Paleta
The Swan Princess by Mikhail Vrubel is under the impression of fairy tales and folklore
The Russian painter Mikhail Vrubel sought inspiration in literature and usually presented tragic situations or dark sides of the figures in the paintings. He painted The Swan Princess at the farm of his parents in Chernihiv province, in present-day Ukraine, in the summer of 1900. It is believed that the painting was inspired by the opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov which was based on the fairytale of the same name by Alexander Pushkin. Vrubel designed the decor and costumes for this opera and his wife, opera singer Nadezhda Zabela-Vrubel, sang in the role of The Swan Princess. However, he said that he set the character of Tatiana from the poem by Eugene Onegin by Pushkin. The painting The Swan Princess is in The State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.
Stéphane Mallarmé's symbolist poetry anticipated and inspired Cubism
Symbolist poetry of French poet and critic Stéphane Mallarmé anticipated and inspired artistic schools of the early 20th century like Cubism, Surrealism, Futurism, and Dadaism. The idea of poetry as evocative, derived from the world of ideas, philosophy, and arguably, from the poets own drive to create something original from the depth of their being. Stéphane Mallarmé said: “The art of evoking an object little by little so as to reveal a mood or, conversely, the art of choosing an object and extracting from it an ‘etat d’ame’” -- a state of the soul.
Girl with a Mandolin was one of Pablo Picasso's early Analytic Cubist paintings
Girl with a Mandolin is one of the most beautiful, lyrical, and accessible of all Cubist paintings but is also an early example of an Analytic Cubist painting. The idea for this painting originated in Cadaques where Pablo Picasso and Fernande Olivier spent a summer vacation in 1910. The same year Picasso painted in Paris Girl with a Mandolin within the Cubism. Today it is in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Woman with a Mandolin by Georges Braque is the first Cubist painting in oval format
Influenced by Camille Corot, who taught him that the addition of a musical instrument endows a character with the stillness of an object, Georges Braque returned to the depiction of the human figure after two years that was almost entirely dedicated to painting landscapes and still life pieces. He painted Woman with a Mandolin in the spring of 1910, during his first cubist phase, known as Analytical Cubism. This painting was the first oval-shaped cubist painting, painted by Georges Braque in the usual rectangular shape. After he completed this work Pablo Picasso also produced a painting featuring a figure with a mandolin, an oval Girl with a Mandolin, and a rectangular Girl with a Mandolin. Today, the painting Woman with a Mandolin is in the Bavarian State Painting Collections, Munich.
Picasso's The Young Ladies of Avignon and Cézanne's The Large Bathers
Pablo Picasso's The Young Ladies of Avignon is usually compared to Paul Cézanne's The Large Bathers. Picasso had been very much inspired by this painting. It helped him to look at objects from varying viewpoints. Painted around the same time but with completely different feels, these paintings are influential and have given the painters their distinguished recognition, particularly those that include nude figures in their work.
The Young Ladies of Avignon by Pablo Picasso is the first cubist painting
Les Demoiselles d'Avignon or The Young Ladies of Avignon, originally titled The Brothel of Avignon is a revolutionary large oil painting created in 1907 by Pablo Picasso. Picasso prepared this painting in his Paris studio over six months by making hundreds of sketches, drawings, and paintings of revision. He named the painting The Young Ladies of Avignon after a brothel in Avignon Street in Barcelona. This painting is considered to be the first cubist, avant-garde, and municipal modern painting of the XX century and the most famous example of cubism painting. It is housed in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Matisse's The Joy of life and Cézanne's The Large Bathers
The Joy of Life by Henri Matisse is perhaps the first canvas to clearly understand the great formal challenge of Paul Cézanne and to further the elder master's ideas. This painting is simultaneously seen as inspired by and breaking free of Paul Cézanne's, last great painting, The Large Bathers in its marked symmetry and the adaptation of the nude forms to the triangular pattern of the trees and river.
The Large Bathers by Paul Cézanne is a masterpiece of modern art
Three large paintings of bathers in the landscape were the main preoccupation of the French painter Paul Cézanne in the last years of his life. The most famous is the painting The Large Bathers, which he painted for an incredible seven years, and considered unfinished until he died in 1906. The painting is considered a masterpiece of modern art and one of the greatest compositions of all time. It became an inspiration for Cubism and influenced many generations of modern artists. In form and date, The Joy of Life by Henri Matisse is closest to Cézanne's last great image of bathers and the nude figures in the painting were later compared to Pablo Picasso's painting of The Young Ladies of Avignon. The painting The Large Bathers is housed in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Greatest Fauve painting The Joy of Life by Henri Matisse
During his Fauve years, Henri Matisse often painted landscapes in the south of France during the summer and worked up ideas developed there into larger compositions upon his return to Paris. In 1906, he finished the oil on canvas Le Bonheur de Vivre, or The Joy of Life, his typical important imaginary composition which gives in a concise form the spirit of Fauvism better than his any other Fauve painting. Today, this painting is in the collection of the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Raphael's fresco The School of Athens is a symbol of the Renaissance
A fresco The School of Athens Italian Renaissance artist Raphael painted between 1509 and 1511 as a part of his commission Pope Julius II to decorate the rooms now known as the Stanze di Raffaello, in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. It is located in the first of the four rooms designed by Raphael, the Stanza della Segnatura which was set to be Julius' library. In particular, this fresco has come to symbolize the marriage of art, philosophy, and science that was a hallmark of the Italian Renaissance.
Paleta