In the winter of 1883 Édouard Manet, then 51 and confined to bed, was dying a painful death. And yet, over the course of his final year of life, the artist had been distilling the [...]

Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum was taken off guard last week by a horde of people competing for collectibles only tangentially related to the artist himself. The crowd descended upon the opening of an exhibition of [...]

What interests me most is neither still life nor landscape: it is the human figure. – Henri Matisse The term “figure painting” (or “figurative painting”) typically refers to representational art related to the human form. [...]

"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill Keep going.  Effort itself – even if unrewarded, seemingly unsuccessful and in vain – is better than giving up. You have to give up hope and [...]

I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all oppression and shame, I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men at anguish with themselves, remorseful after deeds done, I [...]

Prior to the latter half of the nineteenth century, the “official” academic channels of professional painting considered still life to be at the bottom of the totem pole. It didn’t have the heroic content of [...]

“The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.” -Robert Henri Define art however you like, but the act of making it is a gesture of hope.  [...]

Look too long at Cesar Santos’ newest paintings and you risk feeling something akin to those myths and fairytales where someone who’s enjoying a meal is told they’ve been unknowingly eating human flesh.  Milan’s gallery [...]

Disciple of light, master of color, portraitist to presidents and kings, Joaquín Sorolla (1863–1923) sits high in the pantheon of painterly realists of any age.  In 1884, his first large painting was acquired by the Spanish government. [...]

“The artist must work so hard, so long, that a brain develops and lives, all of itself, in his fingers …. The artist must not think of critical rewards or money he will get for [...]