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Van Gogh’s face is as well known as his art—in fact, it is inseparable from it. The artist painted more than 35 self-portraits over his lifetime. This one was created in Paris under the influence of Seurat and pointillism. The intense dabs of paint and color, anchored by his eyes, create a turbulent energy, giving the viewer a deep sense of the artist’s presence.

Shoes

Sunflowers

Adeline Ravoux

Wheat Field with Cypresses

Madame Roulin and Her Baby

The Large Plane Trees (Road Menders at Saint-Rémy)

L'Arlésienne: Madame Joseph-Michel Ginoux (Marie Julien, 1848–1911)

Two Poplars in the Alpilles near Saint-Rémy

A white path and gray stone wall wind through ochre and harvest-yellow fields beneath a brilliant, turquoise sky in this stylized, horizontal landscape painting. The scene is created with long, visible brushstrokes of vivid color. Closest to us, the field is painted with vertical strokes of golden yellow and pea green. Touches of cardinal red and slashes of pine green create flowers around the end of the stone wall, which curves toward us from the background, at the center of this painting. The wall is painted with horizontal dashes of lilac and lavender purple, salmon pink, and periwinkle blue. A person wearing peach-colored trousers, a peacock-blue shirt, and a dark hat walks away from us, into the field, to our left of the wall. The white road enters the scene from the right, and meets the stone wall and a second wall on the far side of the road at a gate. Two columns rise from the walls to mark the spot of the gate, which opens into a property with three tall haystacks and a house. To our left, the house is painted with areas of warm yellow for the walls, honey brown for the roof, which is outlined in navy blue, and turquoise for the doors and windows. A few green trees, made of dots of bottle and forest green, are scattered near the house and haystacks. One sapphire-blue tree grows near the house. A band of azure blue along the horizon, which comes about two-thirds of the way up the painting, suggests a mountain range in the distance. Swirls of white suggest clouds in the turquoise sky. The paint is visibly textured throughout.

Cypresses

In 1888, Van Gogh moved into his own home in Arles, France. He dubbed it the “Studio of the South,” hoping that fellow artists would join him there to work. This is one of three versions he painted of his beloved Arles bedroom. While its vivid palette and dramatic perspective seem to burst with nervous vitality, Van Gogh intended the painting "to express utter repose."

La Berceuse (Woman Rocking a Cradle; Augustine-Alix Pellicot Roulin, 1851–1930)

Portrait of Victor Ritter von Bauer

Nine oranges and lemons sit in a shallow basket with dark green, spiky branches behind and a pair of cobalt-blue gloves in front in this horizontal still life painting. The scene is painted with long, loose brushstrokes, which are visible throughout. The muted orange and golden yellow fruit are outlined with blue, as is the woven basket in which they sit. The two cypress branches behind and to either side of the basket are painted with sky blue along the stems and long, bristly needles. The gloves sit one atop the other near the lower right corner, and the top glove has three brown stripes down the back. The surface beneath the still life is sand brown, and the pale turquoise background takes up the top third of the composition. The artist signed and dated this with the location in the lower right corner, “Vincent Arles 89.”

Peasant Woman Cooking by a Fireplace

The Sofa

Albert (René) Grenier (1858–1925)

By the Seashore

Nini in the Garden (Nini Lopez)

The Mower

Eugène Murer (Hyacinthe-Eugène Meunier, 1841–1906)

Oleanders

The Gardener

One of 17 canvases that Paul Gauguin completed during a brief and tumultuous visit with Vincent van Gogh in Arles, this powerful and enigmatic painting depicts the public garden directly across from Van Gogh’s house. The painting's large, ﬂat areas of color, arbitrary handling of space, and enigmatic silhouettes exemplify the deliberateness with which Gauguin sought visual harmony and symbolism in his work.

The Englishman (William Tom Warrener, 1861–1934) at the Moulin Rouge

The House with the Cracked Walls

The painting features a collection of fruit on a plate behind two bottles. The plate with the fruit is in the center of the painting, and on it are pieces of round, green fruit with hints of pink. They may be apples. A tall bottle is in front of the plate, and it is yellow with a white cap. Another, shorter bottle is to the right of the first; it has a colorful label. An apple like those on the plate rests in front of the bottles. There are also two blue-gray shapes that could be mugs on round saucers. The surface these objects rest on is mostly green, but there are also streaks of blue and light pink. The wall behind the objects is made up of streaks of light and dark blue. The brushstrokes in the image are thick and visible, blurring the details on the objects.

Der Maler Theodor von Hörmann

Madame Manet (Suzanne Leenhoff, 1829–1906) at Bellevue

Canal in Autumn (Gisors)

A cloud of canary-yellow flowers with pumpkin-orange centers on tall stems with emerald and pine-green leaves fills the top half of this vertical still life painting. The flowers, vase, the round tabletop on which they sit, and the background are loosely painted with visible brushstrokes of vibrant color. The flowers have long, pointed petals like daisies. The bouquet is rimmed with a ring of verdant leaves near where the stems gather in the narrow neck of the cylindrical, ivory-white vase. The vase might sit on a circular cloth edged with alternating sage-green and plum-purple forms like pompoms, but the loose painting style makes these details difficult to make out. The round tabletop is cropped by left and bottom edges of the canvas. The background behind the bouquet and table is painted with long, vertical brushstrokes in salmon pink, pale turquoise, denim blue, and creamy white. The artist signed and dated the painting in red in the lower right corner: “Claude Monet 1880.”

Two Tahitian Women

Émilie

Rectangular plots of flowers, each in a single color, stretch toward us below a sky nearly filled with cream-white clouds in this horizontal landscape painting. Together, the monochromatic plots create the impression of a patchwork quilt, with large areas of pale pink, butter yellow, bright white, and baby blue. A person walks across the plots to our right. The horizon line comes almost halfway up the painting and is lined with dark brown houses with tall, pitched roofs. Two barren trees twist into the cloudy sky. The loose, short, parallel brushstrokes and touches of paint create a soft, hazy effect.

Still Life with Teapot and Fruit

A dark-haired, disembodied head of a haloed man with pale, peach skin floats against a red and yellow background in this vertical portrait. The man’s hair seems to be flattened against his forehead, and extends beyond his head at the back in a way that suggests it may become a cap or hood. His face turns toward us, and he looks down to our left under arched eyebrows. He has a prominent hooked nose and a brushy mustache. Behind his head, the background is divided into a tomato-red zone for the top half and a golden yellow field below, separated by a thin, pine-green line. Two red and green apples hang from a branch near the upper right corner. The thin yellow halo floats over his head to the left of the branch. A pine-green, stylized, vine-like form curves up from the bottom edge of the panel and ends with flat, sunshine yellow, square shapes, perhaps abstracted flowers or fruit. A hand near the lower right holds one end of the vine like a cigarette between fingertips. The vine seems to turn into a serpent’s head beyond the man’s fingers. Numbers and letters are painted in green in the lower left: “1889” and “P Go.”

Sea and Cliffs

Madame Cézanne (Hortense Fiquet, 1850–1922) in the Conservatory

In this painting, a collection of large, ripe peaches sits on a light green plate with a white rim. The peaches are painted in shades of orange, yellow, and red, with some areas of dark red and black. They are surrounded by wide green and yellow leaves that extend off the plate to the left and right. Beneath the plate is a surface covered in a draping white cloth, its surface painted with shadows in shades of blue and purple and hints of green, and the wall behind the peaches is a tangerine orange color with sections of dark blue, red, green, and peach. The brushstrokes in the painting are thick and visible, with different colors of paint applied over one another in wide, swirling strokes.

Two Women

Portrait de l'artiste tenant un chardon

Procession or Pardon at Perros-Guirec

In this portrait, Gauguin depicts the 13-year-old Tahitian girl Tehamana in a missionary dress holding a Samoan fan. A ripe mango alludes to fertility. In the background, Gauguin combined various non-European emblems—glyphs derived from an Easter Island tablet and a female deity inspired by Polynesian and Hindu sources—to build a generic sense of foreignness, transforming Tehamana into the embodiment of his own imagination.

Mount Sainte-Victoire

Vase of Flowers

Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), also known as The Great Wave, from the series "Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjurokkei)"

Three whole, green pears against a caramel-brown background fill this horizontal still life painting. The painting was created with long, parallel, visible brushstrokes throughout, and a strip of unpainted canvas lines the top edge. We look slightly down onto the fruit, which was painted with thick strokes of lemon-lime, asparagus, and spring green, and each piece of fruit is outlined with navy blue. The two pears to either side stand up and the third, between them, lies on the table with its brown stem angled to our left.

The Apple Seller

Still Life with Apples and Pears

Still Life

At the Milliner's

Shown from the waist up in front of a black background, a young woman with pale white skin and curly brown hair looks directly out at us over her shoulder with her body angled to our left in this vertical portrait. She has dark brown eyes, a straight nose, smooth skin, and her pink lips are closed. Curls fall across her forehead but the rest of her hair is pulled up under a white lace scarf, called a mantilla. The mantilla is tucked under the wide orange and black shawl wrapped around her shoulders. She clasps her hands at her waist, and her hands and forearms are covered with long white gloves that disappear under the shawl.

Figures on the Beach

Boating

lovers' embrace

Männerakt

The painting depicts a rocky coastline dotted with color. The horizon is high in the scene, and a strip of pale-yellow sky is visible at the very top of the painting. Along the rocky coast in the distance, the colorful land meets vivid turquoise and green ocean waters, with white lines indicating small waves. A red-striped umbrella in the top left corner appears to shelter a person in a long white dress; the umbrella obscures their face. The rocks have been painted with thick dots of black, white, yellow, orange, red, and green. The brushstrokes are expressive and the paint has been thickly applied in dots and dashes.

The Pigeon Tower at Bellevue

Selbstbildnis

The Pink Cloud

Shown from the waist up, an older man with pale, peachy skin looks out at us with deep-set, gray eyes under a furrowed brow, in front of a sable-brown background in this vertical portrait painting. His body is angled to our left, and his face turns to us. He has a faintly pink, bulbous nose, and his slightly sunken cheeks are shaded with gray. His peach-colored lips are framed with a wispy, gray mustache and goatee. Bronze-orange lines are incised within the battleship gray of his hair to create soft curls under his brown beret, which has gold trim around the base. The dark collar of his fawn-brown coat is turned up so his neck is covered. He is lit from the upper left, so his body and the right side of the painting are deeply shadowed. On our left, the canvas is painted with blended strokes of tawny and dark brown. His dark coat blends into the background, and his folded hands are in shadow in the lower left corner. The brushstrokes are visible in some areas, especially in the man’s face. The painting is signed and dated next to his shoulder, to our left, “Rembrandt f. 1659.”

Mademoiselle Nys

The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 16 October 1834

Crémieu, Seen from Chaillonnette

Two people, perhaps a woman and man, and a baby sit at a table in a courtyard surrounded by vine-covered walls in this square painting. The scene is loosely painted with visible dabs, dashes, or smudges. The table is to the left of center. The man sits on the far side, to our left, and the woman, who appears to have her brown hair pulled up, sits facing away from us wearing a smoke-gray garment. A child wearing pink and pale blue sits to our right of the woman and seems to raise both arms. The ground is dotted with cream white and fog gray against the brown board on which this was painted. Steps lead up to a building at the back of the courtyard to the left, and the vine-covered wall stretches across the right two-thirds of the background. The artist signed the lower left corner, “E Vuilllard.”

The Girl by the Window

A vase holding mostly white flowers sits on a floral-patterned cloth in this vertical still life painting. The ice-blue vase has a narrow foot, tall, slightly tapering sides, round shoulders, and a long neck flanked by handles. An ivory-white circle at the center could be a flower painted on the body. The flowers the vase holds are all pearl and snow white except for two golden yellow flowers and dark greenery. The cloth on which the vase sits is patterned with muted red and dark yellow flowers with green leaves against parchment white and earth brown. A few brown lines cutting across the bottom left corner of the painting could be the edge of a wooden table. Just behind the flowers, a cloth or curtain patterned with dark yellow, moss green, and spruce blue hangs against a teal-green wall, visible along each side of the composition. The objects are loosely painted and outlined with cobalt blue.

This vertical portrait painting shows the head, shoulders, and chest of a pale-skinned young man in front a cream-white, stone window that opens onto blue sky. The man’s body is angled slightly to our left and he looks directly at us with wide-set, pale blue eyes. He has smooth skin, a rounded nose, a wide jawline, and full, light pink lips. He wears a brimless crimson-red cap over brown hair that curls over his ears and down to the nape of his neck. His slate-blue jacket is lined with brown, perhaps fur, around the high neck and down the front. The jacket has puffy sleeves and vertical pleats over the chest. He is positioned in front of the stone opening, the edges of which run parallel to top and sides of the composition. Vivid blue sky fills the opening behind the young man.

Water Lilies

The Night Watch Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq

Allegory of Sacred Music

Mädchen in rotem Kleid

Edward Sheriff Curtis Self-Portrait

Old Woman

Henri-Charles Maniglier

A woman pushes aside a deep golden yellow curtain that fills three-quarters of this nearly square painting. The curtain runs on a rod parallel and close to the top of the canvas, extends off the right edge, and falls behind a bed covered in the same color. The bed is cropped by the bottom and left edges of the painting, and a brown, arched wood footboard almost reaches the right side. The woman stands on the far side of the bed, facing away from us as she pulls at the curtain with her right hand. She wears a navy-blue dress and a brown braid falls down her back. She reveals an area covered in a pink, green, and white floral pattern that seems to match the size of the curtain, at least along the left edge where it is exposed. A round mirror hangs on the floral-patterned area above a red piece of furniture, perhaps a small table or stool. The wall around the patterned area and curtain is painted bone white. A line incised in the paint running from the top left corner of the floral area to the top edge of the canvas suggests a crack in the wall. The paint is loosely applied so brushstrokes are visible throughout, especially in the floral pattern. The artist’s signature is painted in red in the lower left corner: "E. Vuillard."

Ia Orana Maria (Hail Mary)

This painting shows a woman sitting at a round table. She has fair skin, sharp cheekbones, thick eyebrows, and pale lips with one side of her mouth raised in a partial smile. She has short brown hair with bangs across her forehead. She is wearing a black dress with a high collar, a pale yellow bow around her neck, and a white apron over her lap. In her hand, she holds a small, translucent glass that rests on the table. The background is a blurred blend of earthy tones, including brown, gray, and dark green, which suggest a wall behind her. The brushstrokes in the painting are thick and visible.

Combat for the Colors

Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), also known as The Great Wave, from the series "Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei)"

Hebe

Shown from the waist up, a young woman with pale, peachy skin faces and looks directly at us in this vertical portrait painting. The subtly upturned corners of her mouth and the outer corners of her eyes are touched with shadows. Her delicate eyebrows are faintly painted over dark brown eyes. She has a long straight nose and an oval-shaped face framed by large teardrop pearl earrings. Her dark brown hair is parted down the middle and pulled back under a wide, gold-colored headdress, which creates a halo-like ring around her head. Precisely formed curls rest against her forehead over each temple. Her black dress has voluminous, puffy sleeves framing a sheer, butter-yellow panel covering her chest. White ruffles emerge at her neck and cuffs. A gold Maltese cross, which flares at the end of each arm, hangs from a thick gold chain that falls over her chest and down to her waist. She touches the chain with her left hand, on our right, and with the other she holds the body of a small furry brown animal with bared teeth. The background behind the woman is black down the center and a dark emerald-green curtain falls to either side.

L'Européenne

George Washington

Apples

Hills around the Bay of Moulin Huet, Guernsey

Low Tide at Pourville, near Dieppe, 1882

When this work was painted, millinery work (hat making) was considered a prestigious trade, elevating the women who succeeded in the business. Degas addressed this subtle shift in the class hierarchy: He gave his milliner a dress nice enough to be worn by an affluent woman, and though she does not wear the expected hat of a high-class lady, Degas playfully positioned the hat with green trimmings so it seems to sit atop the woman’s head.

Arm of Eve

This painting depicts a man with light skin, white hair, and a white beard wearing an orange cloth draped over a dark-blue garment with gold embroidery around the shoulder and neckline. He holds two large red keys in his left hand, and a thin, red, cross-topped rod in his right hand. There is a faint outline of a halo around the man's head, which is slightly turned to the right. The background is gold, enclosed within a red, white, and black patterned border.

The Devil Speaks (Mahna No Varua Ino) (recto); Women Washing Clothes (verso)

The Siesta

Strawberries

Shown from about the hips up, a young, pale-skinned man with curly brown hair stands facing and looking at us, wearing a plum-purple coat under a golden yellow cape in this vertical portrait painting. The man’s oval face is angled a little to our left so he looks out from the corners of his gray eyes. His left eyebrow, on our right, is slightly arched. His skin is smooth and his cheeks lightly flushed. He has a long, straight nose, his pink lips are closed, and there is a faintly painted suggestion of a goatee. Wavy bangs fall across his forehead, and he has curly, chin-length hair. He stands with his right hand, on our left, on his hip, and in his other arm, he holds a wooden staff with a pewter-gray, metal, scoop-like hook at the top. White lace trims the high neck of his garment and the cuffs of his sleeves. Light reflecting off the plum-purple coat suggests a soft material, possibly velvet. Crisp reflections on the deep, butter-yellow cape fastened over one shoulder suggest satin. An emerald-green cloth hanging from the top right corner of the painting falls behind the man’s shoulder. Behind the cloth and to our left, a craggy, rocky outcropping opens to a view of a landscape with a green valley and topaz-blue mountains in the distance. Bands of golden light illuminate the cloudy sky above. The work is inscribed with yellow lettering in the lower right corner to read, “Philip Lord Wharton 1632 about ye age of 19.” The artist’s name is painted in the lower left: “P. Sr Ant: vandike.”

Still Life with Peaches

Marshland