Henri Matisse Icarus

When we discuss art, we are often looking at the productions of artists in the prime of their ability. We look at works by the master artist, executed with their unique yet astounding ability. However, it is not just the technique that makes an artist. And for a great artist, even when the abilities have declined, their eye for art, for the visual medium, are often still such that they can create with few tools what others strive a lifetime to achieve.

A great example of this is the Henri Matisse masterpiece Icarus. It shows the greek myth of Icarus, why flew too close to the sun and ended up falling to his death. In the piece, Icarus is seen among the stars in a dark blue sky. However, it is not clear from the work whether Icarus is flying up or falling down. His rather flailing future, and the clear absence of any wings, could indicate that he is falling. A red dot on Icarus indicates his beating heart.

Icarus was part of illustrations created by Matisse for the book Jazz. In his seventies, frail and unable to really paint, he instead used scissors and paper and arranged the cut outs on paper. Thus, though he used simple tools, instead instruments any child could use, the result of such work by a true master was none the less among his most famous work. Art reproductions of Henri Matisse works.

Nighthawks by Edward Hopper

Among the most classic phenomena of American culture is the diner. The most famous immortalization of such was done in the 1942 Edward Hopper painting Nighthawks, which was painted following the attack on Pearl Harbor.

In the painting, we see a diner in New York at night. There are only two patrons, one couple and one guy alone, as well as the diner attendant. The streets outside are empty and even inside the diner loneliness seems to rule. It is as if the estrangement and loneliness of big city living has been caught in a New York minute. The actual location of the diner painted by Hopper has been discussed at some length but no consensus on where in New York it was located has yet been reached.

Nighthawks is probably the most famous Hopper painting. Its eerie urban mood caught a central theme in the existence of city dwellers, just at a time when urbanization starting its global march. The painting has become iconic and has inspired music, television and literature, including episodes of The Simpsons, That 70s Show, the feel of the movie Blade Runner, music by Tom Waits and more. The original can today be found on display at the Art Institute of Chicago but is also availible as an oil painting reproduction.

La Pinata by Diego Rivera

One amazing aspect of good paintings is that, like with good music, experiencing them can affect your mood. Just like when you hear a specific song and feel happy because it reminds you of good things in your life, a painting can also convey emotions very clearly.

One example of this is the painting La Piñata by Diego Rivera. In the painting, we follow the classic Mexican piñata ceremony, where one person is blind folded and trying to hit the piñata. The game is played by as number of kids, and the one swinging for the piñata has just managed to hit it. The remaining kids are scrambling to get their hands on the candies that are falling from the wounded piñata.

Diego Rivera uses several effects in this painting in order to make the viewer feel warmer and confortable. First, of cours,e the motive is of happy playing children, which automatically brings a sense of happiness. There are no sense of danger in the painting, no threatening colors or signs. Rather, the colors are more mural like in their sun bleached quality, but they are warm earthy tones. The background is similarly not clear, but it is not dark or threatening either. Instead, we have children playing among warm earthen colors. This in turn brings us as the viewer a warmth, a happiness and a sense of piece, all conveyed by this wonderful painting. La Pinata is a great choice of art reproductions to make your walls look beautiful.

Klimt's virgins in a bed of flowers

The Virgin, also known as Die Jungfrau, is a symbolist Gustav Klimt painting. It depicts a group of women lying together intertwined on a bed of flowers. The main subject of the painting, The virgin, is lying in the center of the group, with her neck bend in an almost impossible angle.



The painting exudes the sensuality that was among Klimt’s calling cards. He further put his own sense into this by modeling the face of the Virgin after that of his own partner Emilie Flöge. The women are all covered in fabrics covered in numerous symbols and signs. As in many of his other paintings, Klimt uses mainly round shapes for symbolize the female and female sexuality.

The area surrounding the flowerbed is lost in a sort of darkness in the background. However, there is no menacing qualities to this darkness. Rather, it seems as if the surroundings have been kept out in order to focus our attention completely on the scene in front of us. While not exactly filled with warm colors, and with some contracts in place between the white skin of the women and the surroundings, the painting never the less offers a balanced palette that is easy on the eyes. It is harmonious and it is beautiful, while still retaining plenty of deeper messages through the use of numerous symbols. It is among my favorite works of Klimt and is a great choice for an oil painting reproduction.

Houses of Parliament series

The Palace of Westminster was the subject of a series of paintings by French impressionist Claude Monet. He painted the home of the British parliament while staying in London. The whole series was painted between 1900 – 1904.

The paintings all share the same size and share a common viewpoint, namely Monet’s window at St. Thomas Hospital which overlooked the Thames. However, as was common in Monet’s serial works, the paintings were done under different lighting conditions, seasons and in different weather. Especially the lighting conditions we essential as these works are very much a study in the effects of light and how to depict it.

As opposed to earlier works, Monet had at this time stopped his previous practice of completing the work in front of the paintings subject. Instead, he would bring the paintings back for refinement in France, helped by fresh photographs from the London site. While he received some critique for this, he deemed it his own business how he decided to work. The final result, according to Monet, would be judged by the viewer.

The majority of the different works in the Houses of Parliament series can today be found in museums across Europe and the United States as well as many oil painting reproductions of these works.

The Art of Impressionism

Among the most received artistic stint in the world, Impressionism brought us many of the artists that are today classic names. From Monet and Cassatt to Degas and Pissarro, some of the true giants of the art world stamped their mark in the time of this period. Today, the works of the impressionists can be found at the museums around the world, on posters and postcards and, best of all, now also in accurately reproduced hand painted oil painting reproductions.



Impressionism was itself a 19th-century art movement which started out as a blurred association of Paris-based artists who came to prominence through a number of individualist exhibitions in the 1870s and 1880s. The name of the movement can be credited to one of the most famous and iconic images of the movement - Claude Monet’s work, Impression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant). It was not initially meant as a accolade, however. Instead, the work aggravated critic Louis Leroy to make up the term in a satiric review published in Le Charivari.

The characteristics of Impressionist paintings include noticeable brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time), ordinary subject matter, the absorption of movement as a crucial part of human cognition and self-knowledge, and unusual visual angles. Following its emergence as an art movement, these ideas soon found their way to analogous movements in other media which became known as Impressionist music and Impressionist literature.

Impressionism was proposed a radical movement at the time, as their activities broke the set rules of academia when it came to painting. They colored unconventionally, freely brushed and held primacy over line. They also carried away their art out of the studios and into the world. Where it had at one time been the code for painters of even landscapes to do such work indoors, the impressionists freely went into wide world in order to experience it and have it leave its impression on them. Painting realistic scenes of modern life, they portrayed overall visual effects instead of details. They used short "broken" brush strokes of mixed and pure unmixed color, not smoothly amalgamated or shaded, as was customary, in order to achieve the effect of intense color vibration.

Impressionism initially came about in France. While there were at the time other painters, including the Italian artists known as the Macchiaioli, and Winslow Homer in the United States, who were also at this time discovering the art of plein-air painting, the Impressionists improved new techniques for this purpose that were specific to the impressionist movement. Focusing on what its followers called a new and different way of seeing, it was an art of immediacy and movement, of candid poses and compositions, of the play of light expressed in a bright and varied use of color. See the below art reproductions of impressionist paintings.



The initial public reaction to the impressionist movement was hostile. Clearly, this was not painting in the way of the famous masters and according to the set standards of the time. However, as does often happen, the public in time did come around, gradually seeing how the Impressionists had captured a fresh and original vision, even if it did not receive the agreement of the art critics and establishment. The ability of impressionism to re-create the sensation in the eye that views the subject, rather than recreating the subject, and by creating a welter of techniques and forms, Impressionism became a precursor seminal to various movements in painting which would follow, along with Neo-Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, and Cubism.