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Painting story
The Friends by Gustav Klimt
Klimt’s late painting of two women close together in a world of red, destroyed by fire at Schloss Immendorf in 1945 and known today only from…
Painting Stories
The meaning and history of famous paintings: what they show, where the originals hang, and how each one is recreated by hand in oil on canvas.
Painting Analysis articles
Painting story
Death and Life by Gustav Klimt
Explore Klimt’s Death and Life: the open-eyed woman, Death’s red club, the embracing figures and the changes revealed by an earlier version.
Painting story
Judith I by Gustav Klimt
Judith tilts her head back with half-closed eyes, a gold collar at her throat and Holofernes’s head at the edge: Klimt, 1901.
Painting story
Hope II by Gustav Klimt
A pregnant woman prays in a robe of red and gold while a skull peeks out at her waist: Klimt’s Vision, now known as Hope II.
Painting story
Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I by Gustav Klimt
Klimt’s Woman in Gold: a real face and nervous hands inside a field of gold and Egyptian eyes, and a long fight to win it back.
Painting story
The Kiss by Gustav Klimt
A close reading of Klimt’s The Kiss, with its lovers’ gestures, contrasting patterns, flowered edge, real metal surface and documented Belvedere…
Painting story
Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
A Sunday afternoon dance in Montmartre, Renoir’s friends at the tables and sunlight falling through the trees in patches of colour.
Painting story
By the Seashore by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
A young woman crochets in a wicker chair above the sea: a smooth, careful face against waves painted in quick, feathery strokes.
Painting story
The Gulf of Marseille Seen from LEstaque by Paul Cezanne
Red roofs, a flat blue sea and mountains beyond: Cézanne’s view of the Gulf of Marseille from the hills of L’Estaque.
Painting story
Still Life with Plaster Cupid by Paul Cezanne
A plaster cupid leans among apples and onions while painted canvases blur into the real room: Cézanne’s still life of about 1894.
Painting story
Self-Portrait with a Bowler Hat by Paul Cezanne
Cézanne looks over his shoulder in a bowler hat, his face built from blocks of colour: a guarded self-portrait from about 1885.
Painting story
House in Provence by Paul Cezanne
A pale farmhouse below a long blue ridge in Cézanne’s House in Provence, painted near Aix around 1886 to 1890, now in Indianapolis.
Painting story
The Large Bathers by Paul Cezanne
Bathers under an arch of leaning trees: the largest of Cézanne’s late bather paintings, worked on until his death in 1906.
Painting story
The Bather by Paul Cezanne
A young man in white trunks walks towards us along a riverbank: Cézanne’s The Bather (Le Grand Baigneur), about 1885, at MoMA.
Painting story
Mont Sainte-Victoire by Paul Cezanne
The mountain above Aix, built from planes of blue, violet and green: one of Cézanne’s late views of Mont Sainte-Victoire, now in Philadelphia.
Painting story
The Basket of Apples by Paul Cezanne
A tipping basket, a leaning bottle and a table whose edges do not meet: Cézanne’s still life built from several viewpoints at once.
Painting story
Boy in a Red Waistcoat by Paul Cezanne
An Italian model in a red waistcoat, hand on hip, painted by Cézanne in patches of colour with deliberately long arms.
Painting story
Still Life with Apples and Oranges by Cézanne
Why does Cézanne’s table seem to tilt? Explore the fruit, floral jug, folded cloth, shifting viewpoints and history of Still Life with Apples and…
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Curated collectionsOdyssey, Magic and Witchcraft, Famous Women, Landscapes and more.Artists A to ZEvery painter in the catalogue, with an archive of their works.Art movementsRenaissance to Expressionism: what defines each and who led it.Top 100 most famous paintingsThe ranked list, with the story behind every entry.
