c. 1472
Fresco
Ognissanti, Florence
Marked by the signs of grief, Mary is embracing her dead son. Mary Magdalene and St John are holding Christ’s arms and legs, his hands and feet marked with the stigmata. Around the group are six other saints, including, on the right, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. Behind them, on the Hill of Golgotha, the trunk of the Cross is towering up in front of a view of the city of Jerusalem.
1750-51
Oil on canvas, 50 x 43 cm
Musee du Louvre, Paris
Commissioned for the king by Le Normant de Tournehem, the Director of Buildings, and exhibited in the Salon of 1751, the painting subsequently became part of the collection of the Marquis de Marigny, Madame Pompadour’s brother. One of Chardin’s last genre scenes, it shows the painter influenced by Dutch art, using a detailed language and a delicate balance of light.
Oil on panel, 28 x 37 cm
Musee de Tess? Le Mans
The artist reveals his Flemish origins in this picture, since ‘vanitas’ pieces are extremely rare in French art, though common in the North.
c. 1530
Oil on wood, 81,4 x 67 cm
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence
The two panels in the Uffizi (The Departure of St Florian and The Martyrdom of St Florian) make up a series (incomplete) of seven representing the story of St Florian. The other panels are scattered in various museums: 3 in Nuremberg, 1 in Prague, and 1 in Bern. They are not belong to the St Florian Altarpiece executed by Altdorfer for the abbey church in Sankt Florian near Linz, Austria. It is not known whether this altarpiece was also painted for the same church.
Albrecht Altdorfer was a painter who tended to specialize in landscape and architecture to such an extent that these elements, from being simple background decorations, often became the central theme of his paintings. The dramatic and enchanted images that were the hallmark of his style caused him to be considered one of the precursors of Romanticism.
Altdorfer’s fantastic, visionary art represented the other side of sixteenth century culture. In his paintings he borrows the extremely vivid colours from dreams, the narration becomes impassioned, and the space-time elements narrow and expand irrationally.
Particularly noteworthy is the crystalline clearness of the colours, especially the whites, which contribute to giving the story and the whole scene a somewhat unreal atmosphere.
1631-33
Oil on canvas, 100 x 142,5 cm
National Gallery, London
In the early 1630s, Poussin was working on a major series of Bacchanals for Cardinal Richelieu which were designed to adorn his château near Orlans. The earliest of Poussin’s bacchanals (not one intended for Richelieu) is the Bacchanal before a Statue of Pan in the National Gallery, London. The colours are conspicuously light, with pink and pale blue predominating.
The painting was inspired by the Bacchanal of Titian in the Villa Aldobrandini in Rome.
1452-65
Fresco
Duomo, Prato
The picture shows one of the scenes from the Stories from the Life of St John the Baptist painted by Filippo Lippi in the choir of the Prato Cathedral.
Vincent Van Gogh Starry Night Pen Drawing
Painting: Starry Night
Artist: Vincent van Gogh
Medium: Pen
Size: 47 x 62.5 cm
Original Location: Saint-Remy
Year: June 1889
Meseum: Lost (formerly in the Kunsthalle Bremen)
Van Gogh Starry Night Painting
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June 1889 (210 Kb); Oil on Canvas, 72 x 92 cm (29 x 36 1/4 in); The Museum of Modern Art, New York
1658
Oil on canvas, 67 x 57 cm
National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh
c. 1729
Oil on canvas, 128,3 x 103 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
