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Old Masters

James Whistler and Chinese Porcelain

James Whistler and Chinese Porcelain

James Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American artist. He was averse to sentimentality and moral allusion in painting. Purple and Rose: The Lange Leizen of the Six Marks is an oil on canvas painting and it is showed in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This work was designed to suggest the curious conflation of a life-sized oil portrait with the decorative design on a Chinese porcelain vase. The painting represents the figure of Christina Spartali dressed in a kimono, her pale face and black hair set against the oddly vaporous gray paint in the upper section of the image, where the artist signed his canvas in large letters. In contrast to the mistiness of the gray paint in this upper band, the rest of the painting below presents to the viewer a variety of decorative surfaces rendered as flatly brushed patches, spots, dashes, and streaks of pigment.

Duration : 4m
Maturity Level : all

Chardin: The Silver Goblet

Chardin: The Silver Goblet

Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin was a French painter and he is considered the master of still life. The Silver Goblet, finished around 1728 is a still life composed of ordinary objects. The silver goblet and the glass carafe, instead of vessels made of clay, reflect an elevate social status. Probably, the objects belonged to the artist himself. This artwork is located in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France.

Duration : 2m
Maturity Level : all

Hiroshige - The Animal Kingdom: Air and Water

Hiroshige - The Animal Kingdom: Air and Water

Utagawa Hiroshige was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist. For scholars and collectors, Hiroshige’s death marked the beginning of a rapid decline in the ukiyo-e genre. Hiroshige’s work came to have a marked influence on western European painting towards the close of the 19th century.

Duration : 4m
Maturity Level : all

Rembrandt: The Night Watch

Rembrandt: The Night Watch

Rembrandt’s largest, most famous canvas was made for the Arquebusiers guild hall. Rembrandt was the first to paint figures in a group portrait actually doing something. The captain, dressed in black, is telling his lieutenant to start the company marching. The guardsmen are getting into formation. Rembrandt used the light to focus on particular details, like the captain’s gesturing hand and the young girl in the foreground. She was the company mascot. This masterpiece is now located in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Duration : 5m
Maturity Level : all

Rembrandt/Vincent van Gogh: The Raising of Lazarus

Rembrandt/Vincent van Gogh: The Raising of Lazarus

Van Gogh based this painting on a print by Rembrandt – but only part of the print. He left out the main figure: Christ with his arm raised. Van Gogh focused on the theme of human suffering. He probably identified with Lazarus in the tomb. That would explain why he gave the figure a red beard. The two women by the grave are two acquaintances from Arles: Mrs Roulin, in the green dress, and Mrs Ginoux, in a dark dress with colorful stripes. A few of the pigments have faded considerably. This has largely done away with the original contrast between the warm colors in the background and the cold colors of Lazarus in the foreground.

Duration : 3m
Maturity Level : all

Titian: Venus of Urbino

Titian: Venus of Urbino

This is one of Titian’s most famous works and it depicts the emblematic figure of a young bride about to be dressed to take part in the celebration of the ritual known in Venice as Il Toccamano. It was a ceremony held in the home and not in church, during which a young woman whose hand was requested in marriage would touch the hand of the groom to express her consent. Titian takes this as his inspiration for a seductive Venus, using an iconography that began in the early Renaissance, inspired by the ancient depiction of the Venus pudica. This masterpiece is located in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.

Duration : 4m
Maturity Level : all

Chinese School: An Empress and an Emperor

Chinese School: An Empress and an Emperor

The painting of the Tongzhi Emperor, the tenth Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, was painted by an anonymous Qing Dynasty court painter and it is now in the Palace Museum, in Beijing. The second painting shows the Empress Jing Xian and the giclée technique allows to show a vivid image with maximum color accuracy and exceptional resolution.

Duration : 3m
Maturity Level : all

Hans Holbein the Younger: Portraits of Henry VIII

Hans Holbein the Younger: Portraits of Henry VIII

Portraiture was the most popular genre in sixteenth-century England, and indeed one of the few available to artists following the schism between the Church of Rome and the Church of England, of which Henry VIII became head. This likeness of the famous Tudor king is a magnificent example of Holbein’s remarkable style, characterised by a monumental rendering of figures which are nonetheless endowed with considerable psychological depth. In this markedly linear portrait, Holbein uses the frontal pose of the regal model and the position of his hands to convey the sitter’s powerful personality and majestic bearing.

Duration : 2m
Maturity Level : all

Hans Holbein the Younger: The Ambassadors

Hans Holbein the Younger: The Ambassadors

Jean de Dinteville, the man on the left, is shown on his second diplomatic mission to England on behalf of Francis I, King of France. To the right is his close friend, Georges de Selve, Bishop of Lavaur. This portrait was painted at a time of religious upheaval in Europe. The portrait is a supreme display of Holbein’s skill in composing images and in manipulating oil paint to recreate a variety of textures. If viewed from a particular angle the elongated shape between the men’s feet becomes a skull. Equally hidden at the top left of the picture is a crucifix that hints at the hope of redemption in the resurrected Christ. This masterpiece is located in The National Gallery in London.

Duration : 3m
Maturity Level : all

Jan Vermeer: A Young Woman Standing at a Virginal

Jan Vermeer: A Young Woman Standing at a Virginal

It appears to be dark outside this elegant room: a blue curtain covers the top part of the window, but the glass below it is black. The light which glints in the heavily dilated pupils of the woman seated at the keyboard comes from in front of the painting, an unusual effect for Vermeer. Significantly, the picture hanging on the wall shows a prostitute flirting with a client. Vermeer tended to hedge them with uncertainties, but here the background picture gives an unusually strong hint, which encourages us to wonder if the keyboard player has more than music on her mind. This painting is now located in The National Gallery in London.

Duration : 3m
Maturity Level : all

A Dialogue between Still Lifes: Manet/Chardin

A Dialogue between Still Lifes: Manet/Chardin

Édouard Manet attached great importance to still life, which he considered to be the touchstone of the painter. Tired of history painting, he confessed - A painter can say all he wants to with fruits or flowers, or even clouds -. As Manet, Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin was one of greatest masters of Still Life in the history of art. The painting style of the establishment in his day was Rococo: a pretentious style, crammed with allegorical images from classical mythology and swirling with ornate decoration. To Chardin this theatrical approach reduced art to some kind of intellectual conversation piece. It was totally alien to the world that he constructed - a simple world of truth, humility and calm played out in a few square inches on the canvas.

Duration : 5m
Maturity Level : all

RestART Beirut

RestART Beirut

CONTRIBUTE TO SAVE BEIRUT’S HERITAGE

Duration : 35s
Maturity Level : all

Liberty Leading the People

Liberty Leading the People

The leader of the French Romantic school, Eugéne Delacroix, painted Liberty Leading the People in order to commemorate the July Revolution of 1830. The woman in this masterpiece personifies the concept of Liberty. She is leading a group of people forward over a barricade, holding the tricolor flag of the French Revolution which became Frence’s national flag after these events. Liberty Leading the People is now in the Louvre Museum, in Paris.

Duration : 2m
Maturity Level : all

Orientalism in Europe

Orientalism in Europe

The fascination for the Orient which runs throughout the history of Western art peaked in the nineteenth century. Orientalism enjoyed a golden age between Bonaparte’s Egyptian campaign (1798‐1801) and Matisse’s stay in North Africa in 1906. The views of Egypt brought back by the artists on Bonaparte’s expedition, along with the illustration of the first events in the Napoleonic legend, were the first milestones in the European public’s rediscovery of the East.

Duration : 5m
Maturity Level : all

Michael Najjar after Caspar David Friedrich

Michael Najjar after Caspar David Friedrich

Najjar takes photos of a crash site in California’s Mojave desert and, drawing on Caspar David Friedrich’s 1823/1824 painting Das Eismeer (The Sea of Ice), rearranges them as a jagged, towering heap of wreckage against a chain of hills banked in fog.

Duration : 2m
Maturity Level : all

Van Gogh/Hiroshige - Dreaming of Japan

Van Gogh/Hiroshige - Dreaming of Japan

Dreaming of Japan is the name the Pinacothéque of Paris gave to an exhibition in 2013. In this movie there is a comparison between two paintings: Suspension Bridge in Nieuw-Amsterdam by Vincent van Gogh and Group of Blind Men and Yugyo Temple in the Distance by Utagawa Hiroshige. Both the paintings are located in the Pinacothéque of Paris.

Duration : 3m
Maturity Level : all

Sandro Botticelli, the Birth of Venus

Sandro Botticelli, the Birth of Venus

Known as the Birth of Venus, the composition actually shows the goddess of love and beauty arriving on land, on the island of Cyprus, born of the sea spray and blown there by the winds, Zephyr and, perhaps, Aura. The goddess is standing on a giant scallop shell, as pure and as perfect as a pearl. She is met by a young woman, who is sometimes identified as one of the Graces or as the Hora of spring, and who holds out a cloak covered in flowers. This masterpiece by Sandro Botticelli is located in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.

Duration : 9m
Maturity Level : all

PAINTING WOMEN

PAINTING WOMEN

DISCOVER THE DEDICATED CHANNEL

Duration : 16s
Maturity Level : all

Sandro Botticelli - Two Portraits of a Young Woman

Sandro Botticelli - Two Portraits of a Young Woman

Two beautiful portraits by Sandro Botticelli we love to compare as they are in two different museums in Germany

Duration : 5m
Maturity Level : all

Sandro Botticelli - Venus and Mars

Sandro Botticelli - Venus and Mars

Venus and Mars is a panel painting of about 1485 by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli. It shows the Roman gods Venus, goddess of love, and Mars, god of war, in an allegory of beauty and valour.

Duration : 2m
Maturity Level : all

Sandro Botticelli - Madonna of the Magnificat

Sandro Botticelli - Madonna of the Magnificat

The work portrays the Virgin Mary crowned by two angels, a sheer veil covering her flowing blonde hair and a Byzantine style scarf around her shoulders.

Duration : 2m
Maturity Level : all

Sandro Botticelli - Tondo Raczynski

Sandro Botticelli - Tondo Raczynski

Born Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi, Sandro Botticelli (“botticello” meaning “little barrel”) created some of the most celebrated paintings of the early Italian Renaissance.

Duration : 3m
Maturity Level : all

Sandro Botticelli - Bardi Madonna

Sandro Botticelli - Bardi Madonna

Its primary name derives from the rich Florentine banker Agnolo Bardi who commissioned it for his family chapel at the Santo Spirito Basilica in Florence. It was completed around the end of 1485.

Duration : 4m
Maturity Level : all

Sandro Botticelli - Nastagio degli Onesti

Sandro Botticelli - Nastagio degli Onesti

Nastagio degli Onesti is the protagonist in one of the one hundred short stories contained in The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio. The eighth story of the fifth day, it tells of the unrequited love of the nobleman Nastagio for a girl who will eventually be induced to accept Nastagio’s affection by the appearance of a rejected lover and her beloved.

Duration : 4m
Maturity Level : all