Sunday, October 11, 2026

 Simon Vouet
(9 January 1590 – 30 June 1649)

Simon Vouet (9 January 1590 – 30 June 1649) was a French painter who studied and rose to prominence in Italy before being summoned by Louis XIII to serve as Premier peintre du Roi in France. He and his studio of artists created religious and mythological paintings, portraits, frescoes, tapestries, and massive decorative schemes for the king and for wealthy patrons, including Cardinal Richelieu. During this time, "Vouet was indisputably the leading artist in Paris," and was immensely influential in introducing the Italian Baroque style of painting to France. He was also, according to Pierre Rosenberg, "without doubt one of the outstanding seventeenth-century draughtsmen, equal to Annibale Carracci and Lanfranco."
A major international exhibition of Vouet's work is planned for 2027, co-organized by the Musée du Petit Palais in Paris and the Legion of Honor museum in San Francisco.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Vouet


Portrait of Giovan Carlo Doria
1621 
Oil on canvas
129 x 95 cm
The Louvre, Paris
https://collections.louvre.fr/ark:/53355/cl01006310

Saturday, October 10, 2026

Tintoretto
(October 1518 – 31 May 1594)
 
 Jacopo Robusti best known as Tintoretto, was an Italian Renaissance painter of the Venetian school. His contemporaries both admired and criticised the speed with which he painted and the unprecedented boldness of his brushwork. For his phenomenal energy in painting he was termed il Furioso (Italian for 'the Furious'). His work is characterised by muscular figures, dramatic gestures and bold use of perspective, in the Mannerist style.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tintoretto
 

Self Portrait
c. 1588 
Oil on canvas
62.5 x 52 cm
The Louvre, Paris
https://collections.louvre.fr/ark:/53355/cl010062253

Friday, October 9, 2026

Titian
(c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576)
 
Tiziano Vecellio  Latinized as Titianus, hence known in English as Titian, was an Italian Renaissance painter. The most important artist of Renaissance Venetian painting, he was born in Pieve di Cadore, near Belluno.
Titian was one of the most versatile of Italian painters, equally adept with portraits, landscape backgrounds, and mythological and religious subjects. His painting methods, particularly in the application and use of colour, exerted a profound influence not only on painters of the late Italian Renaissance, but on future generations of Western artists.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titian


Man with a Glove
c. 1520-22 
Oil on canvas
100 x 89 cm
The Louvre, Paris
https://collections.louvre.fr/ark:/53355/cl010062290

Thursday, October 8, 2026

 Jacob van Loo
(1614 – 26 November 1670)

Jacob van Loo was a painter of the Dutch Golden Age, chiefly active in Amsterdam and, after 1660, in Paris. Van Loo is known for his conversational groupings; particularly his mythological and biblical scenes generally attributed to the genre of History painting. He was especially celebrated for the quality of his nudes to the extent that, during his lifetime, particularly his female figures were said to have been considered superior and more popular than those of his Amsterdam contemporary and competitor Rembrandt. Unlike Rembrandt, he drew these nudes on blue paper. In 1663, three years after fleeing to Paris, Jacob van Loo was accepted into the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_van_Loo


Portrait of Michel Corneille the Elder
c. 1662
Oil on canvas
116 x 86.7 cm
The Louvre, Paris
https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010061645

Wednesday, October 7, 2026

 Francisco Goya
(30 March 1746 – 16 April 1828)

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and engravings reflected contemporary historical upheavals and influenced important 19th- and 20th-century painters. Goya is often referred to as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of Western art.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Goya

Young Woman with a Fan
1806-07
Oil on canvas 
103 x 126 cm
The Louvre, Paris
https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010064756

Tuesday, October 6, 2026

Frans Hals
(c. 1582 – 26 August 1666)

Frans Hals the Elder was a Dutch Golden Age painter. He lived and worked in Haarlem, a city in which the local authority of the day frowned on religious painting in places of worship but citizens liked to decorate their homes with works of art. Hals was highly sought after by wealthy burgher commissioners of individual, married-couple, family, and institutional-group portraits. He also painted tronies for the general market.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frans_Hals

Gypsy Girl
c. 1626 
Oil on wood
58 x 52 cm
The Louvre, Paris
https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010060266


Monday, October 5, 2026

 Rembrandt
(15 July 1606 - 4 October 1669)
 

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, known mononymously as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker, and draughtsman. He is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in the history of Western art. It is estimated that Rembrandt's surviving works amount to about three hundred paintings, three hundred etchings, and several hundred drawings.
Unlike most Dutch painters of the 17th century, Rembrandt's works depict a wide range of styles and subject matter, from portraits and self-portraits to landscapes, genre scenes, allegorical and historical scenes, biblical and mythological subjects and animal studies. His contributions to art came in a period that historians call the Dutch Golden Age
.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rembrandt


Autoportrait à la toque sur fond d'architecture
(Self-Portrait Wearing a Cap against an Architectural Background)
1634/1635
Oil on wood
80 x 62 cm 
The Louvre, Paris
https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010062021


 Simon Vouet (9 January 1590 – 30 June 1649) Simon Vouet (9 January 1590 – 30 June 1649) was a French painter who studied and rose to promin...