Famous Painters and Their Paintings of 19th and 20th Century Part (1)

Famous Painters and Their Paintings of 19th and 20th Century Part (1)








Édouard Manet (1832-1883):

Édouard Manet (1832-1883):

Édouard Manet was born on January 23 of 1832 in Paris, France. His father was Auguste Manet, who worked at the Ministry of Justice, and his mother was Eugénie-Désirée Fournier. In 1839, he went to school at Canon Poiloup in Vaugirard and studied French and the classics. He went to Collège Rollin in 1844. In a year, his interest was only in drawing courses. His father didn’t allow Édouard to be a painter, instead he wanted him to be a lawyer but Édouard refused. Édouard also took an entrance examination for naval college, but he failed twice so his father gave in to his son’s desire to paint.

In 1850, Édouard joined the studio of a classical painter named Thomas Couture and after six long years, Édouard was able to set up his studio which he shared with a painter named Albert de Balleroy. He painted “The Boy with Cherries” in 1858 and “The Absinthe Drinker” in 1859.

Édouard also encountered a poet named Charles Baudelaire who suggested Édouard to paint the “Concert in the Tuileries Gardens” in 1862. As he was painting his work, many passersby watched with much curiosity at him elegantly dressed while he would start painting his canvases in the open air. Then, in 1861 at the Salon, Édouard exhibited the Spanish Singer.From 1862 to 1865, Édouard participated in exhibitions prepared by the Martinet Gallery. In 1863, Édouard met and married Suzanne Leenhoff, who was a Dutch woman that taught him the piano and gave him a child before marriage.

In 1865 one of his paintings, called Olympia, which was created two years ago, brought about a scandal. It was a painting with the use of oil on canvas. This created scandal because they judged it as a painting which displays immorality. In 1880, Eduardo had an exhibition at the periodical La Vie modern, but unfortunately, his legs were affected by a problem that seemed to be fatal. In April 6th of 1883, after painting lilacs and roses, Édouard took to his own bed. Gangrene had developed in his left leg. Not long after, he died and was buried in Passy’s cemetery.In the January of 1884, a post-mortem exhibition of Édouard’s work was held at the Salle de Melpomène of École des Beaux-Arts. With great respect for Édouard, Zola wrote the prologue to a catalog. It was after this commemorative exhibition that Édouard’s paintings began to achieve prominence.




1) A Bar at the Folies-Bergère  In the painting is a bored-looking bar maid and her lovely blue-black, close-fitted velvet jacket with its gleaming row of buttons, lace collar and cuffs, a choker, her gold bracelet, and the corsage at her bosom. Her very costume tells the viewer that the place isn’t a dive. We see the array of all kinds of liquor, including the unopened bottles of champagne, their necks still wrapped in gold foil. We see the goblet with the two roses in it and a crystal compote filled with exotic oranges.Behind her, in the mirror, is the huge crowd of the famed Parisian nightspot, reveling beneath moon-like lamps and enormous crystal chandeliers. In the top left corner, we glimpse the green booties and something of the legs of a trapeze artist, high above it all.






2) Olympia is one of the most famous paintings of renowned painter Édouard Manet. His new painting called Olympia was first displayed in 1865. It created a much bigger furor, since conformist and conservatives of the then society were aghast at the brazen nudity depicted in the painting. It was promptly labeled as being obscenely vulgar.The work of art was first exhibited in Paris Salon. The administration there had to take extra safety measures to keep the hardliners from destroying it. However, not everyone was against Manet’s work. He had supporters too who appreciated his painting of the nude woman as a form of the artist’s representation of the real world.




3) The Balcony is a 67 inch by 49 inch oil painting in the Realist tradition by Edouard Manet. The painting shows three people on a balcony. In the foreground, a woman in a white dress sits on a bench. Her arm rests on the balcony railing. At her feet is a small brown and white dog with a ball. To the left of her is a white flowering plant in a decorative pot. She gazes off into the distance.To the right and slightly behind the seated woman stands another woman in white. She holds a green umbrella with tassels in her arms. She is wearing a hat and she adjusts her tan gloves, as if she is preparing to depart. She gazes out, seemingly at the viewer.

To the left of the second woman and slightly behind her is a man in a dark suit with a blue tie. His hands are clenched in front of him as he gazes over the balcony in an unrelated direction to either woman’s gaze. Behind the trio on the balcony, a shadowy room contains a fourth man who looks out at the trio over his shoulder. The scene is framed by the green shutters and railing of the balcony.





4) The Railway, by Edouard Manet, is an 1873 painting which is popularly known as the Gare Saint-Lazare.The woman posing in the painting is Victorine Meurent, who also posed for Manet’s most astounding pictures: Luncheon on the Grass and the Olympia. In this painting, she sits behind a tall iron fence holding an open book and a sleeping puppy. To her left, a little girl watches a train passing beneath them.





5) The Old Musician is an oil on canvas work painted by Edouard Manet in 1862. The painting is set in a rural location. The musician of the title is seated on a case. His violin is resting in his lap, held in place by his left hand. He holds his bow in his right hand. He is looking directly towards the viewer.

On the left of the group, a young, barefoot girl, wearing a blue dress and black shawl, is cradling a baby. Beside her are two young boys. Two adult males are depicted on the right of the painting. One of the men is well dressed and wearing a top hat. The other man is only partially visible.



Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) :

Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) :

People have witnessed great works from artists who captured life in their works, artists who work on naturalism and realism. On the other end are artists who style their works with heroic or ideal themes. While the former dwells on subjects in the natural world, the latter dwells on spirituality and imagination. This is called Symbolism. One of the prominent figures in Symbolism is Paul Gauguin.

Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a top Post-Impressionist artist from France and made his name in the Symbolist movement as a ceramist, writer, sculptor, print-maker, and, of course, painter. He experimented boldly on coloring, directly leading to modern art’s Synthetist style. He also contributed to the creation of a path towards Primitivism and a comeback to the pastoral. He also had influences on wood engravings and woodcuts becoming conventional art mediums.

Gauguin was a friend of Vincent Van Gogh. They painted together in Arles in 1888 for a period of two months and one week. One thing he had in common with Van Gogh was the episodes of depression he went through. At one point, he tried to commit suicide. Later, he went to Martinique in search of an idyllic landscape. There, he worked on the construction of Panama Canal as a laborer. This particular job lasted only for two weeks.

Gauguin traveled to Tahiti in 1891 to get away from European Civilization. Also, to rest from conventional and artificial things. His experiences in Tahiti were written in his book Noa Noa.Gauguin left France for good in 1895. The time he spent in the Marquesas Island and Tahiti became a subject of interest mostly because of his supposed sexual activities. He was believed to have had meetings with young native females. Some of them were depicted in his paintings. He had a number of children with his mistresses.

Paul Gauguin died at the age of 54 in 1903. He had syphilis but the cause of death was morphine overdose. He died before the start of his prison sentence – received because of a libel case.Gauguin started painting during his leisure time. He also went to galleries and bought works from emerging artists. Camille Pissarro became his friend and presented him to other artists. He was eventually able to rent a studio. His paintings were exhibited in 1881 and 1882. In the duration of two holidays that summer, he worked with Pissarro and on some occasions, Paul Cezanne.In 1887, Gauguin spent a number of months in Martinique, within an area near Saint Pierre. With him was the artist Charles Laval. He lived in a hut and enjoyed observing people’s everyday works. As time went by, the weather got into him. It was too hot during the summers while the rain leaks through the hut, and he became sick eventually. In the time he spent in that place, he made between 10 and 20 paintings.





1) Tahitian Women on the Beach, by Paul Gauguin, is a beautiful painting that catches the eye with its depiction of two women on the beach of the pacific island of Tahiti. This painting, done in 1891, The subjects are two island women that each seem to be lost in their own thoughts as they sit in comfortable companionship. Fantastic display of color and the easy natural style of this painting are captivating.




2) Bible-influenced Vision After the Sermon in 1888.This painting features a scene from The Bible with Jacob and an angel in front of a crowd of women. In the scene, Jacob is wrestling an angel down to the ground. They are on top of a red earth while the crowd surrounds them at the front. This is not a direct image though, it is meant to be a vision that the women see after going to a sermon at their church. Red is the most prominent color in the painting other than the black and white that the church women are wearing. It measures 28.4 x 35.8 inches and is of the style of synthetism.






3) The Where Do We Come From piece is one created by the French artist, Gauguin. The picture was designed to be read from right to left. As Gauguin claimed he would commit suicide after the work was completed (he had tried in the past), it was a depiction of what he was going to do. The three major figures in the work are represented by the three questions in the title.The three women depict the existence in our lives, from childhood, to middle age, to adulthood, and the many changes that we go through during the course of our lives. The blue background in the painting is supposedly what Gauguin has described as the beyond.





4) Spirit of the Dead Watching was completed in 1892 as an oil canvas on burlap, inspired by the period in which the artist visited Tahiti, where he met his wife, Tehura. The image presents a nude girl laid down on a bed, characterized by formal lines, mild eroticism, and freight. In the background, right next to the woman’s bed, the spirit of death watches over her naked body. Terrified by the ghostly presence, the woman’s face reveals her intense emotions as seen by the artist. According to the island’s mythology, the symbolism of the painting can be interpreted in two ways. One description of the scene assumes that the young woman is thinking of the deathly spirit. The second interpretation claims that the spirit of death is thinking of the girl.




5) The Yellow Christ painting in 1889 .This painting shows Christ on the cross with Breton women surrounding him in prayer. Only the women in the piece are shaded, Christ is a bright yellow color that stands out from everything in the background. It appears as though the painting is in fall or autumn because of the red and orange colors that are present in the trees and earth. Christ is wearing a cloth around his waist while the women are fully clothed in long dresses. Their heads are bowed down to him and his head is off to the side.




Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841-1919):

Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841-1919):

Renoir was born on February 25, 1841 in Limoges, Haute-Vienne, France. His parents were working class, and his dad was a tailor. He was the sixth child. As a boy, Pierre worked at a porcelain factory. He was a skilled artist by that age, because he showed his drawings around at work, and he was chosen to paint designs on the fine china at the Lévy Frères factory. His artistic talent was passed on to other places, and he ended up painting fans and religious wall hangings as well. He would visit the Louvre to go see and study the French master painters in hopes of becoming one of them one day. His favorite painting was The Bathers by François Boucher, a Rococo piece, which would later inspire some of his artwork.

His paintings over the next few years were influenced by Rococo art. For example, The Bathers, painted in 1887. They were sensual nudes, and instead of the short, quick brush strokes that are in his Impressionists paintings, these are long and smooth, so the women look soft. Someone once asked him how he knew when these paintings were finished, and he replied, “I know my nudes are finished when I feel like smacking them on the bottom.”

Renoir finally married Aline in 1890. He had already a kid with her, a son named Pierre in 1885. After the marriage, he had two more sons with her. In 1892, he developed Rheumatoid arthritis. To make it less painful to paint, they moved to the south of France, near the Mediterranean, at a farm in Cagnes-sur-mer in 1907. He continues to paint for the last 20 years of his life, but it was difficult. He wasn’t able to move much, so the paint brush had to be put into his hand. He couldn’t move the easel either, so it was put on wheels. He was permanently in a wheel chair as well.

Before Pierre died, he went to Paris in 1919. He went to the Louvre Museum, and saw his paintings hanging with the masters. This is what he waited his entire life for, and it had finally happened. He returned home happy, and died on December 3, 1919 at the age of 78. He is buried in Cagnes-sur-mer.




1) Le déjeuner des Canotiers is a painting by the French impressionist, Pierre Auguste Renoir. It was completed in 1881 . The painting is a representation of a group dining on a balcony at the Restaurant Fournaise, overlooking the Seine, in the town of Chatou near Paris. The restaurant was a favorite haunt of the artist and features in several other of his works.





2) Two Sisters (On the Terrace) Renoir painted this masterpiece at Chatou, which was a suburb of Paris where he spent much of his time. The background of the painting was inspired by the wooden banks of the river in this area. He painted the piece at Maison Fournaise, which is where he had created a different piece before. It’s believed to have been created in 1881. Jeanne Darlot was revealed to be the older sister in the painting, while the younger sister is unidentified.




3) Two Young Girls at the Piano is an oil painting on canvas. Around 1891 or 1892, Renoir was asked to create a painting for the Musee du Lexembourg museum in Paris by the French government. This museum was made for the work of living artists; so many historical pieces were stored there. Renoir chose the subject based on the domestic life of bourgeois.





4) Dance in the Country This piece was ordered in 1882 for Paul Durand-Ruel, who kept it until 1919, when Renoir passed away. He wanted art that featured the theme of a ball in unique detail. Renoir used inspiration from his trips to Italy and Raphael, who was also an influential painter.




5) La Grenouillère by Renoir was created in 1869. Both Renoir and Monet painted this particular piece individually. Both were poor when they created it and had the idea because they were so close to one another.

Vincent Willem van Gogh (1853-1890):

Vincent Willem van Gogh (1853-1890):

Vincent Willem van Gogh is one of the most famous artists of all time. He has influenced many painters over the years, and been one of the most collected painters that ever lived. He created his own art movement, Post-Impressionism, which was only recognized after his death, just like his work.

Van Gogh then decided he would become a preacher, and traveled to a small mining town to preach to them. Since they were impoverished, he inclined to live like them, and this lasted for about a year. He still needed his ministry degrees to be an official preacher, so he went and studied under a preacher in the area. After failing the test twice, he gave up and left the area. In 1880, his brother, Theo, finally convinced him to become an artist, and he attended the Royal Academy of Art for one year. Van Gogh hated being there, for he was against formal instruction. He believed art should just be a natural talent.

He left the Academy to train with his cousin by marriage, Mauve. Van Gogh at the time was living with a prostitute, Sien, and his cousin refused to train him if he continued living with her. After a few more months, Van Gogh and Mauve got into a fight and they never spoke again. In about 1884, Van Gogh moved in with his brother, Theo.

In 1885, Van Gogh’s father died. He went into a slight depression, for a few months, but came out of it when his brother, Theo, held his first art show for him in Paris. Paintings like the Potato Eaters were shown there, but none sold. Many of the people that saw the exhibition thought the paintings were too dark and dreary, and no one wanted to look at paintings of peasants. He became depressed again, and started drinking absinth.

In 1890, Van Gogh was released from the mental institution, and relocated to Ravoux Inn, where he had a personal doctor to monitor him. On July 1, 1890, he went out to the wheat fields and shot himself in the chest. He died two days later, on July 3, at the age of 37. He was buried in Auvers-sur-Oise, France. Six months later, his brother Theo, died and was buried next to him.“Starry starry night…..Now I think I know what you tried to say to me, and how you suffered for your sanity, and how you tried to set them free.” – “Vincent” by Don McLean.

1)  The Starry Night.The painting features a scene of a Dutch-looking town. It is mainly composed of stars ablaze in their own luminescence, picturesque town structures, and a bright crescent moon. The painting is exaggerated, as stated by van Gogh himself. It is like a replica of a beautiful night. A viewer might imagine himself in the scene, observing the night in peace and amazement. The night sky keeps the viewer’s eyes moving about the painting while following the curves and creating a dot pattern caused by its swirly pattern.

2) The Sunflowers were a series of paintings by the Dutch post-impressionist painter Vincent Willem van Gogh, who lived from March 30, 1853 to July 29, 1890. He painted this series between 1888 and 1889. There are a total of seven paintings in this series. All his works, with a few exceptions, are classified with a letter ‘F’ followed by a number, a method devised by J.B. de la Faille in a book “The Works of Vincent Van Gogh”.

3) The Potato Eaters, which was completed in 1885, was considered to be van Gogh’s first real piece of great work which led to many other pieces that followed. When the painting was done, van Gogh was still new to the art world, and had not yet mastered his own style–the use of colors and lighting that he became so well known for. In turn, the lack of character and his own style led to a unique and interesting look of The Potato Eaters.

4) The Outskirts of Paris by Vincent van Gogh demonstrates the use of vivid and arbitrary colors. It is a series of paintings made in 1887 when Vincent was staying with his brother Theo in Paris. The painting does not reflect the pleasant, pleasure stuff that some of the other impressionists were doing at that time. Rather, the painting portrays the outskirts of the city where the poor man live. Throughout the painting, you will find half-hearted brush strokes, which give a choppy appearance to the painting.

5) The Red Vineyard was the only painting that Vincent Van Gogh ever managed to sell. This was a groundbreaking work that was produced in 1888, only 2 years before Van Gogh died. This painting is currently being exhibited at Moscow’s Pushkin Museum. This painting depicts a group of harvesters working in fields during the sunset. The painting has striking use of colors, right from the luminous white at the center to the red fields in the foreground. This painting is a great display of Gogh’s aesthetic acumen.

6) The oil on canvas painting Café Terrace at Night is a Vincent van Gogh work completed in 1888. The painting is also referred to as The Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum, and is held by the Kroller-Muller Museum in Ottelro in the Netherlands, which is home to the second largest collection of Van Gogh’s paintings.

The location for the work is a street in Arles, France. It remains virtually unchanged to the present day, and the café still exists but is now called Café van Gogh.

7) Starry Night Over the Rhone, a popular painting that was that was drawn in September 1888 by an expressionist artist, Vincent van Gogh. Van Gogh’s art is amongst the finest, highly prized and sought-after today.

 The painting is set on the banks of Rhone River that passes near Place Lamartine, a place where the artist had rented an apartment. Vincent had sent a sketch of the painting to a friend named Eugene Boch on 2nd September 1888. This particular Arles at night painting is usually classified with other related paintings by Vincent van Gogh that constitutes a Starry Night Works montage. The painting was firstly exhibited in Paris in 1889 at an annual exhibition.

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973):

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973):

Picasso is the foundation of modern art. His movement, Cubism has influenced many artists since it was born. According to Picasso, “Every act of creation is first an act of deconstruction,” which is true for cubism, because it breaks apart the picture only to put it back together again in an abstract way.

Picasso’s work falls into several categories depending on his life and the world around him. His beginning work was semi-realistic like his father, but over time he began to pursue other aspects in painting.

The Blue Period (1901-1904) is characterized by all the canvas being some shade of blue. This was a dark time in his life. His best friend had committed suicide, and he was depressed by this. Paintings like The Old Guitarist (1903) reflect this mood. The man in this painting is gaunt, withered away and hunched over his guitar. The painting makes the viewer feel the melancholy that the man is feeling.

After the Blue Period came the Rose Period (1904-1906). Most of his paintings during this time have roses in them, or are pink like roses. Fernande Olivier is painted in many of these paintings, for he used her as his model. All of these paintings are upbeat in comparison to the Blue Period, and they are meant to reflect the French culture he was being exposed to.

From 1907-1909, he became highly interested in African art, and produced one of his most famous pieces during this time, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. The women’s faces, in this work, look like masks and the bodies are all angular. This marked the official beginnings of Cubism.

Cubism officially began in 1909, when Picasso began collaborating with another artist George Braque. George is actually accredited with the creation of Cubism, but Picasso made it popular.

Picasso in all produced over 50,000 pieces of artwork during his lifetime. He died on April 8, 1973 in France while having dinner with his friends. His second wife, Jacqueline, took her own life in 1986 because she was so lonely without him.

1) Guernica is a painting by famous Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. It was painted as a reaction to the aerial bombing of Guernica, Spain by German and Italian forces during the Spanish Civil War in 1937. The Spanish Republic, government of Spain, appointed Picasso to paint a large mural about the bombing to display at the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris.

2) The painting, Three Musicians is painted in the style of Synthetic Cubism. Picasso painted it in 1921. This painting features a pierrot, a harlequin and a monk. They are depicted in abstract shapes and flat patterns, and the colors used are rather bright.

3) The Old Guitarist was painted in 1903, shortly following Picasso’s friend suicide. After this period, Picasso painted many somber works, including the ill, poor, and individuals who were cast out of society. The work was initially created in Madrid, and the distorted approach and style taken, is something that follows El Greco forms of art.

4) The Weeping Woman by Pablo Picasso is a silent protest of the bombing of Guernica. The painting, completed in 1937, is a colorful display of the pain felt in a time of horror. The strategically placed tears, the blue chattering teeth and piercing black eyes display an emotional woman. The woman’s face has jagged lines and a jaw that seems to remove itself. The viewer is presented with a combination of bright colors and dark hues that represent both the shock and the death that surrounds this woman.

5) The Three Dancers is a painting by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. He painted the piece in 1925, and it is his most famous work in the Surrealist style. It is painted on canvas, using oils, and is considered a landmark in Picasso’s artistic development. The artwork has been owned since 1965 by the Tate Gallery in London.