William Bouguereau | Jeannie, 1868

"Jeannie" is an 1868 oil painting by French academic painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905).

In his realistic genre paintings, he used mythological themes, making modern interpretations of classical subjects, with an emphasis on the female human body.

As the quintessential salon painter of his generation, he was reviled by the Impressionist avant-garde.

To many, he epitomized taste and refinement, and a respect for tradition.

Man Ray (1890-1976)

Emmanuel Rudnitzky, pseudonimo Man Ray, è stato un pittore, fotografo e regista statunitense, esponente del Dadaismo.

Ray rivoluzionò l'arte fotografica. Grandi artisti dell'epoca come James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Jean Cocteau e molti altri posarono di fronte alla sua macchina fotografica.

Giovanni Dupré | Figurative sculptor

Giovanni Dupré (1 March 1817 - 10 January 1882) was an Italian sculptor, of distant French stock long settled in Tuscany, who developed a reputation second only to that of his contemporary Lorenzo Bartolini.

Biography

Born in Siena, Dupré began in his father's carving workshop and that of Paolo Sani, where he was occupied with producing fakes of Renaissance sculptures.

In an open contest run by the Accademia di Belle Arti, he won first prize with a Judgment of Paris and made his reputation with the life-size figure of the dead Abel, which was purchased for Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaievna, Duchess of Leuchtenberg (now at the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg) and was replicated in bronze, c. 1839, (now in the Galleria d'arte moderna, Palazzo Pitti, Florence).

Albert Bierstadt | Boats Ashore at Sunset

"Boats Ashore at Sunset" was created by the American Hudson River School painter Albert Bierstadt in Luminism style.

Albert Bierstadt was born in Solingen, Prussia, on January 7, 1830, but he spent his early years in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where his parents settled two years after his birth. Henry Bierstadt, the artist's father, found work as a cooper in the capital of America's whaling industry.

Vincent van Gogh | Outskirts of Paris, 1886

Outskirts of Paris are paintings that Vincent van Gogh made in 1887, while he was living in Paris with his brother Theo.

Van Gogh liked to explore the outskirts of Paris, searching for pastoral settings in parks and the wooded areas of the suburbs.

His goal was to find scenes that would allow him to explore techniques he learned in Paris.

Jean-François Millet | Bird's Nesters, 1874

Known for his realistic portrayals of French peasants, Millet produced this painting at the very end of his life.

He based the scene on stories from his childhood that told of great flights of wild pigeons.

When the birds settled in trees at night, the peasants blinded them with light from torches and then clubbed hundreds to death.

Alfred Thompson Bricher | Sunset