Le bassin aux nymphéas is one of the great rarities of Impressionist and Modern art: a painting of Monet's beloved water lilies, that was signed, dated and sold by the artist soon after its execution.

Before becoming the centerpiece of the formidable collection assembled by J. Irwin and Xenia S. Miller, it was owned by Mr and Mrs Norton Simon - The founder of the Norton Simon Foundation that would come to give the celebrated Pasadena museum his name.
Le bassin aux nymphéas has an expressionistic flair that was less evident in his pre-1914 paintings which had evolved over the intervening half decade. Pictures such as Le bassin aux nymphéas were almost abstract, rather than realist, and therefore were considered décoratifs.

In Le bassin aux nymphéas, the water acts as a vehicle for Monet's exploration of the varied textures of the water lilies and the water, as well as the light effects and reflections in the pond surface. Thus, snaking through the centre of the painting, the viewer sees the blue sky while to either side the trees, including what appears to be a weeping willow, are reflected. While Monet has tightly focussed his view on a patch of the pond, creating a closely framed composition that seemingly allows for no foreground or background, he has nonetheless used the water as a form of portal, allowing a complex interplay of the near and the far.

Le bassin aux nymphéas was sold on auction at Christies in London for just over USD 80 million in 2008. It is currently in a private collection.

"Study of a Figure Outdoors" was painted by french impressionist Claude Monet in 1886. It is among the most famous images by Monet, along with his Water Lilies.
Today, the painting can be found at the Musee d Orsay in Paris, France.

Claude Monet was in many ways fascinated by Japanese culture. Many woodcuts and decorations at his house in Giverny attest to this, not least the bridge he had built in his garden. Monet included the bridge in many paintings that not only focused on the bridge itself but also on the pond it spanned, the water lilies in the pond and the banks surrounding the bridge.
In recognition of Monet's respect for the Japanese, and as a tribute to this western artist which in favored by many Japanese, a copy of Monet's garden with its Japanese included can today also be found in Kitigawa in Japan.

Monet exhibited forty-eight of these "landscapes of water" in 1909. Fascinated by the artist's subtle fusion of reality and reflection, critics compared the paintings to poetry and music.

One painting in the series, Le Bassin Aux Nympheas, was sold by Christies in London for more than 80 million US dollars.
This painting is currently on display at the National Gallery in London, England.

Beginning in 1903, Monet embarked on a series of canvases depicting his water garden at Giverny. Here, the pads of lilies scattered across the painting suggest the water's surface, receding into space. The pattern of light and dark beneath the lilies indicates the reflection on the water-sky and the trees on a distant bank. Monet exhibited forty-eight of these "landscapes of water" in 1909. Fascinated by the artist's subtle fusion of reality and reflection, critics compared the paintings to poetry and music.

This painting is currently on display at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, USA

French impressionist Claude Monet created a formidable body of work centered on the water lilies found in the pond at his house in Giverny. It could easily be argued that while the Sunflower belongs to Van Gogh, the Water Lily belongs entirely to Monet. Monet’s paintings of Water Lilies can today be found on display at museums all over the world.

Monet uses the water to act as a vehicle for the exploration of the varied textures of the water lilies and the water, as well as the light effects and reflections in the pond surface. Thus, snaking through the centre of the painting, the viewer sees the blue sky while to either side the trees, including what appears to be a weeping willow, are reflected. While Monet has tightly focussed his view on a patch of the pond, creating a closely framed composition that seemingly allows for no foreground or background, he has nonetheless used the water as a form of portal, allowing a complex interplay of the near and the far.

The painting is currently on display at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, USA

Water Lilies (or Nympheas) is a series of approximately 250 oil paintings by French Impressionist Claude Monet. The paintings are on display at museums all over the world, including the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris,the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Art, and the Portland Art Museum. The paintings depict Monet's flower garden at Giverny and were the main focus of Monet's artistic production during the last thirty years of his life.

In this painting, the scales of lavenders and violets in Waterlilies suggest cool early morning light. Monet has created a wonderful decorative harmony between these colours, the varied greens of the lilypads, and the pinks and vermilions of the waterlilies accented by sharp yellow-green and white lilies. These closely related harmonies and delicately curved linear brushstrokes slow the movement of the eye as it glides into the silvery channel of water; sinks into the illusory depths of the dark reflections; or looks down onto the surface of the pool, as if from above. It combines to make this one of the most amazing Water Lily paintings by Monet.

The painting is currently on display at the Bridgestone Museum of Art in Tokyo, Japan.

Water Lilies (or Nympheas) is a series of approximately 250 oil paintings by French Impressionist Claude Monet. The paintings are on display at museums all over the world, including the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris,the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Art, and the Portland Art Museum. The paintings depict Monet's flower garden at Giverny and were the main focus of Monet's artistic production during the last thirty years of his life.

In the painting, the water acts as a vehicle for Monet's exploration of the varied textures of the water lilies and the water, as well as the light effects and reflections in the pond surface. Thus, snaking through the centre of the painting, the viewer sees the blue sky while to either side the trees, including what appears to be a weeping willow, are reflected. While Monet has tightly focussed his view on a patch of the pond, creating a closely framed composition that seemingly allows for no foreground or background, he has nonetheless used the water as a form of portal, allowing a complex interplay of the near and the far.

This painting is currently in a private collection

Claude Monet was in many ways fascinated by Japanese culture. Many woodcuts and decorations at his house in Giverny attest to this, not least the bridge he had built in his garden. Monet included the bridge in many paintings that not only focused on the bridge itself but also on the pond it spanned, the water lilies in the pond and the banks surrounding the bridge.
In recognition of Monet's respect for the Japanese, and as a tribute to this western artist which in favored by many Japanese, a copy of Monet's garden with its Japanese included can today also be found in Kitigawa in Japan.
This painting is currently on display at the Princeton University Art Museum.

French impressionist Claude Monet created a formidable body of work centered on the water lilies found in the pond at his house in Giverny. It could easily be argued that while the Sunflower belongs to Van Gogh, the Water Lily belongs entirely to Monet. Monet’s paintings of Water Lilies can today be found on display at museums all over the world.

In this painting, the water acts as a vehicle for Monet's exploration of the varied textures of the water lilies and the water, as well as the light effects and reflections in the pond surface. Thus, snaking through the centre of the painting, the viewer sees the blue sky while to either side the trees, including what appears to be a weeping willow, are reflected. While Monet has tightly focussed his view on a patch of the pond, creating a closely framed composition that seemingly allows for no foreground or background, he has nonetheless used the water as a form of portal, allowing a complex interplay of the near and the far.

The painting is currently on display at the Art Institute of Chicago, in the US.

Until 1907 Monet’s water landscapes were like fragments of the pool’s surface selected by the viewfinder of a camera. With a group of vertical canvases of 1907, depicting the narrow channel of reflected light between the reflections of the willows at the western end of the pool, Monet created an entirely new kind of space. The horizontal surface of the pool has disintegrated because the waterlily islands and the reflections of trees and sky — which one knows lie on the horizontal plane of the water — read as vertical. The vertical format is like that of hanging scrolls, but the construction of space may well have derived from the study of Japanese screens, as well as from intense observation.

The scales of lavenders and violets in Water Lilies suggest cool early morning light. Monet has created a wonderful decorative harmony between these colors, the varied greens of the lily pads, and the pinks and vermilions of the waterlilies accented by sharp yellow-green and white lilies. These closely related harmonies and delicately curved linear brushstrokes slow the movement of the eye as it glides into the silvery channel of water; sinks into the illusory depths of the dark reflections; or looks down onto the surface of the pool, as if from above.

This painting is currently on display at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, Israel.

Beginning in 1903, Monet embarked on a series of canvases depicting his water garden at Giverny. Here, the pads of lilies scattered across the painting suggest the water's surface, receding into space. The pattern of light and dark beneath the lilies indicates the reflection on the water-sky and the trees on a distant bank. Monet exhibited forty-eight of these "landscapes of water" in 1909. Fascinated by the artist's subtle fusion of reality and reflection, critics compared the paintings to poetry and music.
One painting in the series, Le Bassin Aux Nympheas, was sold by Christies in London for more than 80 million US dollars.
This painting is currently on display at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, USA.

French impressionist Claude Monet created a formidable body of work centered around the water lilies found in the pond at his house in Giverny. It could easily be argued that while the Sunflower belongs to Van Gogh, the Water Lily belongs entirely to Monet. Monet’s paintings of Water Lilies can today be found on display at museums all over the world.
One painting in the series, Le Bassin Aux Nympheas, was sold by Christies in London for more than 80 million US dollars.
This painting is currently on display at the Musee Marmotten in Paris, France.

]]> info@art-reproductions.net (admin) http://www.art-reproductions.net/monet-claude-c-174_29/water-lilies-nympheas-1916 Sun, 27 Dec 2009 07:04:26 -0600 USD 3124 100 oil painting on canvas http://www.art-reproductions.net/images/Artists/Monet-Claude/Nympheas-Musee-Marmottan.jpg http://www.art-reproductions.net/michelangelo-buon/the-creation-of-adam-3 http://www.art-reproductions.net/product_reviews/the-creation-of-adam-3

The Creation of Adam is part of the fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, painted around 1511 by Michelangelo. It illustrates the Biblical story from the Book of Genesis in which God the Father breathes life into Adam, the first man. It was among the last frescoes to be finished as work on that most famous ceiling was completed.

In the depiction, the hand of God is stretched out to impart the spark of life from his own finger into that of Adam, whose left arm is also extended in a pose mirroring God's. The mirroring poses also underlines that man is created in god’s image. Adam's finger and God's finger are not touching thus giving the appearance of God, the giver of life, reaching out to Adam with Adam receiving.

The Creation of Adam is among the most well-known artworks of all time. It has numerous references in popular culture including the Original movie poster for E.T. with the Extra-Terrestrial depicting ET's hand touching that of a boy, appearances on Familiy guy, the Simpsons, Arrested development, Bruce almighty and latest it is seen cracking in the trailer of the movie 2012.

The Creation of Adam is part of the fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, painted around 1511 by Michelangelo. It illustrates the Biblical story from the Book of Genesis in which God the Father breathes life into Adam, the first man. It was among the last frescoes to be finished as work on that most famous ceiling was completed.

In the depiction, the hand of God is stretched out to impart the spark of life from his own finger into that of Adam, whose left arm is also extended in a pose mirroring God's. The mirroring poses also underlines that man is created in god’s image. Adam's finger and God's finger are not touching thus giving the appearance of God, the giver of life, reaching out to Adam with Adam receiving.

The Creation of Adam is among the most well-known artworks of all time. It has numerous references in popular culture including the Original movie poster for E.T. with the Extra-Terrestrial depicting ET's hand touching that of a boy, appearances on Familiy guy, the Simpsons, Arrested development, Bruce almighty and latest it is seen cracking in the trailer of the movie 2012.

The Virgin of the Rocks (sometimes known as the Madonna of the Rocks) is the title used for both of two different paintings by Leonardo Da Vinci with almost identical compositions. They can be found at the Louvre, Paris, and at the National Gallery, London.

This version is the one found at the National Gallery in London. It was most probably painted before 1508. While ascribed to Da Vinci, assistants like the Predis brothers probably painted some parts of the work. This version of the Virgin of the Rocks was painted for the chapel of the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception, in the church of San Francesco Grande in Milan. The church however sold it before 1785 when Gavin Hamilton bought it and took it to England. After passing through various collections, it was bought by the National Gallery in 1880.

The painting appears to draw on a legend of the meeting between the baby Jesus and John the Baptist on the flight into Egypt. In the standard interpretation of the painting, Madonna is in the centre ushering John towards Jesus, who is seated with the angel Uriel. Jesus is blessing John, who holds out his hands in a gesture of prayer. This version contains some attributes missing from the Louvre version, notably haloes and John's traditional cruciform stick. These clarify the identification of the babies Jesus and John.

The artists of the Impressionist age were sensitively aware of contemporary life. Among the masterpieces created in this awareness are Edgar Degas paintings of ballet dancers, notably The Rehearsal. This was painted by Segas in the period 1873 – 1878.

Degas got the urge to paint the contemporary scene not just from Courbet and Manet but also from his friend, the critic Duranty, an exponent of the aesthetics of naturalism. Yet the particular direction and style his paintings exuberated was entirely his own. He was a student of movement, both at the race course, the opera and especially in the ballet studio.
The Rehearsal is currently on display at the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Bathers (in French: Les Grandes Baigneuses), is an oil painting by French artist Paul Cézanne, painted at the dawn of the 20th century. The largest of a series of "Bather" paintings by Cézanne and occasionally referred to as “Big Bathers” or “Large Bathers”, it is considered one of the masterpieces of modern art, and Cézanne's finest work.

With Bathers, Cézanne continuously moved away from the traditional presentation of paintings, an intentional move designed to make the work have less appeal to the novice viewer. This was done in order to avoid fleeting fads and give a timeless quality to his work. It also contributed to help pave the way for future artists to disregard current trends and paint pieces which would appeal equally to all generations.

The painting was purchased in 1937 for $110,000 with funds from a trust fund for the Philadelphia Museum of Art by their major benefactor Joseph E. Widener. It is still on display at this museum today. The painting was also featured in the BBC2 series “100 Great Paintings”.

The Burial of the Count of Orgaz is a painting by Spanish Renaissance painter El Greco. Widely considered among his finest works, it illustrates a popular local legend of his time: In 1312, a certain Don Gonzalo Ruíz, native of Toledo, and Señor of the town of Orgaz, died (his family later received the title of Count, by which he is generally and posthumously known). He was a pious and charitable man who among other left money for the church of Santo Tomé (El Greco's parish church). According to the legend, at his funeral, Saint Stephen and Saint Augustine descended in person from the heavens and buried him by their own hands in front of the dazzled eyes of those present.

The very large painting is clearly divided into two zones; heavenly above and terrestrial below, but it gives little impression of duality. The upper and lower sections are brought together compositionally. The scene of the miracle is depicted in the lower part of the composition, in the terrestrial section. In the upper part, the heavenly one, the clouds have parted to receive this pious man in Paradise. Christ clad in white and in all his glory, is the crowning point of the triangle formed by the figures of the Madonna and Saint John the Baptist in what is the traditional orthodox composition of the Diesis. These three central figures of heavenly glory are surrounded by apostles, martyrs, Biblical kings and the just.
The Burial of the Count of Orgaz is on display at the Santo Tomé in Toledo, Spain.

In Christianity, The Annunciation refers to the revelation by the angel Gabriel to Mary, the mother of Jesus that she would conceive a child to be born the Son of God. In some Christian churches, this event is celebrated with the Feast of Annunciation on 25 March. The date is chosen as it happened in "the sixth month" (Luke 1:26), which as the Incarnation is nine months before Christmas. The annunciation is also cited in the Quran.
El Greco painted The Annunciation during his Italian period, around 1576. It is today at display at the Museo del Prado in Madrid, Spain.

La maja vestida (The Clothed Maja) is an oil painting by Spanish painter Francisco de Goya. It was painted between 1798 – 1805. He also created an identical painting of the same woman, though this time nude, called La Maja Desnuda(The Nude Maja).
The painting, which was first owned by Prime Minister Manuel de Godoy, who was known as an avid womanizer, was originally hung in his home in front of the naked maja in a way that the naked maja could be revealed at any time with the help of a pulley mechanism.
La Maja Vestisa and La Maja Desnuda and are exhibited next to each other in the same room at the Prado Museum in Madrid.

La Maja Desnuda (known in English as The Naked (or Nude) Maja), is an oil painting portraying a nude woman reclining on a willow, by Spanish painter Francisco de Goya. Goya executed the painting sometime in the period 1797 – 1800. He also created an identical painting of the same woman, though this time dressed, called La Maja Vestida (The Clothed Maja).

Goya was summoned in 1815 by the Spanish Inquisition who requested him to reveal who commissioned this “obscene” painting. This lead to him being stripped of his position as the Spanish court painter.
Two sets of stamps depicting La maja desnuda were privately produced in 1930 in commemoration of Goya's work These were later approved by the Spanish Postal Authority. That same year, the United States government barred and returned any mail bearing the stamps.
La Maja Desnuda is on display at the Museo del Prado in Madrid, Spain. It can normally be found hanging next to its sister painting, La Maja Vestisa.

The Girl with a Pearl Earring (Dutch: Het Meisje met de Parel) is among the masterpieces of Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. As implied by its name, the painting uses a pearl earring for a focal point. It is occasionally referred to as "the Mona Lisa of the North" or "the Dutch Mona Lisa".

In general, little is known about Vermeer or his works. This painting is signed "IVMeer" but not dated, though it is expected to be from about 1665. It is however unclear whether the work was commissioned, and if so, by whom.
It is generally agreed that it is probably not meant as a conventional portrait. Rather,, most recent analysis points to the image being a 'tronie', the Dutch 17th-century description of a ’head’ that was not meant to be a portrait.

On the advice of Victor de Stuers, who for years tried to prevent Vermeer's rare works from being sold to parties abroad, A.A. des Tombe purchased the work at an auction in The Hague in 1881 for only two guilders and thirty cents. At the time, it was in rather bad condition. Des Tombe had no heirs and donated this and other paintings to the Mauritshuis in 1902. The painting is still on display in The Mauritshuis in The Hague.

Vision after the Sermon is an oil painting from 1888 by French Post-Impressionist painter Paul Gauguin. It is among the most important works by Gauguin. The story is about Jacob's fight with an angel with many peasants watching. In the painting, the red color is used to express a very strong emotion.

The Vision After the Sermon marked a climax in Gauguin’s development as an artist, where he at last found the colors and the “idiom” he had been searching for in Brittany and created a work that rejects Realism and Impressionism. It is considered his first true Symbolist painting. The Symbolic power of “Vision” has widely been attributed to its religious subject matter alone. Among the common perceptions is that With ‘Vision After the Sermon,’ Gauguin initiated his symbolist project in the hushed solemnity of a religious meditation.”. By using this “religious meditation” Gauguin is able to clear distinct between what is real, the praying people, and what is imagined, the religious vision they see.
The painting is now being kept by the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh.

Night Watch or The Night Watch (Dutch: De Nachtwacht) is one of the most famous masterpieces of Dutch painter Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn. It was completed in 1642, at the peak of the Netherlands' golden age. The painting could more properly be titled The Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch as it depicts the eponymous company moving out, led by Captain Frans Banning Cocq (dressed in black, with a red sash) and his lieutenant, Willem van Ruytenburch {dressed in yellow, with a white sash}.

With an effective use of sunlight and shadow, Rembrandt naturally leads the eye to the three most important characters among the crowd, the two gentlemen in the centre and the small girl in the centre left background. Behind them the company's colours are carried by the ensign, Jan Visscher Cornelissen.

The painting is said to have been commissioned by the Captain and 17 members of his Kloveniers (civic militia guards). A total of 34 characters appear in the painting. Rembrandt was paid 1,600 guilders for the painting, a large sum at the time.
Today, The Night Watch is on prominent display in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, as its most famous painting.

The Boating Party was painted by American painter Mary Cassatt in the winter of 1893/1894 at Antibes, on the Mediterranean coast of France. It is representative of Cassatt's finest period. The Boating Party was painted only two years after she, as a mature and accomplished artist, had had her first one-person exhibition.

In The Boating Party, with the high horizon, off-center placement of figures, elimination of unnecessary detail, and preoccupation with surface patterns and contours among other reveal her awareness of Japanese art. She may further have have drawn upon Edouard Manet's Boating (1874, Metropolitan Museum of Art), a painting that she greatly admired. Like Manet, she used a close-up view, with the nearest portion of the boat cut off at the edge of the image. But her dazzling color scheme and broad, flat brushwork are post-impressionist in flavor--the color preferences of Gauguin and Van Gogh.

As in all the most interesting of Cassatt's paintings, the composition of The Boating Party is both unconventional and arresting. In this composition, the darkly clad figure of the boatman looms large in the foreground, almost appearing to project out of the canvas. The sail at the left, the oar, and the bow of the boat all point to the head of the child who, in a pose typical of the artist, is shown sprawling gracelessly, yet naturally, in the mother's lap. Despite the simple subject and the centrality of the contented baby, the painting exudes a peculiar psychological intensity because of the enigmatic relationship between the figures so closely tied together in the composition. In conception, execution, and sheer size, this is surely Cassatt's boldest work.
The painting is today part of the Chester Dale Collection at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC.

Bal du moulin de la Galette (more commonly known as Le moulin de la Galette) is a painting by French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Completed in 1876, it is one of Impressionism's most celebrated masterpieces. In addition to the large original, Renoir also painted a smaller version of the picture (78 x 114 cm) with the same title.

The painting depicts what was a typical Sunday afternoon at Moulin de la Galette located in the Montmartre district of Paris. As was the custom in the late 19th century, working class Parisians would dress up and spend time there dancing, drinking, and eating galettes well into the evening.

Similarly to other works of Renoir's early maturity, Bal du moulin de la Galette is a typically Impressionist snapshot of real life. It offers a richness of form, a fluidity of brush stroke, and a flickering light.

The original large version of the painting was in the collection of the French painter Gustave Caillebotte from 1879 to 1894. Following his death, it became the property of the French Republic as payment for death duties. From 1896 to 1929 the painting hung in the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris. From 1929 it hung in the Musée du Louvre until it was transferred to the Musée d'Orsay in 1986. Today, it is still housed in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.

The smaller version was owned for many years by John Hay Whitney. On May 17, 1990, his widow sold the painting for USD 78 million at Sotheby's in New York City, making it among the most expensive paintings ever sold. It is currently in a private collection.

The painting “The Kiss” (originally “Der Kuss”) is probably the most famous work of artist Gustav Klimt. Painted during his ‘golden period’, it depicts a couple locked in an embrace. The rest of the painting dissolves into shimmering, extravagant flat patterning. This patterning has clear ties to Art Nouveau and to the Arts and Crafts movement and also evokes the conflict between two- and three-dimensionality instrinsic to the work of Degas and other modernists. Paintings such as The Kiss were visual manifestations of fin-de-siecle spirit because they capture a decadence conveyed by opulent and sensuous images.

Some speculate that the painting depicts Klimt himself together with his beloved companion Emilie Flöge.

The Kiss is a discreet expression of Klimt’s emphasis on eroticism and the liberation therein. The Kiss falls in line with Klimt’s exploration of fulfillment and the redeeming, transformative power of love and art.[citation needed] The Kiss is deviant from Klimt’s frequent portrayal of women as the lascivious femme fatale.

The Kiss can currently be seen at the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere museum, which is housed in the Belvedere palace, in Vienna, Austria.

Adele Bloch-Bauer II was painted in 1912 by Gustav Klimt. The wife of wealthy industrialist Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, Adele Bloch-Bauer was the only model to be painted twice by Klimt. She was also the subject of the more famous Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I. Her husband was a big sponsor of the arts, including of Klimt, which probably had some influence on her sitting for Klimt twice.

Both portraits of Adele Bloch-Bauer were part of a protracted court battle in the United States and in Austria which resulted in five Gustav Klimt paintings being returned to Maria Altmann, the niece of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, in January 2006.

In November 2006, Christie's auction house sold "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II" at auction for $88 million, the third-highest priced piece of art at auction at the time.

Portrait of Dr. Gachet is among the most revered paintings by artist Vincent van Gogh.
There are two versions of this authentic portrait, both of which were painted in June 1890, a few months before Van Gogh passed away. Both show Doctor Gachet sitting at a table and leaning his head onto his right arm, but they are easily differentiated. The painting here is the first version.
Van Gogh wrote to his brother in 1890 about the painting:

“ I've done the portrait of M. Gachet with a melancholy expression, which might well seem like a grimace to those who see it... Sad but gentle, yet clear and intelligent, that is how many portraits ought to be done... There are modern heads that may be looked at for a long time, and that may perhaps be looked back on with longing a hundred years later".

The first version of the painting was sold for a record price of $82.5 million at auction in Christie's New York in 1990 by Japanese businessman Ryoei Saito. Its current location is unknown.
The second version of the portrait is in the possession of the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France.

The Monet painting Impression Sunrise shows the harbour of Le Havre in France, using very loose brush strokes that suggest rather than delineate it. About the painting, Monet himself said:

"Landscape is nothing but an impression, and an instantaneous one, hence this label that was given us, by the way because of me. I had sent a thing done in Le Havre, from my window, sun in the mist and a few masts of boats sticking up in the foreground....They asked me for a title for the catalogue. It couldn't really be taken for a view of Le Havre, and I said: "Put Impression."

It was displayed in 1874 during the first independent art show of the Impressionists (who were not yet known by that name). Critic Louis Leroy, inspired by the painting's name, titled his hostile review of the show in Le Charivari newspaper, "The Exhibition of the Impressionists", thus inadvertently naming the new art movement.
the painting is today on display at Musée Marmottan Monet.

"Gardening was something I learned in my youth when I was unhappy. I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers."
- Claude Monet -

While sunflowers is often associated with the works of Vincent Van Gogh, he was not the only impressionist who chose them as his subject. The Bouquet of Sunflowers fully shows Monet's beautiful impression of just such a bouquet.

Vinvent Van Gogh painted a number of paintings of Sunflowers in the fall of 1888, including 3 with fifteen sunflowers and 2 with twelve sunflowers. One of these went on to decorate friend Paul Gauguin's bedroom. An earlier series of Sunflower paintings was made in Paris in 1887.
Van Gogh himself said about this still life motive:

"It is a kind of painting that rather changes in character, and takes on a richness the longer you look at it. Besides, you know, Gauguin likes them extraordinarily. He said to me among other things - 'That...it's...the flower.' You know that the peony is Jeannin's, the hollyhock belongs to Quost, but the sunflower is somewhat my own."

On March 31, 1987, Japanese insurance magnate Yasuo Goto paid the equivalent of USD $39,921,750 for Van Gogh's Still Life: Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers at auction at Christie's London. This constituted at a record-setting amount for a work of art at that time.
This painting can currently be found on display at the Sompo Japan Museum of Art.

Cafe Terrace at Night, also known as The Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum, is among the best known paintings of Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh. Even today, visitors to the site can take the place at the north eastern corner of the Place du Forum where the artist set up his easel and made the painting. He looked south towards the artificially lighted terrace of the popular coffee house, as well as into the enforced darkness of the rue leading up to the building structure in the back comprising the town house (to the left, not pictured) and, beyond this structure, the tower of a former church (now Musée lapidaire).
This is the first painting where Van Gogh utilized a starry night background. He later painted star filled skies in Starry Night Over the Rhone, which was painted later the same month, and the better known Starry Night a year later.

After finishing Café Terrace at Night, Van Gogh wrote a letter to his sister expressing his enthusiasm:

“ I was only interrupted by my work on a new painting representing the exterior of a night café. On the terrace there are small figures of people drinking. An immense yellow lantern illuminates the terrace, the facade, the side walk and even casts light on the paving stones of the road which take a pinkish violet tone. The gables of the houses, like a fading road below a blue sky studded with stars, are dark blue or violet with a green tree. Here you have a night painting without black, with nothing but beautiful blue and violet and green and in this surrounding the illuminated area colors itself sulfur pale yellow and citron green. It amuses me enormously to paint the night right on the spot. Normally, one draws and paints the painting during the daytime after the sketch. But I like to paint the thing immediately. It is true that in the darkness I can take a blue for a green, a blue lilac for a pink lilac, since it is hard to distinguish the quality of the tone. But it is the only way to get away from our conventional night with poor pale whitish light, while even a simple candle already provides us with the richest of yellows and oranges”.

Van Gogh painted the potato eaters in 1885 in Nuenen in the Netherlands. Van Goghs objective was to show peasants as they really were. In his own words:

“I wanted to convey the idea that the people eating potatoes by the light of an oil lamp used the same hands with which they take food from the plate to work the land, that they have toiled with their hands—that they have earned their food by honest means.”

He deliberately picked ugly and rough models on purpose, with the idea that they would be natural and unspoiled in the painting. Today, The Potato Eaters can be found at the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.