Thomas Moran's vision of the Western landscape was critical to the creation of Yellowstone National Park. In 1871 Dr. Ferdinand Hayden, director of the United States Geological Survey, invited Moran, at the request of American financier Jay Cooke, to join Hayden and his expedition team into the unknown Yellowstone region. Hayden was just about to embark on his arduous journey when he received a letter from Cooke presenting Moran as "an artist of Philadelphia of rare genius". Funded by Cooke (the director of the Northern Pacific Railroad), and Scribner's Monthly, a new illustrated magazine, Moran agreed to join the survey team of the Hayden Geological Survey of 1871 in their exploration of the Yellowstone region. During forty days in the wilderness area, Moran visually documented over 30 different sites and produced a diary of the expedition's progress and daily activities. His sketches, along with photographs produced by survey member William Henry Jackson, captured the nation's attention and helped inspire Congress to establish the Yellowstone region as the first national park in 1872.

In 1851, M. de Guisard, the state's Director of Fine Arts, gave Ingres a commission of 20,000 francs for a painting of a subject of Ingres's choosing. Ingres offered instead to fulfill the commission by finishing two paintings already in progress, Joan of Arc and a Virgin with a Host. Both were subjects he had depicted in earlier works: he had made a wash drawing of Joan of Arc as a model for an engraving by Pollet that was published in the 1840s in La Plutarque français, Vies des hommes et femmes illustres de la France by E. Mannechet. The drawing shows her in a pose similar to that of the later painting, dressed in armor and resting her hand on an altar, but with no accompanying figures.

For the painting Ingres made new preparatory drawings using a nude model. He then made drawings in which he added the clothes and armour. The final composition shows Joan at the coronation of Charles VII of France in Reims Cathedral, victorious and looking up to heaven, which she felt had given France the victory. To her right are three pages, the monk Jean Paquerel, and a servant. The servant is a self-portrait of the artist.

Robert Delaunay (12 April 1885 – 25 October 1941) was a French artist of the School of Paris movement; who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, co-founded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. His later works were more abstract. His key influence related to bold use of colour and a clear love of experimentation with both depth and tone.

Page 3. Sorry I posted before but found out my account had some problems and made a new one :)

Varley came to the attention of Lord Beaverbrook, who arranged for him to be commissioned as an official war artist. He accompanied Canadian troops in the Hundred Days offensive from Amiens, France to Mons, Belgium. His paintings of combat are based on his experiences at the front. Although he had been enthusiastic to travel to France as a war artist, he became deeply disturbed by what he saw, saying "We’d be healthier to forget [the war], and that we never can. We are forever tainted with its abortiveness and its cruel drama."

Maman (1999) is a bronze, stainless steel, and marble sculpture in several locations by the artist Louise Bourgeois. The sculpture, which depicts a spider, is among the world's largest, measuring over 30 ft high and over 33 ft wide (927 x 891 x 1024 cm).[1] It includes a sac containing 32 marble eggs and its abdomen and thorax are made of rubbed bronze.

The original was created in steel, with an edition of six subsequent castings in bronze.

This edition is located at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain.

Lalique was best known for his creations in glass art. In the 1920s, he became noted for his work in the Art Deco style. He was responsible for the walls of lighted glass and elegant coloured glass columns which filled the dining room and "grand salon" of the SS Normandie and the interior fittings, cross, screens, reredos and font of St. Matthew's Church at Millbrook in Jersey (Lalique's "Glass Church"). As part of the Art Nouveau style, many of his jewellery pieces and vases showcase plants, flowers and flowing lines.

The staffage (human and animal figures) in Jan van der Heyden's paintings was often added by other artists such as Johannes Lingelbach, Adriaen van de Velde and Eglon van der Neer. He most often collaborated with the accomplished painter of figures and animals Adriaen van de Velde. The two artists had an especially successful partnership built on their complementary skills: Adriaen van de Velde contributed his lively and well-characterised figures to van der Heyden's exquisitely painted architectural settings. A fine example of their collaboration is The Dam and Damrak (c. 1663, Fogg Museum). The composition depicts the Dam and Damrak bathed in a late afternoon sun, which casts long shadows on the cobblestones of the Dam. The Damrak, the waterway that linked the Dam to Amsterdam's harbor, terminates at the far left of the composition.

The Bentvueghels (Dutch for "Birds of a Feather") were a society of mostly Dutch and Flemish artists active in Rome from about 1620 to 1720. They are also known as the Schildersbent ("painters' clique").

The Bentvueghels were frequently at odds with Rome's Accademia di San Luca ("Academy of Saint Luke"), which had the purpose of elevating the work of "artists" above that of craftsman. For this reason, before setting off for Italy, artists would first try to become members in their local Guild of St. Luke so they would have papers to show on arrival.

Traditionally, the low-brow qualities of the Bentvueghel's activities have been emphasized over their intellectual and artistic pursuits. David Levine suggests instead that "academic art-pedagogy, with its emphasis on repetitive copying, might well have struck members of the Bent [the Bentvueghels] as a low, mechanical process in contrast to their truly humanistic approach." Artists such as Pieter van Laer, however, belonged to both organisations.

Pietro Lorenzetti (c. 1280 – 1348) or Pietro Laurati was an Italian painter, active between c. 1306 and 1345. Together with his younger brother Ambrogio, he introduced naturalism into Sienese art. In their artistry and experiments with three-dimensional and spatial arrangements, the brothers foreshadowed the art of the Renaissance.

Lorenzetti's last major work (1342) was a triptych altarpiece, the Birth of the Virgin, commissioned for Siena Cathedral. This painting in tempera on panel, like many Sienese paintings of the time, celebrates the life of the Virgin, the city's patron saint.

Illustration of a Haliomma echinaster, a bioluminiescent radiolarian. From Molecular and Microscopic Science by Mary Somerville, polymath and 'queen of science'

Shortly before the first exhibition, the American Civil War began. Church decided to call the painting The North, a title with a double meaning: a picture of the Arctic and a patriotic reference to the northern Union. Advertisements for the exhibition noted that the admission proceeds would be donated to the Patriotic Fund, which supported Union soldiers' families.

The painting became popular within Church's oeuvre and inspired other landscape artists' interest in the Arctic, but its apparent lack of narrative or allegory perplexed some viewers. Between exhibitions in the US and England, Church added the ship mast to the painting, and retitled the work from its original The North.

Thought you all might find this interesting. I like this artist, but can imagine seeing oneself portrayed this way could be jarring.

Marie Stillman (née Spartali) (Greek: Μαρία Σπαρτάλη; 10 March 1844 – 6 March 1927) was a British member of the second generation of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Of the Pre-Raphaelites, she had one of the longest-running careers, spanning sixty years and producing over one hundred and fifty works, including Love's Messenger and numerous romantic scenes from the Divine Comedy. Though her work with the Brotherhood began as a favourite model, she soon trained and became a respected painter, earning praise from Dante Gabriel Rossetti and others.

Petr Brandl (Peter Johannes Brandl or Jan Petr Brandl) (24 October 1668 – 24 September 1735) was a Czech painter of the late Baroque in the bilingual Kingdom of Bohemia. Brandl was the sixth child in a Czech-German family. His father, Michal Brandl, worked as a tailor and was of German ancestry. His mother, Alžběta Hrbková, was Czech from a peasant family in the south Bohemian village of Přestanice (now part of Hlavňovice).

[The sport] calcio was reserved for rich aristocrats who played every night between Epiphany and Lent. Even popes, such as Clement VII, Leo XI and Urban VIII, played the sport in Vatican City. The games could get violent as teams vied to score goals.