picasso's painting used cheerful orange and pink colors in contrast to the cool, somber tones of the previous Blue Period.) He reduces her body to simple masses—a foreshadowing of his adoption of Cubism—and portrays her face like a mask with heavy lidded eyes, reflecting his recent encounter with Iberian sculpture. Painted in dull, muted colors, Stein's broad body fills Picasso's canvas. Her bulky form sits on a large armchair or sofa and stiffly leans forward, imposing in the way she rests her arms and large hands heavily on the folds of her skirt. In contrast to the rounded mass of the figure, Stein's face has a planar quality that seems hard and mask-like—an effect heightened by the geometric treatment of the eyes, nose, and mouth, and the dark modeling that distinguishes its angular contours from the rest of her head and body. By reworking Gertrude Stein's portrait in a primitive style, Picasso claimed for himself the power to represent the woman as she really is, not merely as a likeness of her physical appearance. Portrait, oil on canvas.

Gustave Courbet, Two Girls on the Banks of the Seine, France, 1856

The figure in the foreground, she of the satisfied, seductive gaze, is clearly dressed in her underclothing, however prettily charming it may be. The skintight pale yellow short gloves on her relaxed and curiously delicate hands virtually beg to be slowly peeled off. Her companion appears to be both more complaisant and less interested, which generates another level of erotic charge. The moored boat containing a man's hat signifies the temporary - soon to be renewed? - presence of the male. Courbet, as a lover of women, must have delighted in this painting, but he must have suspected too that it would cause an outcry at the Salon. The very use of the term Demoiselles in the title again was a deliberate provocation; these women are as far from being proper young ladies, though in a different direction, as were Courbet's sisters on their Sunday walk. By using the honorific Courbet was not putting down either set of women; on the contrary, he was attacking the rigidities of class and asserting the validity of such different kinds of actual working women as subjects for serious painting. This alone would - and did - cause annoyance, but the more serious disturbance came from the presence of such open sexuality represented in such pointedly contemporary terms. For the Salon public, sexuality could be safely encoded in nudity, such as the polished nudity of Venuses and Dianas and allegorical or exotic figures; it could not be presented in terms of social truths close to home. Thus this painting, with all its richness of cloth and decoration, flowers and foliage, and its scarcity of bare flesh was perceived as more sexually disturbing than the nudes of conventional art. That young working women in Paris - often recent arrivals from country villages - made themselves available to gentlemen who could pay for the pleasures of a Sunday along the Seine outside the city was not a truth to be openly acknowledged in polite society, still less to be embodied in a work of art with a serious claim to public attention. Oil on canvas; realism.

Masaccio, Expulsion from Paradise, 1427, Fresco, Italy.

The guilt, shame, and pain of being expelled from paradise is very evident on the faces of Adam and Eve, and it looks like each step actually hurts them to take. The angel Gabriel is depicted above them with a sword, ready to strike if they try to re-enter. It was painted during the Renaissance (not high nor early), and is a fresco.

Diego Rivera, destoryed mural at Rockefeller Center and Man, Controller of the Universe, 1934

The original version of Man, Controller of the Universe by Diego Rivera was never seen by the public. That is because the man who commissioned it in 1932, billionaire Nelson Rockefeller, ordered it destroyed because the painting included an image of the Russian Revolution leader Vladimir Lennon. Diego Rivera then painted a second version. This work, Man, Controller of the Universe is considered his most important work. It depicts the emergence of man into a new scientific and industrial age. The center of the image displays a robust man dressed in worker's coveralls and wearing heavy gloves. His hand grasps a lever. Behind him is a part of a giant cog. What appear to be four wings splay out from this central figure. Inside each wing are transcendent scenes of stars and galaxies, but also biological organisms, including cells and bacterium. On either side masses of humanity representing many facets of the human race are gathered and engaged in various activities, from marching soldiers to workers sitting on barrels and industrial pipes. Mural.

Honoré Daumier, The Third Class-Carriage, France, 1862, Realism

The story of The Third-Class Carriage, otherwise known as Le Wagon de troisième classe, is that of a family. Three generations are present here: young, middle-aged and old, almost as if it were the full spectrum of human life. Grown men are most notably absent, suggesting that these women are making their way in the world on their own. Although the mother's face is sweet, the weariness present in the grandmother's face suggests the hardships that she must have experienced in her long life. Her shrewd face confronts the viewer. Like with many of Daumier's later paintings, the loose handling and calligraphic brush work that he employs in The Third-Class Carriage is extraordinary. Since the painting is left unfinished, it is impossible to analyze it fully as we will never know the artists true intent. However, it is still obvious that Daumier seeks to capture the plight of the working class by capturing the quiet moments of their everyday lives. One gets a sense of their circumstances through the weariness of their posture and the shabbiness of their clothes. The background takes up more space than the foreground and is unusually detailed for Daumier. The third-class family faces away from the rest of the passengers, which emphasizes its isolation and rejection from the rest of society. The background takes up more space than the foreground and is unusually detailed for Daumier. The third-class family faces away from the rest of the passengers, which emphasizes its isolation and rejection from the rest of society. The Third-Class Carriage is one of his few commissioned paintings. The other two paintings in the series, The First Class Carriage and The Second Class Carriage did not receive nearly as much notice and are widely known only by art scholars. The Third-Class Carriage is seen to be an accurate depiction of working-class life in mid-eighteenth century France and is remembered for this accordingly. Oil on canvas.

Leonardo DaVinci, Last Supper, Italy, c. 1495-98

The subject of the Last Supper is Christ's final meal with his apostles before Judas identifies Christ to the authorities who arrest him. Leonardo's Last Supper is dense with symbolic references. Attributes identify each apostle. For example, Judas Iscariot is recognized both as he reaches to toward a plate beside Christ (Matthew 26) and because he clutches a purse containing his reward for identifying Christ to the authorities the following day. Peter, who sits beside Judas, holds a knife in his right hand, foreshadowing that Peter will sever the ear of a soldier as he attempts to protect Christ from arrest. The balanced composition is anchored by an equilateral triangle formed by Christ's body. He sits below an arching pediment that if completed, traces a circle. These ideal geometric forms refer to the renaissance interest in Neo-Platonism (an element of the humanist revival that reconciles aspects of Greek philosophy with Christian theology). In his allegory, "The Cave," the Ancient Greek philosopher Plato emphasized the imperfection of the earthly realm. Geometry, used by the Greeks to express heavenly perfection, has been used by Leonardo to celebrate Christ as the embodiment of heaven on earth. Leonardo rendered a verdant landscape beyond the windows. Often interpreted as paradise, it has been suggested that this heavenly sanctuary can only be reached through Christ. The twelve apostles are arranged as four groups of three and there are also three windows. The number three is often a reference to the Holy Trinity in Catholic art. In contrast, the number four is important in the classical tradition (e.g. Plato's four virtues). The Last Supper is in terrible condition. Soon after the painting was completed on February 9, 1498 it began to deteriorate. By the second half of the sixteenth century Giovan Paulo Lomazzo stated that, "...the painting is all ruined." Over the past five hundred years the painting's condition has been seriously compromised by its location, the materials and techniques used, humidity, dust, and poor restoration efforts. Modern problems have included a bomb that hit the monastery destroying a large section of the refectory on August 16, 1943, severe air pollution in postwar Milan, and finally, the effects of crowding tourists. Not quite a fresco, more like a mural using tempera on the wall?

The Parthenon, Athens, Greece (Classical Greek), c. 438-42 B.C.

The temple known as the Parthenon was built on the Acropolis of Athens between 447 and 438 B.CE. It was part of a vast building program masterminded by the Athenian statesman Pericles. Inside the temple stood a colossal statue representing Athena, patron goddess of the city. The statue, which no longer exists, was made of gold and ivory and was the work of the celebrated sculptor Pheidias. The Parthenon is a Doric peripteral temple, which means that it consists of a rectangular floor plan with a series of low steps on every side, and a colonnade (8 x 17) of Doric columns extending around the periphery of the entire structure. Each entrance has an additional six columns in front of it. The larger of the two interior rooms, the naos, housed the cult statue. The smaller room (the opisthodomos) was used as a treasury. The Parthenon combines elements of the Doric and Ionic orders. Basically a Doric peripteral temple, it features a continuous sculpted frieze borrowed from the Ionic order, as well as four Ionic columns supporting the roof of the opisthodomos.

Caravaggio, The Conversion of Saint Paul, Italy, c.1601

This Baroque painting illustrates the scene - described in Acts of the Apostles (9:3-9) - when the pharisee Saul - a known persecutor of Christians who had participated in the stoning of Saint Stephen - was converted into a Christian after Christ appeared and spoke to him on the road to Damascus. This Damascene conversion, which duly led to him adopting the name Paul and becoming an apostle, was marked by a moment of intense religious ecstasy. Caravaggio's painting captures this moment, just after Saul has been flung off off his horse. The scene is stripped of all distractions - with only a horse, groom and the fallen Paul present - and Caravaggio creates a mysteriously darkened background in order to focus attention on Paul's moment of religious ecstasy. The principal actor lies in a dramatic pose in the foreground of the picture (he actually intrudes into the viewer's space), with his arms outstretched in shock. He has just seen a vision of Christ and has been blinded by a celestial light. The divine nature of his experience is evidenced by Saint Paul's closed eyes, stiff arms and his continued illumination from heaven. Meantime, Paul's sword and cloak are tangible reminders of his former identity as Saul the persecutor of Christians. The cloak echoes the swaddling clothes of the baby Jesus, and - along with the horse and Paul's helpless condition - confirms that we are witnessing a spiritual rebirth. Curiously, neither the groom nor horse seem to notice Paul's spiritual awakening. The main contribution of the skewbald horse, which occupies more of the picture than anything else, is to contribute a sense of tension with its upturned hoof poised in mid-air as if about to strike the newly converted Paul, while the groom concentrates on holding the reins to prevent the horse trampling him. As always, Caravaggio demonstrates his mastery of chiaroscuro - the shading used to lend volume to figures - as well as tenebrism, the dramatic use of shadow and light to focus the viewer's attention on key areas of the work. After his death, these painterly elements would become hallmarks of Caravaggism and inspire artists across Europe.

Claude Monet, Impression: Sunrise, 1872Impressionism, France

This famous painting, Impression, Sunrise, was created from a scene in the port of Le Havre. Monet depicts a mist, which provides a hazy background to the piece set in the French harbor. The orange and yellow hues contrast brilliantly with the dark vessels, where little, if any detail is immediately visible to the audience. It is a striking and candid work that shows the smaller boats in the foreground almost being propelled along by the movement of the water. This has, once again, been achieved by separate brushstrokes that also show various colors "sparkling" on the sea. he scene is a natural look at the docks in the town and is a concentration on the effects of the sun on the sea. Impression: Sunrise shares its name with the movement that Monet was the leader of and it makes it one of his most important early works. It sparked an art movement whose legacy would continue on for decades to come. Impression: Sunrise was completed at a time when art circles were still dismissing Claude Monet and the other Impressionists, namely Cézanne, Guillaumin, Berthe Morisot, Pissarro, Renoir, Degas and Sisley. Due to constant rejection at the hands of the Paris Salon, the group of artists sought to create their own independent exhibition. Impressionism is a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time), ordinary subject matter, inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience, and unusual visual angles. Impressionism originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s.

Donatello, David, 1428-1432, Italy

This is a cast bronze sculpture from the Renaissance, before the High Renaissance. This David is portrayed as a young boy, standing on the head of Goliath. This pose alludes to his victory. Donatello might be trying to associate David's youth to an innocent and virtuous life, before he became a King. His young body and muscles are not fully developed so perhaps Donatello is implying that his victory is all the more miraculous because it would not have been possible without the intervention of god.

Masaccio, Holy Trinity, Florence, Italy, c. 1427

This is a large fresco. Masaccio was the first painter in the Renaissance to incorporate Brunelleschi's discovery in his art. He did this in his fresco the Holy Trinity, in Santa Maria Novella, in Florence. The orthogonals can be seen in the edges of the coffers in the ceiling (look for diagonal lines that appear to recede into the distance). Because Masaccio painted from a low viewpoint, as though we were looking up at Christ, we see the orthogonals in the ceiling, and if we traced all of the orthogonals, we would see that the vanishing point is on the ledge that the donors kneel on. Masaccio imagines God as a man. Not a force or a power, or something abstract, but as a man. A man who stands -- his feet are foreshortened, and he weighs something and is capable of walking! In medieval art, God was often represented by a hand, just a hand, as though God was an abstract force or power in our lives, but here he seems so much like a flesh and blood man. This is a good indication of Humanism in the Renaissance.Masaccio's contemporaries were struck by the palpable realism of this fresco, as was Vasari who lived over one hundred years later. Vasari wrote that "the most beautiful thing, apart from the figures, is a barrel-shaped vaulting, drawn in perspective and divided into squares filled with rosettes, which are foreshortened and made to diminish so well that the wall appears to be pierced." One of the other remarkable things about this fresco is the use of the forms of classical architecture (from ancient Greece and Rome). Masaccio borrowed much of what we see from ancient Roman architecture, and may have been helped by the great Renaissance architect Brunelleschi.

Leonardo DaVinci, Mona Lisa, c. 1503-1505, Lourve, Paris.

This is actually a very small oil painting on a wood frame, and might be the most famous painting in the world. This figure of a woman, dressed in the Florentine fashion of her day and seated in a visionary, mountainous landscape, is a remarkable instance of Leonardo's sfumato technique of soft, heavily shaded modeling. The Mona Lisa's enigmatic expression, which seems both alluring and aloof, has given the portrait universal fame.The sense of overall harmony achieved in the painting especially apparent in the sitter's faint smile reflects the idea of a link connecting humanity and nature.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Grande Odalisque, 1814. French

This is another oil on canvas painting from the Neo-classical era. As it was the odalisque's duty to satisfy the carnal pleasures of the sultan, this elongation of her pelvic area may have been a symbolic distortion by Ingres. She lies on the divan, her nudity a signal that she is offering herself. She is described as a modest harem, as only her back and part of one breast is shown. But if one looks closely to her face, it seems aloof and absent of any sign of eager expectations. A favorite subject of Ingres was the female nude. He loved to imaginatively enhance the female form as he considered it ideal. Often this meant strong anatomical distortions. La Grande Odalisque, one of his most well known nudes, is a fine display of such achievements.

Michelangelo, God Creating Adam, Sistine Chapel ceiling, 1508-1512, Vatican, Rome

This is probably the most famous section of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and it is a fresco painting from the High Renaissance. Rather than depicting God as wearing royal garments, he is wearing only a light tunic.One might say this is a much more intimate portrait of God because he is shown in a state that is not untouchable and remote from Man, but one which is accessible to him.Adam's body forms a concave shape which echoes the form of God's body, which is in a convex posture inside the nebulous, floating form. This correspondence of one form to the other seems to underscore the larger idea of Man corresponding to God; that is, it seems to reflect the idea that Man has been created in the image and likeness of God - an idea with which Michelangelo had to have been familiar.

Gianlorenzo Bernini, David, 1623, Italy

This marble sculpture is from the Baroque era, which can be seen by how the artist captures movement in a less peaceful, more dramatic way than earlier Renaissance art. In this, David's mouth is set in concentration, and his is in the middle of slinging the rock. unlike Michaelagnelo's David, this one does not show him as calm and ideal but rather dynamic and thinking hard. He too, is older in age.

Giotto, Lamentation, c. 1305, Arena Chapel, Padua, Italy

This painting is one of many, in an entire chapel. Christ is dead, but his body isn't touching the floor. His head is probably being cradled in the lap of Mary, and it looks like Mary Magdalene might be the one at his feet. This is one of many paintings which all tell a story within the chapel. It is from the early renaissance, and is a fresco.

Watteau, Voyage to Cythera, Island of Love, 1717, French allegory; "fêtes galantes" - courtly scenes in an idyllic country setting

This painting is part of the Rococo movement during the later Baroque era. Rococo painting, which originated in early 18th century Paris, is characterized by soft colors and curvy lines, and depicts scenes of love, nature, amorous encounters, light-hearted entertainment, and youth. The Embarkation for Cythera is an allegorical love story at its finest. The focus falls on three couples in particular who occupy the center right. The sitting couple is absorbed in a flirtatious conversation and the pair standing is preparing to take their place on the boat. The last admirer helps the object of his affection. Other happy couples are boarding the boat. Take note of the cupids hovering about the vessel, they are excited about the lover's journey.

Francisco Goya, Charles IV and His Family, 1801

This portrait of the family of King Carlos IV was painted in the spring and summer of 1800, shortly after Goya was named First Chamber Painter. It clearly show´s the artist´s mastery at individualizing characters. Goya was heavily influenced by the famous artwork of the Spanish Royal Collection, as seen by the inclusion of his own self-portrait with his patrons (that's Goya in the shadows, toiling on a massive canvas). This Goya portrait is an unmistakable nod to Velazquez's own portrait captured in one of the most well known Velazquez paintings, Las Meninas; it shows the family of King Philip IV of Spain. Goya is clearly paying homage to Velazquez. All of the court members in Family of Charles IV are identifiable, with one notable exception - the woman to Ferdinand's left. With her face averted, she was included as a stand-in for his future, yet-to-be-determined wife. It is from the Romanticism era, and oil on canvas.

Rubens, Garden of Love, 1632, now in the Prado, Madrid

This scene from a court feast takes place in a relaxed atmosphere in which a group of persons flirt in an idyllic garden. The cupids around the group carry symbols of conjugal love, including a pair of doves and the yolk carried by the cupid in the upper left part of the composition. The fountains or sculptures of the three Graces and of Venus nursing signify fecundity and marital happiness, while the peacock symbolizes the goddess, Juno, who protects matrimony. Rubens uses motives from Renaissance sculptures, but sets the scene in the mannerist portico of his own house in Antwerp, which led to the idea that it was a self-portrait with friends. In the early inventories it was called Rubens´ Family, but in any case, it is an allegory and exaltation of conjugal love and happiness. This work was listed for the first time in 1666, when it hung in the King´s bedroom at Madrid´s Alcázar Palace.

Dogon, Primordial Couple, Mali, Africa, 19th-20th century, 29 inches high, carved wood

This work's scale and complexity have led scholars to suggest that it may have been created for display at the funerals of influential Dogon men. The graphic composition constitutes an eloquent statement concerning the distinct and yet complementary roles of male and female partners as a unit of life. With understated elegance and an economy of details, the artistic distills man and woman to a perfectly integrated and harmonious union. One of the most striking aspects of the representation is the degree of bilateral symmetry that describes man and woman as reflections of each other with delicate and subtle departures that indicate their distinct identities. That concluding pair of features distinguishes their respective role as nurturer and provider joined together to procreate and sustain life. There is negative space in between them. It is a carved wooden sculpture.

Thomas Crawford, The Statue of Freedom, atop the US Capitol Building, 1855-1860

Thomas Crawford's (an American Neoclassical artist) Statue of Freedom, the colossal bronze statue atop the U.S. Capitol dome, dominates the Capitol and the city of Washington, D. C., by virtue of its size and placement so far above the ground. Crawford's Statue of Freedom, begun after the heat of the Fugitive Slave Act (1850) and the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1851), and completed in 1863 in the midst of the Civil War, is not only a case study in the role played by patrons in shaping and compromising the ideological content of public art, but also a monument that embodies and contributed to the intricacies of race and racism in the United States. He modeled the clay and then made a mold of that and using the mold, they poured bronze, so the final statue is cast bronze. Sculpture in the round.

Thomas Eakins, The Gross Clinic, 1875oil on canvas,American

Thomas Eakins's deep connection to his birthplace remained a theme throughout his career. Perhaps his most well-known and ambitious work for the city of Philadelphia is The Gross Clinic, a painting completed in 1875 that spotlights the local physician Samuel David Gross. The scene depicts Gross overseeing a surgery and lecturing to a class of medical student—evoking Rembrandt's art historical precedent The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp (1632). Much like Rembrandt's version, The Gross Clinic documents medical sanitary procedures of its time, but the painting's real focus are living figures. Always a portraitist, Eakins calculated the work as a visual record of all the individuals present in the medical amphitheater. It is not solely a portrait of Dr. Gross; in addition to including the students and the assistants, Eakins inserted his own likeness among the audience - he's the figure at the far right, sketching (one might consider Eakins the Alfred Hitchcock of nineteenth-century American painting). The core of the work is still Dr. Gross, however, as light and composition conspire to attract the eye to the esteemed lecturer. Through his mastery of rendering convincing volume, individual representation, and psychological intensity, Eakins showcases his academic training and—in a style that has been dubbed "scientific realism"—reveals an uncompromising desire to portray honest details of form, depth, and proportion. He was obsessed with accuracy, and was known to project photographs onto canvases in order to laboriously trace figures though also to shift objects for a more harmoniously composed scene.

Diego Velazquez, Las Meninas, Spain, 1656

Velázquez used free, efficient brushstrokes to conjure heavily atmospheric scenes pierced by dazzling color and ornamentation. Las Meninas, a classic baroque example, the large painting captures a young princess and her attendants watching her parents, the King and Queen, pose for the artist. At the time of painting 'Las Meninas', Velázquez had been working for the Spanish Royal Court for over thirty years. He was a highly respected artist by the Royal Family and he often painted pictures of the family members. However 'Las Meninas' was much more unconventional than his other paintings. The foreground of the painting contains the one of the main focuses of the paintings, the Infanta Margarita, a five year old princess who was the daughter of the Spanish King, Philip IV and his wife, Mariana. The princess is being waited on by two ladies in waiting or maids. To the right hand side of the princess stand two dwarves and a dog. Behind them you can find Margarita's chaperone and a bodyguard. Velázquez himself is painted in the left hand side of the painting, painting at an easel. A set of keys is hanging from Diego's belt, showing that he was important enough to merit keys to the Court and its offices. It is clear that, as there is so much going on in the painting, that it is unclear as to whom or what the real subject is. It could be the princess, the king and queen, Velázquez, or even the audience of the painting. To date, art historians and critics are still in disagreement over the view point of the painting. Perspective is a key element of 'Las Meninas'. Diego Velázquez uses linear perspective, tone and overlapping shapes in order to create the feelings of depth in the painting. The use of light also helps to highlight the different focal points of the picture as well as adding defintion to the subjects.

Emmanuel Leutze, George Washington Crossing the Delaware, 1851, American art

Washington Crossing the Delaware is one of the most recoginizable images in the history of American art. You might be surprised, however, to learn that it was not painted by an American artist at work in the United States, but was instead completed by Emanuel Leutze, an artist born in Germany, and that it was painted in Düsseldorf during the middle of the nineteenth century. Leutze's depiction of Washington's attack on the Hessians at Trenton on December 25, 1776, was a great success in America and in Germany. Leutze began his first version of this subject in 1849. It is oil on canvas, and was painted during the realism era. The monumental scale of the composition is matched by the importance of the historical event Leutze painted. Without doubt, Leutze took his subject from one of the turning points in the American Revolutionary War. It is clear then that Washington Crossing the Delaware's strength is not in the correct rendering of an historical event. Leutze's primary goal was to create a work of art that deliberately glorified General Washington (he is very idealized in the painting), the Colonial-American cause, and commemorated a military action of particular significance. The painting is far from historically accurate.

Charles Willson Peale, The Artist in His Museum, 1822 American

Without doubt, Peale rests in the pantheon of American portraitists. He painted the social, political, and economic elite of his day: these sitters included scientists, presidents, and prominent merchants. For Peale and other Enlightenment-era thinkers, the human mind was able to both learn and understand the world around them through observation of the natural world. In many ways, this approach was antithetical to the religious views of the day that asked followers to accept facts on faith rather than verifiable proof. Enlightenment thinkers often attempted to explain the world in a way that removed the word "God" from the equation (or, at the very least, in a way that reduced the Divine Almighty's direct role). Painted towards the end of his life—Peale turned 81 years old the year it was completed—this monumental canvas is a kind of life story for the artist, and identifies him not only as the artist who made the painting, but, as importantly, the scientist who founded the museum that bears his name. Like most artist's self portraits, this likeness speaks for what Peale believes was important about himself and what was important about his life's work. Peale stands in the foreground, smartly dressed in a black velvet suit and white cravat. A dusting of powder from his hair—he does not wear a wig—can be seen on his left shoulder. He alertly stares at the viewer and with his right arm he lifts up the red Grand Manner drapery to reveal the museum behind him. With his left hand he seemingly gestures to the objects in the foreground. These objects tell us much about Peale himself. They include a stuffed turkey—which Benjamin Franklin believed should be the national bird of the United States—and the taxidermist tools used to preserve it. Atop the table on the right side of the painting rests a painter's palette and several paintbrushes. Large fossilized bones from a mastodon (a jawbone, and a femur, perhaps) can also be seen on the right side. These objects—stuffed bird, painting tools, and excavated mastodon—serve as a kind of visual representation of Peale himself.

Betye Saar, The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, 1972, American

Women artists, such as Betye Saar, challenged the dominance of male artists within the gallery and museum spaces throughout the 1970s. Organizations such as Women Artists in Revolution and The Gorilla Girls not only fought against the lack of a female presence within the art world, but also fought to call attention to issues of political and social justice across the board. Betye Saar addressed not only issues of gender, but called attention to issues of race in her piece The Liberation of Aunt Jemima. Even though civil rights and voting rights laws had been passed in the United States, there was a lax enforcement of those laws and many African American leaders wanted to call this to attention. Through the use of the mammy and Aunt Jemima figures, Saar reconfigures the meaning of these stereotypical figures to ones that demand power and agency within society. The background of The Liberation of Aunt Jemima is covered with Aunt Jemima advertisements while the foreground is dominated by a larger Aunt Jemima notepad holder with a picture of a mammy figure and a white baby inside. The larger Aunt Jemima holds a broom in one hand and a rifle in the other, transforming her from a happy servant and caregiver to a proud militant who demands agency within society. A large, clenched fist symbolizing black power stands before the notepad holder, symbolizing the aggressive and radical means used by African Americans in the 1970s to protect their interests. Aunt Jemima is transformed from a passive domestic into a symbol of black power. She has liberated herself from both a history of white oppression and traditional gender roles.

Japanese Flat garden Kyoto, ca. 1525

Zen Buddhist culturemade of gravel and stone. Zen rock gardens, or karesansui (translated as "dry-mountain-water"), originated in medieval Japan and are renowned for their simplicity and serenity. Gardens were arranged in ways that portrayed Japanese natural landscapes, and Buddhism became a dominant, inspirational force behind their creations. Zen rock gardens are basically pond gardens without water. Zen monks draw wavy patterns in the sand with a rake as a way to mimic undulating movements of streams. All the rocks in the garden also represent elements found in regular Japanese gardens, such as islands, mountains, trees, bridges and even animals. Muso Soseki beautifully summed up this idea of imaginary components in his poem, "Ode to the Dry Landscape"