Category: Eye Candy for Today

Hopefully — even if only for a moment — you got to see in the top two images Vermeer’s iconic painting with fresh eyes. The images are reversed left to right. It is not an uncommon practice for artists to pause in the process of working on a painting or other artwork and view the…

Weite Landschaft mit idealer rheinischer Burg (Wide landscape with an ideal Rhenish castle), Carl Theodor Reiffenstein, oil on canvas, 18 x 14 inches (45 x 36 cm) This landscape painting by the 19th century German painter is a perfect example of counterchange — the reversal of value relationships between a shape or object and the…

ˆ, also here, Théodore Rousseau, etching, two states; roughly 4 x 7″ (12 x 17 cm), in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, DC. In this wonderful etching by the 19th century French painter we see a beautifully evocative view into the depths of the forest — likely the Forest of Fontinebleau, where…

The Kiss, Francesco Hayez, oil on canvas, roughly 43 x 35 inches ( 110 x 88 cm); link is to image file page on Wikimdeia Commons, original is in the Pinacoteca di Brera (Brera Art Gallery) in Milan. In this beautiful painting by mid-19th century Italian painter Francesco Hayez, the woman’s stunning gown is the…

Portrait of Marthine Cappelen Hjort, b. Kiær, by Asta Nørregaard, pastel on canvas; roughly 48 x 33 inches (122 x 85 cm); link is to Wikimedia Commons; original is in the collection of the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo Norway, which has a zoomable and downloadable version of the image. This wonderful…