Archives: Artworks

The Gleaners is an oil painting produced in 1857 by French painter Jean François Millet.

The name of the painting was inspired by a manufacturing company having the same name.

This painting depicts a scene of a field after the harvest where three women were gleaning the grains of wheat. For this work, Jean François Millet had done a research on the theme of gleaners for over ten years. These woman from the working class were authorized to gleaner the grains at the sunset and pick up corns missed by the harvesters in rural area. In the foreground of the painting, three-woman workers were working with their eyes focused on the ground and they were bent double. They had to complete three tasks which the artist wanted to convey that the first task was to bend, second task was to pick up ears of corn while the last one includes straighten up. These workers had to repeat these three steps over and over again.

The Gleaners was regarded as the most famous and best works of Millet. The image of the woman bending over inspired several young artists such as Seurat, Renoir, van Gogh, etc. Robert Rosenblum was a famous historian said that this painting had introduced a new presence of theme during the mid-century.

This painting rather focused on the lower class of the French society featuring sympathy to workers but this was not received well from the Upper class of French society. This painting was discussed in the film The Gleaners and I by Agnes Varda. The dimensions of the painting were 83.8 cm × 111.8 cm or 33 in × 44 in.

The Gleaners is an oil painting produced in 1857 by French painter Jean François Millet.

La rencontre is an oil painting produced in 1854 by French painter Gustave Courbet.

The original title of the painting La rencontre was ‘The Meeting’.

La rencontre depicts a scene where Gustave Courbet met his patron Alfred Bruyas. Gustave Courbet was with his dog and servant travelling towards the Montpellier. This painting acts a subject for many other reproductions. Gustave Courbet’s servant was Calas. The painting was based on the Jewish wandering. This painting got exhibited in 1855 at an Exhibition Universelle in Paris. Later, the painting was donated to the Musée Fabre in 1868 at Montpellier. La rencontre painting was inspired by a famous print painted by the artist Pierre Leloup Le Mans in 1831. It was about the city where citizens were speaking to the wandering Jewish. The dimensions of the painting La rencontre were 129 cm × 149 cm or 51 in × 59 in.

The work can be viewed at Musee Fabre, Montpellier

Oath of the Horatti is an oil painting produced in 1784 by French painter Jacques Louis David.

Oath of the Horatti is considered as one of the best-known paintings in the Neoclassical style by Jacques Louis David.

The picture depicts a scene of a dispute between two warring cities from a Roman legend, Rome and Alba Longa stress the importance of self-sacrifice, masculine and patriotism for one’s country. The history tells us that instead of sending their armies to war the two cities agree to choose three men from their own each city, the man who won the fight will be regarded as the victorious man and victorious city. So, three brothers from a Roman family (namely the Horatii) agreed to fight with the three brothers from a family of Alba Longa (namely the Curiatii) resulting from the winner by the end of the war. The three brothers of Rome, willing to sacrifice their lives are shown in the picture, saluting their father who holds their swords out for them.

This painting of Edouard Manet was inspired by the previous work of Titan in Venus of Urbino and the Goya’s in La Maja Desnuda. The idea of using a black servant who brought flowers was already covered by Ingres in many of his paintings. In Titian’s painting, Venus was also a prostitute who was directly looking at the viewer. The idea of the nude provoked several violent reactions and a scandal at the Paris Salon.

In 1863, Olympia made even bigger controversy than Edouard Manet another painting The Luncheon on the Grass which also created many controversies. Several termed the work of Manet to be vulgar. They wanted the canvas to be destroyed but the government took precautions. Edouard wanted to tell the truth to the people through his paintings, he hated lies

The work can be viewed at Louvre in Paris.

The Disquieting Muses is an oil painting produced between 1916 and 1918 by Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico.

A copy of this painting is still located at the Italian Trade Commission (ITC) office in New York City.

Giorgio de Chirico’s painting The Disquieting Muses was painted when he was living in Ferrara, the conflict of first World War was ongoing. A scene of the Castello Estense with industrial buildings was painted in the background of this painting where Chirico had earlier lived. In the foreground of this painting were two muses dressed in classical style. There two muses were placed in between several subjects. One muses was standing while the other was sitting. Several objects include a mask of red color, allusion of Thalia and Melpomene and the comedy, tragedy of the muses. At the background of this scene was the leader of the muses in a statue form. His name was Apollo.

This painting was considered as one of the most famous work in metaphysical art by Chirico. It was painted in the home city of the artist and included many parts from it and he also suggested that it was the perfect metaphysical city. Castello Estense was a large castle included in the background of this painting build in the center of the city.

Later, The Disquieting Muses became inspirations for many poets including Sylvia Plath and Mark Strand. The title of the poem was The Disquieting Muses and Two de Chiricos. The dimensions of the painting The Disquieting Muses were 97.16 cm × 66 cm or 38 1⁄4 in × 26 in.

The work can be viewed at Gianni Mattioli Collection, Milan

Mama, Papa is wounded is an oil painting produced in 1927 by French painter Yves Tanguy.

Mama, Papa is wounded title was taken from the psychiatric textbooks.

This painting evokes a post-apocalyptic wasteland through its vast surface and light. The work of great Surrealist artist Giorgio de Chirico was being inspired in this painting through the objects flying and casting their dark shadows on the surface. A cactus like figure similar to a spider was floating near the horizon seems neither free nor in captivity. The title of the painting Mama, Papa is wounded does not clarify the picture meaning because Surrealism art says that there should be a relationship with the pictures and words used to describe them. Yves Tanguy with Breton help who knew the method of Sigmund Freud in treating the damaged soldiers psychologically prepared notes and ideas from the damaged soldiers to use those words and meaning as the title and images ideas for the painting.

The Hallucinogenic Toreador is an oil painting produced between 1968 and 1970 by Spanish painter Salvador Dali.

This painting was exhibited on the same year when it was completed in 1970.

The scene of the Hallucinogenic Toreador depicts a bullfighting area submerged under the color of the Spanish flag, red and the yellow tones. Salvador Dali’s wife Gala portrait was placed at the top left section of the painting. He had dedicated this painting to her. Dali’s wife always deeply disliked bullfighting and this was clearly, pictorially depicted from her serious expressions. A pattern of multicolored circles could be seen at the bottom of the painting on the left hand side. This shape attracts viewer attention towards the head of the dying bull’s from which blood and saliva was dripping out from the mouth. Dali battles with the complex illusions for the viewer similarly in this painting the toreador battles with the bull.

A green skirt gave the illusion of the bullfighter tie. Above this, a bullfighter’s shirt with a white collar button appears. A shadow above this passes through the Venus stomach which forms the bullfighter lips and chin. Venus left breast illuminated as the bullfighter’s nose and her face depict her eyes. A large group of flies and dots becomes the jacket placed to the left of the tie.

This painting by Dali was exhibited in 1970 at the New York City gallery when the work on this painting was ongoing. At that time, the image of the Toreador was very easy to see as only some illustrations designs and others were matted out completely. Several critics explicitly quoted it as How to see the toreador. This painting was painted on a very large canvas. The dimensions of the painting The Hallucinogenic Toreador were 398.8 cm × 299.7 cm or 157 in × 118 in.

The work can be viewed at Salvador Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida

The Burning Giraffe is an oil painting produced in 1937 by Spanish painter Salvador Dali.

Salvador Dali had been exiled from 1940 to 1948 from the US and painted The Burning Giraffe just before it.

This painting The Burning Giraffe was about his struggle of exile in US and the battle from his home country. The painting features a female figure of blue color described as Femme-coccyx by the artist which means tail bone woman. The painting phenomenon was inspired from a psychoanalytical method which attracted Dali attention. This psychoanalytical method was given by Sigmund Freud. The opened drawers popping up from the female figure referred to as the subconscious within man. Dali quoted that between our era and immortal Greece there is one and only one difference who was Sigmund Freud that the female human body was being depicted as opened secret drawers through psychoanalysis.

The picture of the female figure was drawn with deep blue sky in a twilight atmosphere. There was a total of two female figures with secret opened drawers in the foreground of the painting. One figure was having drawers opened in her chest and several other on the left leg while the other female figure had some phallic shapes on her back being supported by crutch-like objects and also holding a strip of meat in her right hand. The figure in the foreground had her hands, face and forearms all tied down to beneath the skin or stripped down.

Dali paintings had common archetypes of these types of figures in the past. On the lower left of the painting was a Giraffe burning from the fire on its back area. The Golden Age was a film completed in 1930 in which the burning giraffe image was used. This image appeared again during an exhibition of the painting The Invention of Monsters in 1937. The dimensions of the painting were 35 cm × 27 cm or 13.8 in × 10.6 in.

The work can be viewed at Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel

The Stone Breakers is an oil painting produced between 1849 and 1850 by French painter Gustave Courbet.





This painting was exhibited the same year 1850 at the Paris Salon.





As the name suggest, this painting depicts two peasants working to build a road by breaking rocks. The Communist Manifesto pamphlet written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1849 influenced Gustave Courbet to paint this famous work  – The Stone Breakers. Gustav was very concerned for the poor and struggles they follow. Among the two figures, one old and one young, both are peasants work as a labor breaking several stones and then clearing the road. During thos time, such difficult work had given to labors was considers as a punishment for criminals compared to today’s world people work on Jackhammers and Bulldozers.





This picture was destroyed with several other painting 154 during an ongoing conflict of Second World War. In 1945, a vehicle taking all these painting to castle of Konigstein, near Dresden was bombed during the transportation. Allied forces were responsible for this attack in February.





A similar work can be viewed at Gemaldegalerie, Dresden

The Red Sun is an oil painting produced in 1950 by Spanish painter Joan Miro.

Several work were inspired by the theme and motif of this painting in late 1960s

Joan Miro native place was Catalonia and the culture, art of this place was reflected in his paintings. Many influences of the culture of Paris which he was exposed to were added to The Red sun. Influences were the Parisian surrealist poetry and Paul klee structural cubism. Joan Miro thought that this painting could rediscover the human feelings. In this painting, a circle of red color was painted taking all the space of the painting. This red circle was depicted as the red hot Sun. Miro was preoccupied with the music in the 1940s and the nocturnal sky brought mystery to his work. Miro love urban life and was enthusiast with the urban scene of New York and later established relationships with other artists like Yves Tanguy, Jackson Pollock etc.

Joan Miro native place was Catalonia and the culture, art of this place was reflected in his paintings. Many influences of the culture of Paris which he was exposed to were added to The Red sun. Influences were the Parisian surrealist poetry and Paul klee structural cubism. Joan Miro thought that this painting could rediscover the human feelings. In this painting, a circle of red color was painted taking all the space of the painting. This red circle was depicted as the red hot Sun. Miro was preoccupied with the music in the 1940s and the nocturnal sky brought mystery to his work. Miro love urban life and was enthusiast with the urban scene of New York and later established relationships with other artists like Yves Tanguy, Jackson Pollock etc

The work can be viewed at The Phillips Memorial Gallery, United States