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.

The Bathers by Paul Cézanne

The Bathers is an oil painting by Paul Cézanne, Cézanne painted a series of paintings on the subject of 'bathers' and this was the largest of the group. The painting is considered one of the masterpieces of modern art and is often considered to be Cézanne's finest work.

The painting sold for a massive $110,000 in 1937. The painting can now be found at Philadelphia Museum of Art and measures 210.5cm x 250.8cm (82 7/8 inches x 98 3/4inches).

Andrew Wyeth Quote

"Artists today think of everything they do as a work of art. It is important to forget about what you are doing.. then a work of art may happen." - Andrew Wyeth

Henri Matisse Quote

"I have always tried to hide my own efforts and wished my works to have the lightness and joyousness of a springtime which never lets anyone suspect the labours it cost." - Henri Matisse

Of Art and Artists

Man has always created art. From the first cavemen drawing on walls over the major religious works of the renaissance to teenagers using spray cans to draw on walls and subway trains. It is a given need that has always been there, something that even fit into the pyramid of needs created by Maslow. Following our tendency to look at things in similar ways, probably because we are products of the same times as those around us, we furthermore tend to have periods where different types of expression dominate. There is the classic era, the impressionist, the expressionists, the cubists, south side style of graffiti and so on. We tend to move in groups.

Another related characteristic is that we tend to move in circles. From the classic era we moved away from the sensual towards a more purely iconic religious type of art, just to end up back where we started in the sensual art of the renaissance. We move in circles and find inspiration in what has passed before to create the new. This is also what brings things back to the fore for their second coming. Only the second time around we call them retro.

Then there are those expressions which differ from this pattern. This is for instance the case when we deal with pure copies or, as they are also known, oil painting reproductions. For while you can copy a product down to the smallest detail, doing the same with a classic painting required a lot more work every time. Oil painting reproductions are not fickle short copies that are Xeroxed and ready to go. They require the dedicated time and dedication of a real artist. In fact, even Donald Trump took notice their unique qualities and considered filling an entire hotel with reproduced masterpieces. I am sure that a décor of such would have made a significant impression on any guest. A truly modern form of retro.

Which is not to say that oil painting reproductions are original work. Just that the skill to create such is on par with any other type of painting you would like, and have a similar effect once framed. And while it might be a reproduction, it is also an individual work of an artist. Artists will always be able to put their own specific signature on their work, which is why we are still discussing which of his credited works e.g. Rembrandt actually painted.

No matter how we choose our motives, no matter where the inspiration might come from, we need to paint and depict and reflect the times we live in. Whether we do it with a pencil, a brush or a spray can, no matter whether our canvas is a wall, is made of cloth or paper or the stone wall in our cave. We need to be biographers for the times we live, to express our world, our feelings and our thoughts through a medium that allows us to go beyond what we can express with words. And whether we pick the motive ourselves or feel so inspired by the work of others that we repeat it to find our inner selves, the mere fact that we go to this trouble to create expression defines us a humans. It is not enough for us to do, we need to express and share as well. That is what is at the heart of the artist and that is what defines us as human.