#france

Artist Stories

10 Things You May Not Know About Édouard Manet

Who has not heard of Édouard Manet? The same Manet whose canvas, Le Déjeuner sur L’herbe (or The Luncheon on the Grass), ushered in a new age for...

Ledys Chemin 7 May 2024

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

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Little Girl in a Blue Armchair by Mary Cassatt

Mary Stevenson Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker. She lived much of her adult life in France, where she became friends with Edgar Degas...

Zuzanna Stańska 5 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

Marie-Denise Villers, Self-Portrait, 1802, Musée du Louvre, Paris, France. Detail. Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Self-Portrait by Marie-Denise Villers

Self-Portrait by Marie-Denise Villers showcases the genius of a leading female artist of Napoleonic...

James W Singer 28 April 2024

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Self Portrait in a Straw Hat by Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun

Why is art history predominantly focused on male artists? Are there not enough female artists to fill textbooks? Of course, there are enough, but the...

James W Singer 28 April 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