Summary

Henri Matisse, one of the pioneering masters of twentieth-century art, was an extremely versatile and productive artist. Throughout his long career from the 1830s to his death in 1954, his art was nourished by a variety of movements: Neoclassicism, Realism, Impressionism, and Post-Impressionism. He was an outstanding draftsman and sculptor, but was most widely recognized and loved for his vibrant and colourful paintings, which are the focus of this book. In his short lifetime of only thirty-seven years from 1864 to 1901, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec created work that has become iconic of popular Parisian life during the time in which he lived - the theatre, the circus, dance halls, cafes, and brothels. His work is brimming with the emotion and atmosphere of such famous locales as the Moulin Rouge, rendered in a style influenced by the Impressionists but distinguished by his own distinct and masterly handling of line. Jan Vermeer's mysterious and poetic paintings have continued to fascinate us. The recent Hollywood film which took its title from the painting - The Girl with a Pearl Earring - attests to the lasting power that fills his simple, studied, everyday scenes. attributed Saint Praxedis.