Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Stories

The Boxer at Rest—Defeated Hellenistic Athlete

Coming face-to-face with a piece of art you’ve loved for years is a thrilling, exciting and oftentimes overwhelming experience. Such was the case...

Nadine Waldmann 11 June 2025

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Laocoön and His Sons

Laocoön and His Sons was one of the most influential sculptures during the Renaissance. The contorted bodies of the figures, their faces full of...

Anastasia Manioudaki 11 June 2025

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Woman with a Parrot by Gustave Courbet

Gustave Courbet, the enfant terrible of French 19th-century art, did everything he could to save himself in the memory of the contemporary art...

Zuzanna Stańska 10 June 2025

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: A Burial at Ornans by Gustave Courbet

Who nowadays doesn’t appreciate Gustave Courbet‘s striking realism? We all do, but as happens with many geniuses, Courbet was not appreciated by...

Magda Michalska 10 June 2025

Titian, Bacchus and Ariadne, 1520-23, National Gallery, London, UK. Detail. Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Bacchus and Ariadne by Titian

Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne captures the vibrancy of a Greco-Roman myth through the lens of an Italian Renaissance painter. Learn about the...

James W Singer 9 June 2025

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Portrait of Gabrielle d’Estrées and One of Her Sisters

To a 21st-century viewer, the portrait of Gabrielle d’Estrées might seem homo-erotic. However, pictured with her sister, the Duchess of Villars,...

Anna Ingram 9 June 2025

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Ground Swell by Edward Hopper

Edward Hopper created his peaceful seascape masterpiece Ground Swell with hinted implications of social disengagement, emotional loneliness, and...

James W Singer 8 June 2025

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Sea Watchers by Edward Hopper

The time has come for young children to trade in play clothes for school clothes, tugging parents along in the quest for a routine. Meanwhile, all...

Abreeza Thomas 8 June 2025

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Summer Squall by Winslow Homer

The crashing waves roar with deafening thunder, and the foamy spray flies with a quickening speed. Great gusts of wind blow the waters over the rocks...

James W Singer 8 June 2025

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Ocean Breezes by Edward Henry Potthast

This seems to be the perfect painting depicting a nice memory of a summer vacation. It is titled Ocean Breezes and was painted by Edward Henry...

Alexandra Kiely 8 June 2025

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Flaming June by Sir Frederic Leighton

We have prepared a story about this truly warm painting that can leave you in flames…  Ladies and Gentlemen, Flaming June by Sir Frederic...

Joanna Kaszubowska 8 June 2025

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: The Rokeby Venus by Diego Velázquez

Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (1599–1660) was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV and one of the most important painters of...

Joanna Kaszubowska 5 June 2025