Niagara Falls | Frederic Edwin Church | 1867

Church’s talent did not go unnoticed and before he was 30, he already had become a renowned artist. He is recognized today as one of the most important figures of the Hudson River School, a group of artists who, imitating the European Romantics (such as Turner, Whistler and Cotman), found inspiration in strictly American landscapes.

Unlike other artists of the School, Church was taking a more scientific approach to the motifs of his work and, therefore, his paintings are more detailed and accurate than those of his contemporaries. Niagara Falls of 1867 is one of the four paintings he made ​​during his mature age. To paint it, he used a colored photograph and a drawing of the landscape he made beforehand. What is striking about the work is the number of tones and details that Church achieved from this photography and drawing, since, as stimuli, are a little rough. Probably, like Turner, the artist had the ability to memorize colors and was able to transfer them onto the canvas. Church’s vision of the Niagara Falls, consistent with the Romantic movement, it is quite idealized: the water appears blue, clean, and looks more like a landscape from the Caribbean than from a muddy river in the northern United States; the rainbow in the lower right corner of the painting reinforces the idealization of the landscape. In painting, we can feel the brutality of the force of water at the same time we can admire the nature of the place quietly, and that is why the series of falls Church painted continues to be irresistibly attractive.

Liberty leading the people | Eugène Delacroix | 1830

In the late seventeenth century, France was going through the Age of Enlightenment, an intellectual movement that considered reason as the only instrument for individual and social progress. Through the light of reason, humanity could dispel the darkness of ignorance, superstition and tyranny. It hoped to build a better world. The art at the time was also extremely rational: the technique of the artists was impeccable; their details, exquisite; the composition was studied obsessively. In short, art was less than perfect. This type of style is called “neoclassicism” because it intended to do a reinterpretation of ancient Greek and Roman art. The main artist from this movement in France were Jacques-Louis David, and his student Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres.

The young Delacroix also began to paint under this paradigm but began to distance himself when he first saw “The raft of the Medusa” by Theodore Gericault. From there, Delacroix began to find the inspiration from Renaissance paintings, and not from the classical art. Delacroix starts to emphasize color and movement for his paintings, and not the perfection of the line anymore.

Liberty leading the people is one of the world’s best known paintings. We see it everywhere; from commercials to pop albums (e.g “Viva La Vida” by Coldplay). It also inspired the creator of the Statue of Liberty, which was given to the U.S. by the French 50 years after Delacroix painting was finished. For art, it represents the shift from French neoclassicism to romanticism.

The work commemorates the July Revolution of 1830, which consisted of three days of clashes between civilians and the royal army of Charles X of France. The monarch had become despotic and autocratic, and plunged the people into a state of chaos and despair. Hunger, unemployment and mismanagement caused a popular uprising in which all classes participated. In the painting, in the foreground we see a female figure representing Liberty. I think it’s obvious but, just in case, we should clarify: the painting is not based on actual events. Freedom is only an allegorical figure. It would be quite unlikely for a half-naked barefoot woman to lead an armed uprising. Holding the French tricolor, she leads the revolutionary under the banner of “liberty, equality and fraternity”, while marching on top of dead soldiers from the royal army. Behind her we see the different social classes who joined the revolution: the character with the top hay represents the Parisian bourgeoisie as the young with guns represents the working class. It’s a dramatic and crude scene, in which we see the horrors of battle at the same time that it shows us the seed of a new France, free of despots. With the uprising, Charles X was replaced by Louis-Philippe, who was a more just and fair king. The throne of France was never considered a hereditary or divine right anymore: after the revolution, the king began to be elected by the people.

Golconda | René Magritte | 1953

Surrealism was an eclectic movement: on one hand, Dali’s works were dreamlike and fantastic; on the other, de Chirico painted pictures of strangely bizarre metaphysical vibe; Magritte, meanwhile, worked on paintings with ordinary objects in unusual contexts, and so created his own form of poetry to express his unconscious, in a more philosophical and conceptual way than the previous ones. The artist, unlike the other surrealists, was a disturbingly common person, always wearing a pilot, suit and tie; was married to his wife Georgette for 45 years without any scandal, and who promised her a “calm and quiet, bourgeois life. ” In short, a boring person.

His painting picture everyday items and figures. Among his favorite subjects are pipes, men in hats and musical instruments. The “surreal” for Magritte, was the way in bringing together these common elements. He will say that his paintings are only “images that do not hide anything. Rather, they evoke mystery.” When you wonder what is the meaning of his paintings, he will reply that they “do not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either.”

Golconda is one of my favorites. In the work, we see a composition in which a background of residential buildings is populated with men in hats. The landscape is similar to the neighborhood in Brussels where the artist lived. Although it looks that men are falling (which terrifyingly would prophesy the song “It’s Raining Men” by The Weather Girls), the characters are just floating there, since there is no visible sign of movement. The clothes the men are using was common in businessmen and bankers. The name of the painting refers to a city in India, renowned for its wealth, and was suggested to Magritte as a title by a poet friend who helped him to name other of his paintings. As a tribute, the artist portrayed his friend in the foreground man closest to the fireplace on the right. Both the reference of the name of the work, and the fact that characters can represent businessmen, tempts us to make an interpretation of the painting, but this is something the artist would reject completely. We are left only with the mystery and uncertainty, which makes the work darker and more attractive.

Ice cream cavern | Will Cotton | 2003

The complete satisfaction of desire in marketing times takes a very special meaning for the American Will Cotton. If in the Renaissance they dreamed of Arcadia, a mythical pastoral society in communion with nature; Cotton interprets the same ideal, but he adapts it to contemporary desire. He doesn’t speak of an intrinsic desire of man, but of one given by the media, which “bombard us with hundreds, if not thousands of messages designed specifically to incite desire within us”, in the words of the painter.

Influenced by the American landscape tradition (specifically the Hudson River School), he thinks that the landscape should be also an object of desire itself. Thus, his paintings consist of portraits of characters in landscapes composed of goodies. In the foreground, he portrays pin-up style women and, in the background, he composes his works with cotton candy, ice cream, churros, cakes and sweets. To find inspiration, the artist opened a French bakery in Manhattan, where he shares with the public the aromas and feelings he wants to illustrate in his paintings.

In Cavern of ice cream, Cotton shows us an unknown woman, like Ingres’s bathers, reclining with her back to us. The background make us to think in a cold place, but the woman appears naked and perfectly comfortable in the cave, as if the artist wanted to make a counterpoint between warmth and coldness, or contrast the superficiality of a product with the depth of a naked character. The woman’s eroticism and the voluptuousness of the ice cream in the background of the work don’t interrupt into the spectator’s perception but, curiously, they reflect harmony and peace.

A break away! | Tom Roberts | 1891

At age 13, Roberts emigrated from England with his parents and settled in Australia. At 16, he began to work as a photographer while studying art at night. Almost 10 years later he decided to devote himself to painting, so he moved to England and studied art at the Royal Academy schools, only to return to Australia after the end of his career.

Roberts began to dedicate himself to motifs that portrayed the lives of workers in Australia. This type of paint, at that moment, generated resistance because, according to critics, were not considered “artistic enough.” However, the Australian public related to them, and the artist achieved fame and prestige, regardless of academic opinion. Roberts subscribed to a movement called the Heidelberg School, with artists who liked to paint outdoors with a technique similar to the Impressionists.

In Escape! we see a scene of rural Australia. From the left, we see a flock of sheep that has escaped from a farm and head running into a lake to drink water. Although the work has lots of clear details, the confuse dust raised by the herd gives dynamism to the painting. A character riding a horse tries to control the situation, since it is common that many sheep die by drowning as a result of trampling of the last ones to arrive to a lake. The landscape is arid and dry and illustrates the colors of the interior of Australia without any idealization. This honesty characterized Roberts, who became one of the most important Australian painters.

The stonebreaker | Henry Wallis | 1857

Wallis subscribes to the English pre Raphaelites, like artists such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Everett Millais. Although Wallis was already recognized, The stonebreaker cemented his reputation as a member of the movement.

In this work we can see a quarry worker who seems to sleep in his workplace during a sunset. However, although never confirmed by Wallis, a closer look reveals that the character is not sleeping, but probably is dead. Since 1834, the British issued an act that worsened the condition of manual laborers. The exploitation they were subjected to caused that the employees to often die in their workplace as a result of exhaustion and fatigue. The frame of the canvas has a phrase written that says “Now is thy long day’s work done”. Although this can be naively interpreted literally, probably Wallis wanted to support these workers and the “long day” refers to their life, full of sacrifice and deprivation.

The afternoon refers us to an end, a culmination. The uncomfortable position of the character seems to indicate that he is not lying, but has collapsed. The hammer seems to have fallen from his hands, which seems to confirm the theory of the worker’s death. The colors in this work are intense but muted, making this painting both tragic and depressing, but powerfully expressive.

A boy with a violin | Frans Hals | 1625

Frans Hals was born in Antwerp, but his family emigrated because their native city was conquered by the Spanish. They settled in Haarlem, where Hals spent the rest of his life. There, religious painting was almost banned for being considered “too Catholic” issue that was associated with the Spanish invasion of the country. Therefore, the artist did not have much choice but to paint portraits, which constitute the entirety of his work.

Hals used loose and spontaneous brushstrokes. He didn’t even bother to make preliminary sketches or studies. He preferred to paint directly on the canvas with a technique called alla prima: instead of paint layers one after another with more detail each time, he preferred to paint small parts of the canvas fully detailed in just one time.

In his works, Hals portraits wealthy citizens, it is, those who could pay for his work. However, he often would paint motifs of his own choice, like boys playing instruments, such as A boy with a violin. These portraits are a curious for one reason: most of the characters appear with a contorted expression. In today’s work, the boy seems to play for himself, completely abstracted from the outside world in a kind of ecstasy. The use of diamond position canvas let us to know that this work was not commissioned to the artist, as this would not have been accepted as traditional. To the left of the canvas, we can see the monogram with the initials of the painter, a way to show the pride the artist had for this painting.

Hals’s work was ignored until almost mid-nineteenth century, when he began to be recognized and valued. His expertise is now compared to Rembrandt’s, his contemporary and rival in art.

Abstract painting #5, 1962 | Ad Reinhardt | 1962

In the early 40s, Ad Reinhardt joins the AAA, the group of American Abstract Artists, informally known as “the irascible”. They all lived in New York and met regularly to discuss the scope of the new movement. In these meetings, Reinhardt knows characters like Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning.

The group argued that the source of inspiration for the artist should be his own unconscious. And, therefore, the painting should be automatic and spontaneous. In his early work, Reinhardt, in line with the movement, also abstracted from reality, and therefore, in this period, his works consist only of flat geometric shapes arranged in a composition full of bright colors. But there was one problem: the artist was not as expressive as his friends and his paintings didn’t seem to work. While the other artists were dramatic and impulsive, Reinhardt approached his work in a more philosophical and intellectual way.

The artist, far from considering his rationality and control a defect, was proud of these features; but needed a change, a different way to approach his work. He made clear that his mission was to get to the heart of abstraction. As he defined it, to “a pure painting, abstract, non-objective, timeless, space less, changeless, non-relational, selfless – a subject that is conscious of itself, ideal, transcendent, focused on nothing but in the art itself “. That is, an art without emotions or beliefs, an art of a vacuum: that didn’t say or express anything … and it is for these reasons that he begins to separate himself from the abstract expressionists.

Reinhardt then had no choice but to start experimenting and took a radical turn, which ended symbolically in their series of Black paintings, works in which he worked from 1960 until the end of his life in 1967.

Reinhardt presents for the first time this series in 1963. The show stirred the art community, and even several members of the MoMA, where the paintings were exhibited, canceled their registration. The reason? They were just canvases painted in black. All of them very alike. It is true that we cannot accuse the spectators because paying to see only black canvases seems a little … fraudulent. But it is also true that the public had the artistic sensibility of a drunken pirate. Because the paintings are not just black and that’s it: Reinhardt mixed colors with black painting to obtain tones that, although subtle, were different. He even will state that “there is an old black and a new black, a glossy black and boring black, a black in sunlight and a black in darkness.” From this exhibition, the British philosopher Richard Wollheim first used the term minimal to describe Reinhardt’s paintings. Then the concept will evolve and the minimalism will become an artistic movement in its own right. Abstract # 5, 1962, is one of the work of this series. Unfortunately, we have to see it in person to appreciate its subtleties. Particularly, this canvas is divided into 9 square planes, with 3 wide and 3 high, and, while the planes in the extremes are more reddish, in the central one the, the black is bluish. However, the important thing here is that this work serves us as an example to think about the artist’s evolution and the conclusion of his research. Works such as Abstract # 5, 1962 are final objects, versions of an art that lacks of any intention whatsoever, that challenges us to interpret it until we reached the conclusion that there is nothing to interpret, because it has nothing to say … that is art for art’s sake only… and nothing else.

Japanese bridge | Claude Monet | 1924

In 1883, Claude Monet and his family moved to a house in the village of Giverny, where he will spend the rest of his life. This property had a large garden, which Monet immediately falls in love with. In his spare time, Monet used to work the landscape and, soon, this activity became his obsession. Most of his late paintings illustrate parts of this garden. The artist painted several of his series such as the Gardens, the Water lilies or the Ponds here under different weather conditions and outdoor light.

Monet (right) over the Japanese bridge - 1922

Inspired by the paintings of Hiroshige, Monet asked his workers to build a Japanese bridge over a pond to cover it with Japanese wisteria, a pastel purple vine. The Japanese bridge then becomes another of his favorite motifs and painted several pictures of it.

The canvas of 1924, although not very pretty, is perhaps the most interesting. The bridge can hardly be distinguished from the rest of the composition. We only can see something curved, but without any details. This is one of the more abstract works of Monet, although he never proposed to do so: the artist was losing his sight and had just recovered from a cataract operation. That’s why the tones are that reddish: the perception of this color is one of the symptoms of the condition.

Portrait of the Marchesa Casati with peacock pens | Giovanni Boldini | 1914

After moving to Paris, he became a successful painter of portraits. Boldini’s and Singer-Sargent’s career are often compared, as both were successful painters of portraits around the same time, while the first was in Paris and the latter in London.

Boldini painted the Marchesa Casati several times. She was an Italian heiress who sponsored artists, but was best known for her eccentricities. The Marchesa used to walk through Paris with cheetah cubs on a leash and attended social events using live snakes as part of  their clothing. The painting from 1914 is the most interesting.

In this portrait, Boldini combines the realism and the details of the Marchesa’s body with furious strokes in the dress and in the background of the work, making it almost abstract. Although the palette is narrow, the colors are vibrant and expressive.

While the dynamic compositions of Boldini brought him fame and recognition, the Marchesa Casati, after moving to London, lost his fortune because of her excesses and spent the last years of his life living in the street. According to a witness, elderly and demented, the Marchesa spent her time stirring the garbage in search of peacock pens.