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an Italian opera singer and probably one of the most recognized and well-known faces in the industry. He was a part of 'The Three Tenors', and began with his professional career in 1961. He performed in opera houses all over the world, and his tone and voice captivated many listeners over the years. He was and still is known as one of the best classical singers of his time and generation. |
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a Spanish opera singer who completed 'The Three Tenors'. He has played almost 130 roles in his career and he also conducts many operas and concerts all over the world. His voice is known to possess a great amount of dramatism and ringing, and his versatility is very well known and acclaimed. |
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the most famous Russian opera singer of the 20th century, and was master of a very strong and magical baritone. The power of his bass voice and his amazing musical presentation and awareness made him one of the most renowned and famous opera singers of all time. |
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an Australian opera singer and is one of the most remarkable and famous opera singers of all time. She has been nicknamed 'La Stupenda', due to her stupendous abilities as a singer, and she possesses one of the most beautiful and powerful voices around. She has earned tremendous respect from her contemporaries, and it is easy to see why. |
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an Australian opera singer who gained great fame as people viewed her voice as extremely pure and rare. She received great accolades for her performances, and she was the first Australian to gain international recognition as a classical musician. |
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Peter Paul Rubens
(1577-1640) |
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the greatest and most influential figure in Counter-Reformation Baroque art in Northern Europe, painting in almost every type of genre and subject (notably history paintings and portraits). Also, he designed tapestries, produced book illustrations and festival decorations, as well as cartoons and sketches for sculptures, metalwork and architecture. Described as "the prince of painters and the painter of princes." |
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The Descent from the Cross, the central panel of a triptych painting by Peter Paul Rubens in 1612-1614.
Although essentially Baroque, the oil on panel piece is rooted in the Venetian tradition. In its composition and use of light, the triptych recalls Caravaggio's Roman period.
Sequentially, the triptych describes the Visitation, the Descent from the Cross, and the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple. |
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The Portrait of a Man or Portrait of a Man in a Turban,an oil painting by the Early Netherlandish master Jan van Eyck, from 1433.
Like all Van Eyck's portraits, it shows a sharp and detailed analysis of the physical lines. It is however without any treatment of the subject's thoughts and moods. The subject is often thought to be van Eyck himself, though there is no direct evidence for this.
Typically for van Eyck, the head is a little large in relation to the torso. The technique shows the skill, economy and speed of van Eyck's best work. |
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| The Thinker, a bronze and marble sculpture by Auguste Rodin. It depicts a man in sober meditation battling with a powerful internal struggle. It is often used to represent philosophy. |
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the driving force behind the French art movement known as Impressionism. A French painter, Monet devoted his entire life to the study of naturalism and the capture of light and its momentary effects on nature. Although he excelled in all the genres, including portraiture, genre-painting and still life, his main interest was in landscape painting, particularly outdoor plein-air painting.
A participant in five out of the eight Impressionist exhibitions, it was his painting Impression, Sunrise (1872) that gave rise to the movement's name when it was exhibited in 1874. Two years later he produced the first of a series of paintings on a single subject, namely the Gare St Lazare (1876-8). He followed this with Haystacks (1890-2), Poplars (1890-2), Rouen Cathedral (1892-4) and lastly Waterlilies (Nympheas), a series that occupied him from 1899 until his death in 1926. These works have made him one of the best landscape artists in the history of art. In 1883, he settled at Giverny, some 65 km from Paris, where he created his famous water garden, whose Japanese bridge is featured in his work Le Bassin aux Nympheas (1919).
In addition to leading the world's most popular art movement, Monet's late waterlily paintings - characterized by exceptionally loose brushwork and swirls of colour - anticipated later 20th century styles like Abstract Expressionism (c.1945-1962). |
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| Haystacks, a series of impressionist paintings by Claude Monet. The primary subjects of all of the paintings in the series are stacks of hay in the field after the harvest season. The series is known for its thematic use of repetition to show differences in perception of light across various times of day, seasons, and types of weather. The series is among Monet's most notable works. |
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| Magdalene Penitent, a wooden sculpture by the Renaissance Italian artist Donatello, executed around 1453-1455. It was received with astonishment for its unprecedented realism. |
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John Mallord William Turner
(1775-1851) |
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an English Romantic landscape artist who produced a large volume of watercolours, prints and oil paintings. His down-to-earth realism influenced the Barbizon School and laid the foundation for the revolutionary landscape painting of French Impressionism. Commonly known as the "Painter of Light", his most important works include Hannibal Crossing the Alps (1812); Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway (1844); The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons (1835); and The Fighting Temeraire (1838). |
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| Snow Storm - Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth, a painting by Turner. Turner painted many pictures exploring the effects of an elemental vortex. Here, there is a steam-boat at the heart of the vortex. In this context the vessel can be interpreted as a symbol of mankind’s futile efforts to combat the forces of nature. |
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| Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps, a painting by Turner. This picture expresses man’s vulnerability in the face of nature’s overwhelming force. Hannibal himself is not pictured, and attention is focused upon victims of the conflict, the struggling soldiers. |
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Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci
(April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) |
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an Italian polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance man, a man whose unquenchable curiosity was equaled only by his powers of invention. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived. |
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| Lady with an Ermine, a painting by Leonardo da Vinci, from around 1489–1490. |
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| Girl in Chemise, a painting by Pablo Picasso. This painting was done around the same time as his Family of Saltimbanques painting. Picasso was moving away from all blue tones and introducing a lighter palette with pinks and earth colors. |
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| Weeping Woman, an oil on canvas painted by Pablo Picasso in 1937. The Weeping Woman series is regarded as a thematic continuation of the tragedy depicted in Picasso's epic painting Guernica. |
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| Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, a large oil painting of 1907 by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. The work portrays five nude female prostitutes from a brothel on Avinyó Street in Barcelona. Each figure is depicted in a disconcerting confrontational manner and none are conventionally feminine. In this adaptation of Primitivism and abandonment of perspective in favor of a flat, two-dimensional picture plane, Picasso makes a radical departure from traditional European painting. The work is widely considered to be seminal in the early development of both Cubism and modern art. |
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| Jacob Blessing the Children of Joseph, an oil painting by Rembrandt. |
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| Syndics of the Cloth-Makers Guild, a painting by Rembrandt. |
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| The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, a painting of 1633 by the Dutch Golden Age painter Rembrandt van Rijn. It is Rembrandt's only seascape. It is widely believed, because of the fourteen people in the boat, that Rembrandt painted himself in the boat along with the twelve disciples and Jesus. The crewmember looking out towards the viewer of the painting has been suggested as being a self-portrait of Rembrandt. |
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| Hundred Guilder Print, an etching by Rembrandt. The print depicts multiple events from Matthew 19, including Christ healing the sick, debating with scholars and calling on children to come to him. The rich young man mentioned in the chapter is leaving through the gateway on the right. |
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| The Stoning of Saint Stephen, the first painting by Dutch artist Rembrandt, painted in 1625 at the age of 19. The painting is divided into two distinct zones with a diagonal creating an effect of chiaroscuro: on the left, a man on horseback (probably Saul) is in the shadow, and on the right, Stephen and his persecutors are in the light. |
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Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni
(6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564) |
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the greatest painter, draughtsman and sculptor of all time and a key figure of the Italian High Renaissance in both Florence and Rome. Michelangelo infused his work with colossal gravitas and human feeling. Some of his marble carvings have a flawless beauty and polish, proving his absolute technical mastery. He also produced some of the best drawings of the Renaissance. Michelangelo devoted most of his last 20 years to architecture (notably the design of St Peter's Basilica in Rome), in which his reputation is as formidable as in painting and sculpture. This extraordinary domination of the three major visual arts is what makes him the world's greatest artist. |
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The Last Judgment, a fresco by Michelangelo on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City.
The work is massive and spans the entire wall behind the altar of the Sistine Chapel. It is a depiction of the second coming of Christ and the apocalypse. The souls of humans rise and descend to their fates, as judged by Christ surrounded by his saints. |
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| The Pietà, a masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture by the renowned artist Michelangelo, housed in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City. This famous work of art depicts the body of Jesus on the lap of his mother Mary after the Crucifixion. The statue is one of the most highly finished works by Michelangelo. |
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| The Dying Slave, a sculpture by the Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo. The artist and work were influenced by the late BC Rhodian sculpture Laocoön and His Sons. |
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Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino
(April 6 or March 28, 1483 – April 6, 1520)
better known simply as Raphael |
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an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance, celebrated for the perfection and grace of his paintings and drawings. Together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period.
He was extremely influential in his lifetime. After his death, the influence of his great rival Michelangelo was more widespread until the 18th and 19th centuries, when Raphael's more serene and harmonious qualities were again regarded as the highest models. |
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| The School of Athens, one of the most famous paintings by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael. It was painted between 1510 and 1511 as a part of Raphael's commission to decorate with frescoes the rooms now known as the Stanze di Raffaello, in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. The picture has long been seen as Raphael's masterpiece and the perfect embodiment of the classical spirit of the High Renaissance. |
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| The Mond Crucifixion, a painting by the Italian renaissance artist Raphael. The painting shows Jesus on the cross, who is looking peaceful even though he is dying. There are two angels catching his blood in chalices. On Jesus' left kneels Mary Magdalene, with John the Evangelist standing behind her. On his right Mary (mother of Jesus) stands, and St. Jerome, to whom the altar was dedicated, is kneeling. At the foot of the cross is the inscription RAPHAEL/ VRBIN / AS /.P.[INXIT] ("Raphael of Urbino painted this") in silver letters. |
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| The Parnassus, a painting by the Italian renaissance artist Raphael. The painting shows the mythological Mount Parnassus where Apollo resides. He is surrounded by the nine muses, nine poets from antiquity, and nine contemporary poets. |
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| The Fire in the Borgo, a painting by the workshop of the Italian renaissance artist Raphael. The Fire in the Borgo shows an event that is documented in the Liber Pontificalis: a fire that broke out in the Borgo in Rome in 847 CE. |
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| Sistine Madonna, also called The Madonna di San Sisto, an oil painting by the Italian artist Raphael. It was the last of the painter's Madonnas and the last painting he completed with his own hands. |
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Diego Velazquez
(1599–1660) |
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a court painter to King Philip IV during the Baroque period. Although a master of history painting and genre-painting, he is especially renowned for his portrait art - completing over 20 portraits of the King along with others of the Royal Family and their friends. His best known works include his masterpieces Las Meninas (1656) and the Equestrian Portrait of Duke de Olivares (1634). |
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| Christ Crucified, a 1632 painting of the Crucifixion of Jesus by Diego Velázquez. Art critics assert that the nude study for this painting is exceptional and masterly in its fusion of serenity, dignity and nobility. It is a frontal nude. |
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| Las Meninas, a 1656 painting by Diego Velázquez. The work's complex and enigmatic composition raises questions about reality and illusion, and creates an uncertain relationship between the viewer and the figures depicted. Because of these complexities, Las Meninas has been one of the most widely analysed works in Western painting. |
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| The Little Street (Het Straatje), a painting by the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, executed c. 1657-1658. |
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The Art of Painting, a famous 17th century oil on canvas painting by Dutch painter, Johannes Vermeer. Many art historians believe that it is an allegory of painting, hence the alternative title of the painting. It is the largest and most complex of all of Vermeer's works.
The painting is famous for being a fine example of the optical style of painting, offering a realistic visual depiction of the scene and especially the effects of light streaming through the windows on various elements of the painting. |
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| The Love Letter (Dutch: De liefdesbrief), a 17th-century genre painting by Jan Vermeer. The painting shows a servant maid handing a letter to a young woman with a lute. |
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a Baroque painter who is one of the most iconoclastic and influential Old Masters, a revolutionary naturalist painter, and one of the founding members ofBaroque school of art. Best known for his religious art, notably his depiction of biblical characters as ordinary everyday people, he was renowned for his vivid realism and rejection of idealization. He often employed coarse peasant types for his figures of saints and Apostles. Growing up at the end of the Mannerist period, he was strongly influenced by the naturalistic Lombard school of art. His most notable works include: Judith Beheading Holofernes (1599); Supper at Emmaus (1601); The Conversion of St Paul (1601); The Death of the Virgin (1602); Doubting Thomas (1602-3); The Burial of St Lucy (1608); The Raising of Lazarus (1608-9) and The Denial of Saint Peter (1610). Caravaggio's mastery of tenebrism and chiaroscuro proved so popular with religious patrons and other painters that it started a European-wide trend of Caravaggism. |
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| Boy with a Basket of Fruit, c.1593, a painting generally ascribed to Italian Baroque master Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. The painting, a genre piece, demonstrates the artist's ability to depict everything from the skin of the boy to the skin of a peach, from the folds of the robe to the weave of the basket. |
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| The Death of the Virgin (1606), a painting completed by the Italian Baroque master Caravaggio. It was commissioned for the Carmelite church of Santa Maria della Scala in Trastevere, Rome. |
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The Conversion on the Way to Damascus, a masterpiece by Caravaggio, painted in 1601 for the Cerasi Chapel of the church of Santa Maria del Popolo, in Rome. The painting depicts the moment recounted in Chapter 9 of Acts of the Apostles when Saul, soon to be the apostle Paul, fell on the road to Damascus.
Caravaggio's first version of the Conversion painting is a much brighter and more Mannerist canvas, with an angel-sustained Jesus reaching downwards towards a blinded Paul. |
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Giambologna
(1529 – 13 August 1608) |
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a sculptor known for his marble and bronze statuary in a late Renaissance or Mannerist style. |
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| The sculpture of Mercury (Hermes) by Giambologna, one of his most famous sculptures. It depicts Hermes standing on a column of air coming from the mouth of Zephyr, creating an illusion of floating. |
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Francisco de Goya
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one of the key precursors of modern art. His portrait art, figurative drawing and printmaking documented important historical events in Spain during the late 18th and early 19th century. He is best known for his bold emotive paintings of violence especially those recording the Napoleonic invasion of Spain. His most notable works include The Nude Maja (c.1797), The Clothed Maja (c.1800), The Third of May 1808 (1814) and Saturn Devouring his Son (1819). Other works include: Scene of the Inquisition (1800); Portrait of Charles IV and His Family (1800); The Colossus (1810); Portrait of the Duke of Wellington (1814). His dark Romanticism is illustrated by his Fantasy & Invention series (1793), his Caprices (1799), his Disasters of War (1812-15), and Black Paintings (1820-23). |
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| Saturn Devouring His Son, a painting by Spanish artist Francisco Goya. It depicts the Greek myth of the Titan Cronus (in the title Romanised to Saturn), who, fearing that his children would overthrow him, ate each one upon their birth. |
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