Johannes Vermeer – The Art of Painting

Although Vermeer began as an art salesman, he considered himself more of a painter. He only worked on commission and did not produce more than two or three paintings a year. This allowed him to provide for his wife and their eleven children. For this reason he only produced 45 works. Only 35 still exist.

Considered the most iconic of Vermeer’s existing masterpieces. The Art of the Painting has had a rough ride in the last century. In 1935 Andrew Mellon sought to purchase the painting from its Austrian owners for $1 million, but failed. In 1940 Adolf Hitler acquired the painting for considerably less. It was to be hung in his Fuhermuseum, which was never built. Instead it ended up in a bunker in an Austrian salt mine where it waited out the war. It was one of many masterpieces of art that were rescued by the US Army Monument Men division. Link to original: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Painting

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Johannes Vermeer - The Art of Painting – 1666
Kunsthistrisches Museum, Vienna

Edward Hopper - Nighthawks

Hopper said the painting "was suggested by a restaurant on Greenwich Avenue where two streets meet. I simplified the scene a great deal and made the restaurant bigger."  Hopper posed for the two men in a mirror and wife Jo for the girl. Nighthawks was probably Hopper’s most ambitious essay in capturing the night-time effects of manmade light. This interior light comes from more than a single lightbulb, with the result that multiple shadows are cast, and some spots are brighter than others as a consequence of being lit from more than one angle. Light was the most powerful and personal of Hopper's expressive means. He used it as an active element in his paintings to model forms, define the time of day, establish a mood, and create pictorial drama by contrasting it with areas of shadow and darkness.

Hopper made many small sketches of concepts and details of his pictures before working on the final paintings. Many of the sketches for this painting still remain. To see the original : https://www.wikiart.org/en/edward-hopper/nighthawks

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Edward Hopper – Nighthawks - 1942 - Art Institute of Chicago

Henri Rousseau - The Dream

Created in the same year as his death, The Dream was   Rousseau’s last painting, which was debuted at the MOMA only a few months before his untimely death.

Henri Rousseau was a self-taught artist who worked as a customs agent on the outskirts of Paris. He was considered one of the great naïve artists. In today’s art market his work would be considered “Outsider Art”. Much of his work was ridiculed, but he did have a small following. Pablo Picasso was one of his big fans and promoted his work. His characteristic paintings, in particular, those on the theme of the jungle captivated the art world with their representations of lush plant and animal life painted with incredible detail and precision. What's interesting though is that Rousseau himself never set foot outside France. His imaginary scenes were informed by visits to the Paris zoo and botanical gardens, and images from postcards, photographs, and illustrated journals. To see original: https://bit.ly/2GWMjin

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Henri Rousseau - The Dream - 1910
MOMA

Henry Fuseli – The Nightmare

The Nightmare was likely inspired by an interpretation of dreams based on Germanic folklore, in which demons possessed people who slept alone. In these stories men were visited by horses, and women were ravished by the devil. The woman is surmounted by an incubus; a mythological demon who lies upon sleeping women. It has remained Fuseli's best-known work. With its first exhibition in 1782 at the Royal Academy of London, the image became famous. After that Fuseli painted at least three versions.
To see the original: https://bit.ly/2VREsHx

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Henry Fuseli - The Nightmare - 1871
Detroit Institute of Art