Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi - Red Sunset on the Dnieper [1905-08]

Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi - Red Sunset on the Dnieper [1905-08], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Arkhip Kuindzhi (Mariupol, 1842 - St. Petersburg, 1910) is considered one of the most talented Russian landscape painters of his generation. Born in Ukraine, he was associated during the second half of the 1870s with a group of Russian Realist painters known as the Wanderers. In the 1890s, he was hired to teach landscape painting at the Academy of Fine Arts but was later dismissed for sympathizing with student agitators. He ultimately founded his own painting society. 

This late major painting is typical of Kuindzhi, who is best known for his large, nearly empty landscapes. The scene shows a sunset over the banks of the Dnieper, a great river that originates west of Moscow and runs far south into the Black Sea. The dark shapes in the foreground represent a cluster of thatched-roof huts, typical of the region.

[Oil on canvas, 134.6 x 188 cm]

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo - Alexander the Great and Campaspe in theStudio of Apelles [c.1740]

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo - Alexander the Great and Campaspe in the Studio of Apelles [c.1740], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

A boyish artist gazes longingly at the regal woman whose portrait he is painting. The young artist is Alexander the Great's court painter, Apelles, whom ancient writers considered the greatest artist of their time. According to Pliny's Natural History of 77 A.D., Alexander commissioned Apelles to paint a portrait of his favorite concubine, Campaspe. The story illustrates art's transformative powers: Apelles fell in love with his sitter as he captured her beauty on canvas. Alexander so esteemed his painter that he presented Campaspe to Apelles as a reward for the portrait. 

The tale of Alexander and Apelles, a favorite of Renaissance and Baroque painters, celebrates the power and nobility of painting. Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (Venice, 1696 - Madrid, 1770) painted this episode at least three times. For this, the third rendering, he adopted a classic style in which antique architectural elements and relief sculptures evoke a sumptuous palace setting. The background provides a focal area for the gaze of Alexander the Great, who appears handsome and self-confident, yet unaware of the charged glances shared by Apelles and Campaspe. 

[Oil on canvas, 16.55 x 21.25 inches]

Théodore Géricault - Portrait Study [c.1818-19]

Théodore Géricault - Portrait Study [c.1818-19], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This portrait was made as a study for Théodore Géricault's most famous painting, The Raft of the Medusa, made in 1819 and now in the Louvre. In a clear case of ineptitude, the ship named Medusa foundered in the sea off the coast of Africa in 1816. A raft with 140 passengers drifted for thirteen days before being rescued; only fifteen people survived. In preparation for his disturbing and controversial painting of the incident, Géricault (Rouen, 1791 - Paris, 1824) made many studies from life, like this one, to achieve a sense of realism and specificity. 

The sitter wears a shirt similar to those worn by the survivors of the Medusa. Géricault captured the man's character with great sympathy and spontaneity; his watery eyes do not focus on anything outside the canvas but appear to express an internal torment. Shades of brown, gray, and beige blend together to imitate his dark complexion. Dabs of white and beige paint are used to indicate reflective light in his eyes and on the tip of his nose, his bottom lip, and his chin. 

[Oil on canvas, 18.375 x 15 inches]

Camille Pissarro - Boulevard Montmartre on a Winter Morning [1897]

Camille Pissarro - Boulevard Montmartre on a Winter Morning [1897], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

After spending six years painting in the rural setting of Éragny, Pissarro returned to Paris, where he produced several series of the "grands boulevards." As Pissarro surveyed the view from his lodgings at the Grand Hôtel de Russie in early 1897, he marveled that not only could he "see down the whole length of the boulevards" but he had "almost a bird's-eye view of carriages, omnibuses, people, between big trees, big houses that have to be set straight." From February through April, he set out to record, in two views of the Boulevard des Italiens to the right, and fourteen of the Boulevard Montmartre to the left, the spectacle of urban life as it unfolded below his window.

[Oil on canvas, 64.8 x 81.3 cm]

Franz Xaver Winterhalter - Portrait of Leonilla, Princess ofSayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn [1843]

Franz Xaver Winterhalter - Portrait of Leonilla, Princess of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn [1843], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In a daring pose reminiscent of harem scenes and odalisques, the Princess Leonilla of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn reclines on a low Turkish sofa on a veranda overlooking a lush tropical landscape. Only her unassailable social position made it possible for Franz Xaver Winterhalter (Menzenschwand, 1805 - Frankfurt, 1875) to use such a sensual pose for a full-length portrait in Paris in 1843. 

Known for her great beauty and intellect, the Princess is resplendent in a luxurious gown of ivory silk moiré with a pink sash around her waist. A deep purple mantle wraps around her back and falls across her smooth arms. Under carefully arched eyebrows, her heavy lidded eyes gaze languidly at the viewer while she artfully toys with the large pearls around her neck. Winterhalter contrasted sumptuous fabrics and vivid colours against creamy flesh to heighten the sensuality of the pose, the model, and the luxuriant setting.

[Oil on canvas, 56 x 83.5 inches]

Camille Corot - Bacchante by the Sea [1865]

Camille Corot - Bacchante by the Sea [1865], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In his study of Corot, the German art historian Julius Meier-Graefe extolled the series of Odalisques that the artist painted throughout his career, beginning in 1837: "The progressive development of his Odalisques continued until he was past sixty; a development not of a type but of the painting. . . . In the course of fifty years, this figure seems to grow and take on broader, more majestic contours. The forms become rounder, the limbs learn movement, the flesh becomes more elastic and finally, perfected beauty emerges. His women painted in the sixties take on a brilliant loveliness." Corot exhibited this work, along with another, also of a reclining nude, at the 1865 Paris Salon.

[Oil on wood, 38.7 x 59.4 cm]

Vincent van Gogh - Basket of Pansies on a Small Table [1887]

Vincent van Gogh - Basket of Pansies on a Small Table [1887], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Van Gogh began painting still lifes of flowers after moving to Paris in 1886. Here he depicts a basket of pansies on a stool with a seat in the shape of a tambourine. The stool was from the café Le Tambourin, whose furniture and other fittings were inspired by this instrument. For a time, van Gogh had a relationship with the owner of this establishment, Agostina Segatori. This still life has been painted over another picture. Van Gogh scraped the paint away and then applied coats of black and white paint so that he could reuse the canvas.

[Oil on canvas, 46 x 56 cm]