Vincent van Gogh drew thousands of images to better his style. He believed that drawing was “the root of everything”.In just over a decade, he produced more than 2100 artworks, consisting of 860 oil paintings and more than 1,300 watercolors, drawings, sketches and prints. He produced nearly 150 watercolor paintings during his life. Similar to his drawings, Van Gogh often did watercolors as studies before doing an oil painting or as practice. As he continued to refine his technique, he used...

Auguste Rodin was a French sculptor, considered the progenitor of modern sculpture; but Rodin did not set out to rebel against the past. He was schooled traditionally, took a craftsman-like approach to his work, and desired academic recognition. Rodin is recognized worldwide for the exceptional authenticity of his anatomical sculptures. He strongly influenced twentieth century sculpture by his assemblage techniques and prepared the way for symbolism by adopting literary and mythological th...

Joseph Mallord William Turner was English artist, one of the greatest and most original of all landscape painters. Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivaling history painting. Although renowned for his oil paintings, Turner is also one of the greatest masters of British watercolor landscape painting. In 1856 the Court of Chancery awarded all the works remaining in his possession at his d...

Francesco Lazzaro Guardi (1712 – 1793) was a Venetian painter of veduta (a highly detailed, usually large-scale painting or, actually more often print, of a cityscape or some other vista), a member of the Venetian School. His early vedutas show influence both from Canaletto and Luca Carlevarijs. Francesco Guardi's most important later works include the Doge's Feasts, a series of twelve canvases celebrating the ceremonies held in 1763 for the election of Doge Alvise IV Mocenigo. In his late...

Rembrandt produced etchings for most of his career, from 1626 to 1660, when he was forced to sell his printing-press and virtually abandoned etching.. He took easily to etching and, though he also learned to use a burin and partly engraved many plates, the freedom of etching technique was fundamental to his work. He was very closely involved in the whole process of printmaking, and must have printed at least early examples of his etchings himself. Rembrandt was as well one of the greatest ...

Leonardo, like Christopher Columbus, possessed an greedy curiosity and desire for discovery of unknown worlds. Only observation, says many times Leonardo, is the key to knowledge and understanding. His drawings are unlike from those of his generation and those drawn before and after him. Among them are fast sketches, portraits, rapid notes for compositions, complicated cartoons, drapery studies, and projects for machines, plants, animals, sketched from nature and anatomical studies. The gr...

Are you the smart enough?Do you know the answers to these questions:What did Marilyn do in 1949?What was the name of the orphanage where Marilyn stayed as a girl?Marilyn had a pet named Ebony. What kind of animal was this?Marilyn was pregnant during the filming of what movie?Marilyn's caretaker was…?Marilyn's psychiatrist was…?Who were Marilyn's 2 female co-stars in 'How to Marry a Millionare'?What size was Marilyn?Wha...

Peter Paul Rubens was a Flemish Baroque painter, and proponents of an exaggerated Baroque style that emphasised movement, colour, and sensuality. He is well known for his altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects.The majority of Rubens's drawings served as a step toward a final work of art in another medium. Rubens kept his drawings close by as studio material to be used by his assistants and collaborators. It was often with the help...

Raffaello Sanzio was an Italian Renaissance painter, architect and designer. His work along with that of his older contemporaries Leonardo and Michelangelo defined the High Renaissance style in central Italy. His posthumous reputation was even greater, for until the later 19th century he was regarded by almost all critics as the greatest painter who had ever lived — the artist who expressed the basic doctrines of the Christian Church through figures that have a physical beauty worthy of th...

Are you the smart enough?Do you know the answers to these questions:What was Jefferson's background?Which university did Jefferson found?Did Thomas Jefferson have an affair with one of his slaves?How did Sally Hemmings come into Jefferson's attention?Jefferson's wife, Martha, known as Patty, died in 1782. Jefferson was 39 years old. Why did he never remarry?Thomas Jefferson would serve as ambassador to France during George Washington's ten...

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni exercised a huge influence on the development of Western art. He is considered a nominee for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man, along with Leonardo da Vinci. Michelangelo was the first Western artist whose biography was published while he was alive. Giorgio Vasari proposed that he was the high point of all artistic achievement of the Renaissance. In this way Michelangelo, indirectly, marked the beginning of the next major movement in Wes...

Katsushika Hokusai was a brilliant artist, ukiyo-e painter and print maker, best known for his wood block print series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji. These prints are famous both in Japan and overseas, and have left a lasting image in the worldwide art world. Hokusai’s artistic influence has stretched to have affected the Art Nouveau style in Europe, including Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Hermann Obrist, all of whom have themes similar to Hokusai’s.Hokusai lived a recl...