Paintings - 87 examples
Painting is one of the oldest art forms, involving the use of a brush to apply paint or other types of medium to a surface, be it paper, wood, or canvas. For the best of us, the answer to what’s art is “painting,” an art form that has been around since time immemorial.
Paintings are found across practically every culture, and they are the core visual record of our experiences and the world around us. And, in saying so, paintings have a history of remarkable complexity.
Significant milestones in the world of paintings include illusionism, which was emphasized in traditional western art; the parity between abstract and figures in painting; the emergence of oil painting, and the important historical movements in the art sphere, such as abstract expressionism, cubism, impressionism, the baroque, and the renaissance.
Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump Jean-Michel Basquiat had a short but successful career. Starting in the late 1970s with painting graffiti, it was not until the early 1980s that he experienced real success in the art world. During this time, he created one of his most best-known paintings, Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump. …
Banksy vs. Basquiat – Who did it better? Boy & Dog in a Johnnypump Read More
Banksy’s Stained-Glass painting was commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, California. The artwork shows a painted old stained glass window with the glass panes of the window covered with graffiti. At the front, we can see a young boy in street clothes kneeling and praying in front of a paintbrush …
Banksy’s monumental stained glass window – Forgive us our trespassing Read More
Fumiko Hori supervised the installation of the mural herself, quite an impressive feat for a woman aged 95 at the time. The giant relief wall was based on Hori’s original painting at the CREARE Atami-Yugawara Studio. The relief carving at the airport helps to create an illusion of depth on an otherwise shallow surface. …
At age 95, Fumiko Hori created this mural for the Fukushima Airport Read More
This piece by Banksy is unlike anything he has done before. For the street artist, vandalizing an ancient statue and putting on it his personal touch drove the intended message home. Looking at the sculpture, it is clearly the bust of a catholic priest, complete with a cross pendant and mass vestments. …
Banksy’s Cardinal Sin – An expose of rot within this institution Read More
The Miguel Lerdo de Tejada Library is an impressive feat of architecture, but even more impressive is its large-scale mural, covering 2000 square meters. The library, one of Mexico’s most important resources for financial records and heritage book collections, houses psychedelic frescoes that tell the story of revolutionary scenes throughout history. Mexicans …
The Miguel Lerdo de Tejada Library & Vladimir Rusakov’s impressive mural Read More
The return of in-person exhibitions at Art Basel has echoed a huge sigh of relief across the art community. Its 2021 edition was originally slated for June but had to be put off until September to give countries across the globe more time to carry out their vaccination campaigns and lift travel restrictions. With …
The 10 best artworks you’ve missed at Art Basel Unlimited 2021 Read More
Autumn Rhythm (Number 30) is an abstract expressionist painting by Jackson Pollock. It is currently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and is considered one of the most remarkable pieces of art all of the time. The painting, which stands 266.7 × 525.8 cm (105.0 × 207.0 in), is one …
Jackson Pollock’s Autumn Rhythm (Number 30) is no accident Read More
Untitled (Your Body is a Battleground) is an iconic 1989 silkscreen portrait made by artist, feminist and activist Barbara Kruger. Though the poster was meant for the pro-choice march on April 9th, 1989, in DC, the portrait is now used mainly to voice the artist’s own opinion about gender inequality. The piece is much …
Barbara Kruger – Your body is a battleground Read More
Anyone who sees a Dan Witz painting is aptly astounded by the level of detail. Only a few trained eyes can tell that these hyperreal paintings are just are done by hand rather than photography. The street artist’s deft hand is perfectly seen at work in his Mosh Pit series, which depicts unruly concert-goers …
Beautiful chaos in Dan Witz’ Mosh Pit paintings Read More
Who was Fernand Leger? Fernand Leger was a French painter and sculpture born on February 4, 1881, and died on August 17, 1955. Leger was not only a sculptor and painter but also a filmmaker and a war veteran. It was his multidisciplinary skills that made him one of the most celebrated artists of the …
Fernand Léger’s The city – The story behind this painting Read More
Who is Park Seo-bo? Park Seo-bo is a Korean painter and part of the first generation of contemporary artists in South Korea. Park has been prolific in his career and considered by many as the godfather of Dansaekhwa, Korean minimalism, that began in the mid-1970s in South Korea. He is perhaps best known for his …
Park Seo-Bo’s Ecriture – Everything you need to know Read More
Who was Jean-Michel Basquiat? Jean-Michel Basquiat was one artist who managed to mix politics, poetry, graffiti, and artistry in his masterpieces. They are as memorable as any work by an artist whose work was extra admirable. In Charles the First, Basquiat managed to create a beautiful piece that’s more than intriguing too. That work stands …
Basquiat’s brilliantly-chaotic Charles the First painting Read More
Erased de Kooning is one of the early works of the US artist Robert Rauschenberg. The drawing was simple: a nearly blank piece of paper in a gilded frame. The piece was developed in 1953 after the artist erased a drawing he obtained from the fellow artist Willem de Kooning. Erased de …
Why did Robert Rauschenberg erase a de Kooning? Read More
Oil paintings are famous the world over for several reasons. For example, its flexibility is one of its biggest attractions. The depth of color that one gets from such paintings also remains quite stunning. Furthermore, the paintings also take too long to dry. Consequently, this offers painters more time to work on them to …
Blam! This is Roy Lichtenstein’s pop art painting Read More
I Shop Therefore I Am (1987) is the work of Barbara Kruger. It became an iconic artwork, being reproduced on items such as shopping bags and other consumer products such as t-shirts. Kruger has often derived images from the mass media and pasted the words over them, particularly in Futura Bold. She then uses …
Barbara Kruger’s I shop therefore I am – What you should know Read More
Who was Jean Dubuffet? Sculptor and painter Jean Dubuffet had his art styles that shunned classic aesthetics for what he perceived as original and idealistic. Despite his radical approach to art, the renowned sculptor left many artworks that mark his career as incredible. Closerie Falbala At the top of his artworks was the Closerie Falbala, …
Jean Dubuffet’s Villa Falbala – His largest sculpture Read More
West Bund Art & Design West Bund Art & Design fair shows modern and contemporary art in Shanghai. Well-known local artist Zhou Tiehai, previously director of the Minsheng Art Museum in Shanghai, established it in 2014. Now, West Bund is one of the major Asian fairs, hosting more than 100 galleries from Asia, Europe, and …
The 10 best works of Shanghai’s West Bund Art Fair 2019 Read More
Background The American artist and political activist, Jenny Holzer has racked up a reputation for herself for her Inflammatory Essays over the years. From 1977 to 1982, her text-based Inflammatory Essays were typically displayed for the public in the formula of simply worded statements printed in bold. As a result of her contribution to the …
Why Jenny Holzer’s Inflammatory Essays matter Read More
Collage is the art of using discarded or waste paper to create artworks, often using recycling waste paper. One just cannot believe what impressive pieces can be made using these. Two of these masterpieces are Helter Skelter I and Helter Skelter II that have challenged the way waste paper can be used. Mark Bradford, …
Mark Bradford’s chaotic Helter Skelter collages Read More
