Inspiration

Inspiration: “Louis XIV” by Hyacinthe Rigaud
Few royal portraits announce themselves with quite the confidence of Hyacinthe Rigaud’s Louis XIV (1638–1715), King of France. The king stands…
Inspiration: “Medieval City on a River,” by Karl Friedrich Schinkel
A Gothic cathedral catches the light while a storm retreats across a darkened sky. Below it, a ruler and his entourage…
Inspiration: “Death And The Maiden,” by Hans Baldung Grien
Few Renaissance paintings confront viewers as directly as Hans Baldung Grien’s Death and the Maiden. At first glance, the work appears…
Inspiration: “The Milkmaid,” by Peter Fendi
Peter Fendi’s The Milkmaid from 1830 is not a peaceful celebration of orderly rural labor. It is something more human and…
Inspiration: “The Hunt Breakfast,” by Gustave Courbet
Gustave Courbet’s The Hunt Breakfast stands as one of the most atmospheric hunting scenes of nineteenth-century French painting. Created around 1858,…
Inspiration: “River Landscape,” by Annibale Carracci
Annibale Carracci (1560–1609) was a central figure in the reform of Italian painting in the late 16th century. Alongside his cousin…
Inspiration: “The Large Forest,” by Jacob Isaacksz. van Ruisdael
Step into The Large Forest, and you do not simply see trees — you feel them. Massive trunks rise like ancient…
Inspiration: “The Fortune Teller,” by Georges de la Tour
In a quiet yet cunning composition, The Fortune Teller by Georges de la Tour offers more than a mere scene from…
Inspiration: “Mahana No Atua,” by Paul Gauguin
Paul Gauguin was born on June 7, 1848, in Paris, France, into a life that seemed destined for the conventional. Early…
Inspiration: “Storm on The Sea of Galilee,” by Rembrandt
Painted by Rembrandt van Rijn in 1633, The Storm on the Sea of Galilee captures a dramatic episode from the New…
Inspiration: “The Death of Marat,” by Jacques-Louis David
In the heat of the French Revolution, few figures were more artistically and politically intertwined than Jacques-Louis David. Born in Paris…
Inspiration: “Self-Portrait in Front of The Easel,” by Lovis Corinth
Lovis Corinth was born on July 21, 1858, in Tapiau, East Prussia—now Gvardeysk, Russia. His birth name was Franz Heinrich Louis…