If you are an art lover or just an artistic painting enthusiast, you should explore our in-depth articles about famous artists, movements, painting styles and iconic artworks. Learn about the lives of some of the most famous artists, their inspirations, influences, the record-breaking sales prices of their works, and sometimes even about a specific piece of artwork.
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Also to discover and buy the works of your favorite artists: Famous Artist Prints
Paris, Musée du Louvre On 28 October, 1830, Delacroix wrote to his brother: ‘I have undertaken a modern subject, a barricade, and although I may not have fought for my country, at least I shall have painted for her. It has restored my good spirits’. The painting he had started was this one and it … Read more
London, The National Gallery Glorious colour — this sums up the first impact of the picture. And it encapsulates the difference between the art of Venice and that of Florence. This picture could only have been made in one city in Renaissance Europe — Venice, and by one artist, the greatest of all Venetian painters, … Read more
London, Tate Britain John Martin never lets you down, you always get your money’s worth — huge canvases stuffed full of all manner of pyrotechnic effects, supernatural intervention, storms and huge architectural inventions (usually in the process of being destroyed). Romanticism by the yard. Martin really hams it up, but that is his appeal. His … Read more
Paris, Musée du Louvre Considered an icon of Romantic art, few paintings have been so copied (or parodied) as this extraordinary raft. The scene, overflowing with writhing bodies and churning seas, is the artist’s take on a famous shipwreck off the coast of Senegal on 2 July 1816. The Medusa was a French Royal Navy frigate whose … Read more
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art As the court artist of Philip IV of Spain, Velázquez painted many portraits; but none were quite like this one. In 1649 Velázquez traveled to Italy on the king’s behalf to collect works of art for the Alcazar Palace in Madrid. During his extended stay in Rome, the centre … Read more
London, Tate Britain The demented Ophelia, driven to despair after the murder of her father by her lover Hamlet, is shown here floating in the stream which will soon close over her, unable to comprehend her fate and still singing to herself — ‘Her clothes spread wide, And mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up’. She … Read more
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum Raphael was the Renaissance’s golden boy. In his own time and for centuries afterward, his art was considered the embodiment of the harmony and ideal beauty of the High Renaissance. Born in Urbino where his father was court artist, he would have known the work of Mantegna, Ucello and Piero della Francesca … Read more
Church of St Bavo, Ghent The Ghent Altarpiece is one of the greatest achievements in the history of European art. The jewel-like clarity of the polyptych is never compromised by its enormous scale – each one of the 100 figures are represented as believable three dimensional portraits; gems, pearls, luxurious damasks and all manner of … Read more
Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery In a letter to Van Gogh (in Arles), dated 22 September 1888, Gauguin writes: ‘I have just painted a religious picture, very badly done but it interested me and I like it. I wanted to give it to the church at Ponte-Aven. Naturally they don’t want it. A group of Breton … Read more
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art ‘In wildness is the preservation of the world‘. Henry David Thoreau (1819–62) It was this picture, along with other monumental, ‘national’ paintings like Leutze’s Washington Crossing the Delaware, which led to calls for a city art gallery and the founding of the Metropolitan Museum. The passion this painting inspired … Read more