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I always loved this painting, by Philadelphia painter Thomas Eakins, called "Swimming" (incorrectly called by some "The Old Swimming Hole"). It is masterpiece of composition, balance and perspective. The artist included himself in the picture - he is in the water in the lower right corner. Eakins was a friend of the poet Walt Whitman. He is buried in the Woodlands Cemetery, about 4 blocks from my house. This scene takes places just outside Philadelphia at Dove Lake in Haverford, about a mile north of Haverford College.
One of my favorite 20th Century realist paintings is by artist George Tooker, who just died about 2 months ago at age 90. One of his most famous paintings was "Subway" which speaks to us about modern day anxiety and human alienation. This picture is haunting and unforgettable.
A brilliant Italian Baroque-era painter of the early 17th Century was Guido Cagnacci. His most famous painting was this one: "The Death Of Cleopatra." In the Renaissance and Baroque periods artists knew how to please their patrons by painting nudes without seeming salacious. If a wealthy nobleman wanted a painting of a young handsome naked man a good subject was St. Sebastian, who was martyred for his faith by being stripped naked and pierced with arrows. If a patron wanted a painting of a beautiful but noble young woman exposing her breasts, and not a common prostitute or even a fashionable courtesan, a proper subject would have been the famous Hellenistic Queen of Alexandria and Egypt, Cleopatra VII. Cleo and her famous lover Mark Antony was defeated in battle by their adversary Octavian, and rather than submit to the humiliation of being paraded in chains in Octavian's Triumphant parade in Rome, the young queen chose suicide by the bite of a Nile Asp. In this picture, Cleo's faithful handmaidens are in despair over the suicide of their queen, but a couple of them are more interested in the snake than the historic moment taking place!!!
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"Swimming" by Thomas Eakins
Who's the artist who painted the second [moonlight] one?