#19th Century

Impressionism

Painting Bordighera: From Monet’s Canvases to Call Me By Your Name

Italy experienced a significant cinematic milestone when it was selected as the backdrop for the film Call Me By Your Name (2017, dir. Luca...

Helena Pereira 24 June 2025

Impressionism

Discover Camille Pissarro’s Unknown Origins: St Thomas Island in the Caribbean Sea

Camille Pissarro, one of the most famous impressionist painters, was born on St. Thomas island in 1830. The exotic island inspired much of his...

Zuzanna Stańska 24 June 2025

Art Nouveau

Ramón Casas—The Painter of Catalan Modernism

When you think of Catalonia, and especially Barcelona, the first name that comes to mind is, of course, that of Antoni Gaudí, but Catalan art at the...

Joanna Kaszubowska 23 June 2025

Rusiñol's painting of a garden view depicting a hedge maze with a sculpture in the center with trees. and filtered sunlight in the distance. Artist Stories

The Beautiful Gardens of Santiago Rusiñol

Santiago Rusiñol i Prats was a prolific painter, draftsman, playwright, novelist, poet, and cultural activist from the late 19th and early 20th...

Maya M. Tola 23 June 2025

Theater & Cinema

Movie Scenes Staged as Famous Paintings

In 1911 the Italian film theoretician Ricciotto Canudo defined cinema as “the seventh art”. So it’s quite natural that from its birth cinema...

Arianna Richetti 23 June 2025

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: The Architect’s Dream by Thomas Cole

The Architect’s Dream is an outstanding example of architectural genre. It was painted by American artist and founder of the Hudson River School Thomas Cole in 1840 for the New York architect Ithiel Town. The painting seamlessly stitches together Egyptian, Graeco-Roman and Gothic styles into a fantastical landscape.

Rucha Vijay Bodas 22 June 2025

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: The Red Tower by Robert Delaunay

When people speak of Paris, the Eiffel Tower is probably the first thing that flashes into the imagination. It is the iconic symbol of Paris. Robert...

James W Singer 22 June 2025

History

Bondage and Freedom—The Protest Art of Two Abolitionists

Since the elites in power like the status quo, social reform is a grassroots movement.  How do reformers engage the masses? With art. Should protest...

Helen Jeffery 19 June 2025

Art Travels

Traveling Artists in Mexico: The First Generation

The 19th century was a tumultuous time for Mexico, to say the least. In 1821, it achieved its independence. However, the war devastated the country...

Jimena Escoto 16 June 2025

Thomas Eakins, Wrestlers, 1899, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, USA. Detail. Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Wrestlers by Thomas Eakins

Thomas Eakins was one of the greatest Realist painters of 19th-century America. Wrestlers explores the interesting dynamic between sports and...

James W Singer 15 June 2025

Erotica

Let’s Talk about Courbet’s Origin of the World

In the 19th century, the display of the nude body underwent a revolution – and a massive critique. Gustave Courbet, one of the main scandalous...

Zuzanna Stańska 10 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