Category: Eye Candy for Today

The Beeches, Asher Brown Durand In the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Use the zoom or download links under the image on their page. Durand is my favorite of the Hudson River painters, partly because of the influence of Constable, and partly because he was more likely than most of the others to paint intimate scenes…

Samson and Delilah, Anton van Dyck On Google Art Project, downloadable file on Wikimedia Commons, original is in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Van Dyck’s dramatic tableau shows the influence of Titian, and Van Dyck’s teacher, Rubens.

Deer’s Skull with Pedernal, Georgia Okeeffe In the Museum of Fine Arts Boston Though it looks almost like watercolor in the handling, particularly of the skull itself, this was done in oil on canvas. According the the museum’s page for this piece, “Pedernal” is the name of the flat-topped mountain in the background, which Okeeffe…

Interior of the Pantheon, Rome; Giovanni Paolo Panini In the National Gallery of Art, DC. Panini has used false perspective here to show more of the interior and the spectacular dome than would be possible otherwise, though from my recollection of my one visit some years ago, I’d say he’s also made the building feel…

The Magdalen in a Landscape, Adriaen Ysenbrandt In the National Gallery, London. Also on Google Art Project, downloadable file on Wikimedia Commons. Painted in the early 16th century, this delicately rendered devotional piece features a truly strange landscape, including a scene within a scene in which Mary is shown reading in a rather bizarre little…

Diana and Cupid, Pompeo Batoni Mid 18th century. In the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Use zoom or download links under the image. Diana and Cupid, Met Museum