Famous Paintings (Part 1)

Loveflower: Got the inspiration from a brochure that I received in my letterbox recently regarding a deluxe coin set featuring these paintings... Out of these 10 masterpieces, how many do you recognise?? I only know 4 of them, hahaha... Time to hit the art museum soon =P

The Starry Night (Vincent van Gogh)

Gallery Label Text: "This morning I saw the country from my window a long time before sunrise," the artist wrote to his brother Theo, "with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big." Rooted in imagination and memory, The Starry Night embodies an inner, subjective expression of van Gogh's response to nature. In thick sweeping brushstrokes, a flamelike cypress unites the churning sky and the quiet village below. The village was partly invented, and the church spire evokes van Gogh's native land, the Netherlands.

Liberty Leading the People (Eugène Delacroix)

This is a painting to commemorate the July Revolution of 1830, which toppled Charles X of France. A woman personifying Liberty leads the people forward over the bodies of the fallen, holding the tricolore flag of the French Revolution in one hand and brandishing a bayonetted musket with the other.

The School of Athens (Raphael)

The School of Athens is a depiction of philosophy. The scene takes place in classical times, as both the architecture and the garments indicate. Figures representing each subject that must be mastered in order to hold a true philosophic debate - astronomy, geometry, arithmetic, and solid geometry - are depicted in concrete form. The arbiters of this rule, the main figures, Plato and Aristotle, are shown in the centre, engaged in such a dialogue.

Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (Gustav Klimt)

The picture was commissioned by Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer to portray his wife. Foremost among the rare “gold style” works, the painting captures its elegant and intelligent subject as the ideal of feminine beauty. Fine craftsmanship is evident in the varied uses of real gold: as a diffuse background luster reminiscent of Japanese lacquer, as the fabric of a flowing gown, and as a pattern punctuated with Egyptian god’s-eye motifs. In contrast with this rich decorative treatment, Adele’s face stands out as an extraordinarily modern psychological portrayal, while her hands are arranged gracefully to conceal a deformed finger. Self-assured yet introspective, she comports herself as a woman of privilege devoted to the world of the intellect.

Te Poipoi or The Morning (Paul Gauguin)

The artist represents a highly idealized version of paradise, untouched by western influence. The title of the painting refers to the still and quiet morning hours when the local people began their day and the painting is a scene of women bathing beneath a canopy of banyan and mango trees.