fuck yeah art history

Marie Antoinette
Louise Élisabeth Vigée-Le Brun
1783 
National Gallery of Art, Washington, USA

Folio from Uta makura (The Poem of the Pillow)
Kitagawa Utamaro
1788 (Edo Period)
The British Museum, London, UK

The album ‘Poem of the Pillow’ is a masterpiece among the erotic works by Utamaro (died 1806), and indeed, among the entire erotica of the Ukiyo-e school.

Utamaro has avoided the stereotypical scenes of love-making that were often produced at the time, and instead created an innovative and powerfully sensual design. He uses a very low viewpoint and places the unusually large figures so that they seem to expand beyond the frame of the picture. The eye is shocked by the white of the woman’s skin against the bright scarlet under-kimono, and the transparency of the gauze fabric that covers the couple’s entwined legs only heightens the sensuousness. Finally, however, the viewer focuses on the heads and shoulders. The details emphasise the emotion of the moment: the man’s eye as he gazes intently at his lover, the tender touch of their delicate fingers and the exquisite nape of the woman’s neck. (britishmuseum.org)

The Warrior

FRAGONARD, Jean-Honore

1769, oil on canvas

Clark Art Institute, currently being shown at the Kimbell

Boy with Squirrel (Henry Pelham)
John Singleton Copley
1765
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, USA

American portrait artist John Singleton Copley showcased this piece at the exhibition of the Incorporated Society of Artists in 1766, making it the first American painting to be shown abroad. Born in Boston, Copley’s mother remarried Peter Pelham after Copley’s father died, which proved beneficial to the artist in that Pelham was both an engraver and friends with many local painters. The subject in the above painting is of Copley’s half-brother, Henry Pelham.

Assembly in a Park
Jean-Antoine Watteau
c. 1717
Musée du Louvre, Paris, France

Self-portrait (46 years old)
Jacques-Louis David
1794
Housed at the Louvre, Paris, France

Happy birthday to Jacques-Louis David. Supporter of the French Revolution, First Painter to Napoleon, and (to me) lookin’ handsome and slightly Robert Downey Jr.-esque in his self portrait.

Jean-Honoré Fragonard

The Stolen Kiss

Oil on canvas

c. late 1780s

Currently in the collection of the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg 

The Death of Marat
Jacques-Louis David
oil on canvas
1793

Pan box in the shape of a duck

18th century

Tin inlaid with silver and brass

Indian (Decca)

Currently in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

CHARDIN, Jean-Siméon

Self Portrait with Spectacles

1771

Pastel

The Louvre