When you plan an itinerary for Paris, at the top of the list of sights-to-see are the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe and the Louvre – which is undoubtedly one of the most famous collections of art in the world. Other noteworthy pieces that call the Louvre home are the Winged Victory of Samothrace Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix and The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault.
The USA has Broadway and the UK has the West End. It’s the premiere theater destination in Europe with a history dating back to 1663. This area of London is also one of the top places for a night out on the town, with clubs, pubs and restaurants that are uber trendy. People come from all over the world to experience the culture and night life of the West End.
Without a doubt, Pablo Picasso is one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. A Spaniard by birth, Picasso was born ‘Pablo Ruiz Picasso’ and lived most of his life in France. He is credited as co-founding the Cubist movement with Georges Braques. Artists – such as Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Robert Delaunay, Henri Le Fauconnier and Fernand Léger – would later join the movement.
The art world has always been shrouded in mystery; the very nature of many artists throughout time means that a number of them preferred isolation or suffered from mental illness. This means that over the years, plenty of mysteries have cropped up, many of which remain unresolved to this day, and we may never find out the truth behind some of these fascinating mysteries.
Religion has shaped the very nature of our societies for countless centuries, and artists from around the world and from different religions have always been passionate about what they follow, and many have devoted hundreds of hours into creating unique pieces of art that captured how they felt about their faith.
From the incredible symmetry in Islam to the cathedrals of Catholicism, religious pieces of artwork tend to be some of the best and most intricate to be found anywhere.
Jackson Pollock has been called by many one of the most important artists of the twentieth century. There are also many out there that call him simply lucky because the world was open to his style of painting at the time. Then there are those who believe he is a fraud and he merely exposed how gullible the world can be, especially in the art communities.
When you think about famous artists throughout history, names that might spring to mind are Leonardi da Vinci, Henry Matisse and Pablo Picasso. What do they all have in common? The artists are males. But what of the talented female artists that have contributed to the world of art?
Not many people know that before Michelangelo become the embodiment of the Renaissance movement, he was no more than a common art forger. This was long before he grew into the magnificent force and leading sculptor of his time.
In 1496, when Michelangelo was only 21, he sculpted from marble a sleeping figure closely resembling Cupid. He then treated the marble so that it would resemble the ancient Roman statutes that sold for small fortunes to the collectors of the time. His deceiving creation was eventually sold via well-known art dealer of the time Baldassare del Milanese to none other than Cardinal Raffaele Riaro.
There are few works of art in the world that are more iconic than Leonardo da Vinci’s work, Mona Lisa. The legendary painting was originally commissioned as a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, and eventually became one of the most-discussed and most mysterious artworks of all time.
More than 500 years after Jheronimus van Aken, better known as Hieronymus Bosch, painted it, the Garden of Earthly Delights still intrigues and mystifies viewers. The Dutch painter is famous for his weird and wonderful allegorical works, but none are more fantastical than the triptych currently located in Madrid’s Museo del Prado.