Jean-François Millet - The Gleaners

The Gleaners – 1857
Musée d'Orsay

Millet first unveiled The Gleaners at the Salon in 1857. It immediately drew negative criticism from the middle and upper classes, who viewed the topic with suspicion. Having recently come out of the French Revolution of 1848, these prosperous classes saw the painting as glorifying the lower-class worker. To them, it was a reminder that French society was built upon the labor of the working masses, and landowners linked this working class with the growing movement of Socialism. To see the original: http://bit.ly/2fFkfPt

Gerrit van Honthorst - Musical Group on a Balcony

Musical Group on a Balcony - 1622
The J. Paul Getty Museum

The J. Paul Getty Museum
Van Honthorst was a Dutch Golden Age painter from Utrecht. He painted for several royal families in the Netherlands, England and Italy. He was strongly influenced by Caravaggio and chiaroscuro receiving the nickname "Gherardo delle Notti" (Gerard of the night). He made a number of paintings of musicians, both as individuals and in groups.
This illusionistic ceiling painting was on of the first of its kind in the Netherlands (1622). The idea sprang from his visit to Italy. Through calculated perspective, he makes the characters seem to extend the height of the overhead plane. An interesting addition to the minstrel group is the dog and parrot he hangs around the railing. To see the original: http://bit.ly/2gPncSv

Edgar Degas - The Ballet Class

The Ballet Class – 1871-74
Musée d'Orsay

Dancers, shown in every phase of their complex and demanding art form, make up more than fifty percent of Degas’ abundant output. Degas's favorite subjects were ballerinas at work, in rehearsal or at rest, and he tirelessly explored the theme with many variations in posture and gesture. Here the class is coming to an end – the pupils are exhausted, they are stretching, twisting to scratch their backs, adjusting their hair or clothes, an earring, or a ribbon, paying little heed to the inflexible teacher, a portrait of Jules Perrot, a real-life ballet master. Degas’ figures are caught off guard, often in awkward poses, their movements broken down to convey the underlying rhythms of their actions and gestures. To see the original: http://bit.ly/2ftTUZx

Caravaggio – The Cardsharps

The Cardsharps – c. 1594
Kimbell Art Museum

Caravaggio came to Rome in the early 1590s. There his early masterpiece The Cardsharps (1594) came to the attention of the influential Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte, who not only purchased it but also offered the artist quarters in his palace. Caravaggio was thus introduced to the elite stratum of Roman ecclesiastical society, which soon gave him his first significant opportunity to work on a large scale and for a public forum. Cardsharps, with its mixture of brutal low-life realism and luminous Venetian delicacy, was much admired by other artists who went around acclaiming Caravaggio's new style and heightening the reputation of his work. Over fifty copies and variants made by other painters have survived, with artists such as George de la Tour painting their own appreciations of the theme. To see the original: http://bit.ly/2goXPUf

Archibald Willard– The Spirit of 76

The Spirit of 76 – 1876
Abbot Hall, Marblehead, MA

First exhibited at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia under the name of Yankee Doodle. It was created as a commercial venture to make chromolithographic copies. Thousands of copies were sold at the exhibition and many thousands thereafter. It was probably the most popular chromo produced in the US. The central figure was painted from a photograph of the artist’s father. Willard made a number of copies of the painting, which do not completely resemble each other. To see the original: http://bit.ly/2gCx1QX

Alexandre Cabanel - The Birth of Venus

The Birth of Venus – 1863
Musée d'Orsay

Musee d’Orsay
Cabanel's erotic imagery, cloaked in historicism, appealed to the propriety of the higher levels of society. The painting was purchased by Louis Napoleon for 15,000 francs. Because of the controversy over its erotic nature and the sale to Napoleon, it was the most popular painting at the Paris Salon de Refusé 1863. Ten years later a slightly smaller version was commissioned and now hangs in the Met.  To see the original: http://bit.ly/2gU4shv

Pierre-Auguste Renoir – Dance at Bougival

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Dance at Bougival – 1883
Museum of Fine Art, Boston

One of three dance paintings (Dance in the City and Dance in the Country), this is considered the best. Despite the desire to capture the spontaneous outdoor life, these dance paintings were staged with Renoir’s total control down to the clothes that they wore. In Bogival his model was Suzanne Valadon who was his lover and fellow artist. The male figure in this paintings looks like Renoir. Maybe this image was from some dream sequence.To see the original: http://bit.ly/2ftWb73

Caravaggio's Light

Caravaggio – Supper at Emmaus - 1601 - National Gallery London

Light, for me as a photographer, is one of the most important and interesting things to play with. For example, in the Caravaggio the light on the hand is one of the things that art critics have told me is absolutely perfect. From the shadow of the index finger onto the shadow on the secondary finger, is exactly what is going on in the painting and has an amazing sense of the light. For that reason, it's one of my favorites. As I go on, I’ve been taking Santa further into the textures and tone of the paintings, and away from the realism of photography.