#france

Impressionism

10 Best Portraits by Édouard Manet

Édouard Manet is known as one of the most controversial artists of his time. Highly criticized for his realism and for depicting modern life scenes...

Zuzanna Stańska 7 May 2024

Artist Stories

Édouard Manet’s Life in 5 Short Facts

Édouard Manet (1832–1883) was a French modernist painter. His paintings have been heavily critiqued and ridiculed by art juries and critics at the...

Ruxi Rusu 7 May 2024

manet bar at the folies bergere Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: A Bar at the Folies-Bergère by Édouard Manet

A Bar at the Folies-Bergère is considered Édouard Manet’s last major painting. Presented in the Paris Salon of 1882, just a year before the...

Anastasia Manioudaki 7 May 2024

Hans Holbein the Younger, Portrait of Henry VIII of England, ca. 1537, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain.  History

Royal Portraits: The Art of Image

Shakespeare once wrote, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” For monarchs...

Abreeza Thomas 6 May 2024

Impressionists, Gustave Caillebotte, The Floor Planers, 1875 Painting

Jobs in Art Which Don’t Exist Anymore (or Seem Not To)

I think the following motto perfectly fits today as we celebrate all the workers of the world (students count too!). On this occasion I would like to...

Magda Michalska 1 May 2024

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Tamara de Lempicka’s Autoportrait (Tamara in a Green Bugatti)

Heralded as one of the greatest Polish artists of all time, Tamara de Lempicka (1898-1980) painted the aristocracy in France and the United States in...

Isabella Hill 25 April 2024

European Art

The Most Painted Woman in the World Was Lesbian: Suzy Solidor

Born in 1900, Suzanne Louise Marie Marion, known as Suzy Solidor, was a French artist who sang and acted in movies, but over time she became most...

Pola Otterstein 24 April 2024

Elephant, The Valois Tapestries Renaissance

Catherine de’ Medici’s Valois Tapestries

While today, tapestries are seemingly minor works of art, during the Renaissance, nothing was declared more spectacular than a set of tapestries...

Anna Ingram 22 April 2024

The Serpent Queen/Starz. Theater & Cinema

The Serpent Queen: Renaissance Tapestries in Modern TV Series

The Serpent Queen, a show produced by Starz, tells the story of Catherine de Medici’s life and reign in 16th-century France. In the first...

Anna Ingram 22 April 2024

Claude Monet, Impression Sunrise, 1872, Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris, France. Detail. Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Impression, Sunrise by Claude Monet

Claude Monet’s Impression, Sunrise is a masterpiece of Impressionism that captures the elusiveness and the impermanence of an autumn...

James W Singer 21 April 2024

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: The Swing by Jean-Honoré Fragonard

Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806) was the most prolific French painter of the 18th century. He created over 550 paintings embodying the spirit of...

James W Singer 14 April 2024

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Madame de Pompadour by François Boucher

François Boucher (1703–1770) was the most celebrated French painter of the 18th century. His painting Madame de Pompadour captures the beautiful...

James W Singer 14 April 2024