Las Meninas

THOMAS EAKINS was a painter of portraits. Financially independent, he followed a drumbeat from 1870 to 1910 that guided virtually no other contemporary major artist, either of America or of Europe...

~The Family of Carlos IV (pl. 2) inevitably lurks behind any discussion of Goya’s activity as a court painter and, after 31 October 1799, as first court painter for Carlos IV. Because of its explicit reference to Velázquez’ Las Meninas (fig. 27), the Family...

WRITING in 1904 soon after Fantin-Latour’s death, the French critic Charles Morice issued a sharp critique of the artist’s œuvre:

~The Agnew Clinic (fig. 1) today hangs high on a wall in the foyer of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. The painting cannot be taken in all at once; approximately six feet high by eleven feet long, it is exceptionally large. What first attracts the eye is the white-clad figure standing in isolation in the foreground, left...

~"Everyone knew how to make the portrait of Manet: he was very well known.” “Tout le...