Art Guide
Painters
The lives, styles and key works of the masters of art history.
Vincent van Gogh
1853–1890
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) is the best-known Dutch painter of Post-Impressionism. He took up painting at 27 and made more than 2,100 works in about a decade; The Starry Night and Sunflowers are among his most famous.
Claude Monet
1840–1926
Claude Monet (1840–1926) is the French painter regarded as the founder of Impressionism. The movement took its name from his Impression, Sunrise (1872); he is famous for his water lilies painted at Giverny.
Gustav Klimt
1862–1918
Gustav Klimt (1862–1918) was an Austrian painter and a founder of the Vienna Secession. He is known for the works of his “golden phase”, made with real gold leaf, above all The Kiss (1907–08).
Katsushika Hokusai
1760–1849
Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) is the most famous Japanese artist of the ukiyo-e tradition. The Great Wave off Kanagawa, from his Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, is the world’s best-known Japanese artwork.
Utagawa Hiroshige
1797–1858
Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) was the last great landscape master of ukiyo-e, known for The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō and One Hundred Famous Views of Edo; he directly influenced Van Gogh.
Johannes Vermeer
1632–1675
Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675) was a painter of the Dutch Golden Age from Delft. Only about 35 of his paintings survive; he is known for quiet interiors lit by window light and for Girl with a Pearl Earring.
Rembrandt van Rijn
1606–1669
Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) was the greatest painter of the Dutch Golden Age, known for his dramatic use of light and shadow, his searching self-portraits and his etchings. His most famous work is The Night Watch (1642).
Caspar David Friedrich
1774–1840
Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840) was the foremost landscape painter of German Romanticism. With figures seen from behind and misty, boundless landscapes, he painted humanity’s solitude and awe before nature.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
1841–1919
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) was a French painter and one of the founders of Impressionism, known for his sunlit crowd scenes, warm-skinned figures and joyful atmosphere.
Edgar Degas
1834–1917
Edgar Degas (1834–1917) was a French painter and sculptor known for ballet rehearsals, backstage scenes and everyday Parisian life. Though one of the organisers of the Impressionist exhibitions, he preferred to call himself a “realist” or “independent”.
Paul Cézanne
1839–1906
Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) was the French Post-Impressionist who rebuilt nature from planes of colour and geometric forms. Because he opened the way to Cubism and modern painting, he is often called “the father of modern art”.
Georges Seurat
1859–1891
Georges Seurat (1859–1891) was the French painter who founded pointillism, building pictures from small dots of pure colour. His most famous work is A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.
Edvard Munch
1863–1944
Edvard Munch (1863–1944) was a Norwegian painter whose themes of anxiety, love and death made him a forerunner of Expressionism. He made his most famous work, The Scream (1893), in several versions.
Alphonse Mucha
1860–1939
Alphonse Mucha (1860–1939) was the Czech artist whose Paris posters became the emblem of Art Nouveau. Long-haired women, floral motifs and circular frames make up the “Mucha style”.
Leonardo da Vinci
1452–1519
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) was the painter, inventor and scientist of the High Renaissance. The painter of the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, he is regarded as the master of sfumato.
Sandro Botticelli
c. 1445–1510
Sandro Botticelli (c. 1445–1510) was a Florentine painter of the Early Renaissance, known for his graceful line and mythological scenes. The Birth of Venus and Primavera are icons of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
Grant Wood
1891–1942
Grant Wood (1891–1942) was the best-known painter of Regionalism, depicting rural life in the American Midwest. American Gothic (1930) is one of the most parodied images in American art.
Michelangelo
1475–1564
Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) was the sculptor, painter, architect and poet of the High Renaissance. With the David, the Sistine Chapel ceiling and The Creation of Adam, he is one of the most influential figures in art history.
Raffaello
1483–1520
Raffaello Sanzio, known as Raphael (1483–1520), is one of the three great masters of the High Renaissance with Leonardo and Michelangelo. He is known for his balanced, harmonious compositions, his graceful Madonnas and the School of Athens fresco in the Vatican.
Jan van Eyck
c. 1390–1441
Jan van Eyck (c. 1390–1441) was a Flemish painter who achieved extraordinary detail and light in oil paint. The Ghent Altarpiece and the Arnolfini Portrait are masterpieces of the Northern Renaissance.
Hieronymus Bosch
c. 1450–1516
Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450–1516) was a Netherlandish painter known for scenes teeming with fantastical creatures and symbols. His most famous work is the triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights in the Prado.
Pieter Bruegel
c. 1525–1569
Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1525–1569) was a Flemish painter of village life, the seasons and crowded scenes set in sweeping landscapes. The Hunters in the Snow and The Tower of Babel are his best-known works.
Diego Velázquez
1599–1660
Diego Velázquez (1599–1660) was court painter to King Philip IV of Spain and one of the greatest masters of Baroque painting. Las Meninas is one of the most studied works in the history of art.
Francisco Goya
1746–1828
Francisco Goya (1746–1828) was the Spanish master whose career ran from court painter to unflinching witness of war. With The Third of May 1808 and the Black Paintings he is seen as a forerunner of modern art.
Eugène Delacroix
1798–1863
Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) was the leader of French Romanticism, known for dynamic compositions, powerful colour and historical scenes such as Liberty Leading the People (1830).
Édouard Manet
1832–1883
Édouard Manet (1832–1883) was the French painter of modern Parisian life, seen as the bridge from Realism to Impressionism. Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe and Olympia caused major scandals.
Gustave Caillebotte
1848–1894
Gustave Caillebotte (1848–1894) was a French Impressionist painter and collector who framed the streets of modern Paris almost like photographs. Paris Street; Rainy Day is his most famous work.
Henri Rousseau
1844–1910
Henri Rousseau (1844–1910) was a self-taught French painter known for his dreamlike jungle scenes, painted without ever leaving France, and his naïve style; he is nicknamed “Le Douanier” (the customs officer).
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
1864–1901
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901) was a French painter and poster artist who depicted the nightlife, cabarets and performers of Montmartre. His Moulin Rouge posters make him a pioneer of the modern poster.
Wassily Kandinsky
1866–1944
Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) was a Russian painter and theorist and a pioneer of abstract painting. He thought of colour and form like music, co-founded the Blue Rider group and taught at the Bauhaus.
Piet Mondrian
1872–1944
Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) was the Dutch painter who reduced painting to horizontal and vertical black lines and the primary colours red, blue and yellow. A founder of the De Stijl movement, he influenced everything from design to architecture.
Paul Klee
1879–1940
Paul Klee (1879–1940) was a Swiss-born German painter who brought together line, colour and humour. He taught at the Bauhaus and is known for colourful geometric compositions such as Castle and Sun and playful portraits such as Senecio.
Egon Schiele
1890–1918
Egon Schiele (1890–1918) is the best-known painter of Viennese Expressionism, with his sharp line, tense, contorted figures and intense self-portraits. He died of Spanish flu at 28.
Franz Marc
1880–1916
Franz Marc (1880–1916) was a German Expressionist painter and co-founder of the Blue Rider group, known for his blue horses and colourful animals, to which he gave symbolic meaning.
Paul Gauguin
1848–1903
Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) was a French Post-Impressionist known for flat areas of warm colour, symbolic imagery and the paintings he made in Tahiti.
Amedeo Modigliani
1884–1920
Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920) was an Italian painter and sculptor known for his long-necked, almond-eyed portraits and nudes, and one of the best-known figures of the School of Paris.
John William Waterhouse
1849–1917
John William Waterhouse (1849–1917) was an English painter in the Pre-Raphaelite tradition who painted heroines from legend, mythology and poetry. His most famous work is The Lady of Shalott (1888).
J. M. W. Turner
1775–1851
J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) was the English Romantic landscape painter who rendered light, mist and storm in an almost abstract language. Known as “the painter of light”, his best-loved work is The Fighting Temeraire.
John Singer Sargent
1856–1925
John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) was the most sought-after portrait painter of his day, known for elegant, bravura brushwork, society portraits and the scandalous Madame X.
William Morris
1834–1896
William Morris (1834–1896) was an English designer, poet and writer and the founder of the Arts and Crafts movement. His textile and wallpaper patterns of plants and birds, above all Strawberry Thief, remain hugely popular.
Ernst Haeckel
1834–1919
Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) was a German zoologist and artist. The plates of jellyfish, corals and microscopic organisms in his book “Art Forms in Nature” influenced Art Nouveau and are among the best-loved scientific illustrations today.
John James Audubon
1785–1851
John James Audubon (1785–1851) was a naturalist and artist known for “The Birds of America”, in which he painted North American birds at life size. Its hand-coloured plates are among the most valuable printed books in the world.
Hendrick Avercamp
1585–1634
Hendrick Avercamp (1585–1634) was the Dutch master of winter scenes, painting crowds skating, playing and chatting on frozen canals.
Albrecht Dürer
1471–1528
Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) was the greatest master of the Northern Renaissance, known for his paintings, prints and extraordinarily detailed studies of nature such as the Young Hare.
Caravaggio
1571–1610
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610) was the Italian painter whose harsh light bursting from darkness launched Baroque painting. He is known as much for his turbulent life as for his dramatic, realistic works.
Rachel Ruysch
1664–1750
Rachel Ruysch (1664–1750) was one of the most celebrated Dutch flower painters. Over a career of some seventy years she became one of the best-paid artists of her time.
John Constable
1776–1837
John Constable (1776–1837) was the Romantic landscape painter who captured the English countryside through close observation of sky and light. His most famous work is The Hay Wain (1821).
Mary Cassatt
1844–1926
Mary Cassatt (1844–1926) was an American painter who exhibited with the Impressionists in Paris, painting the everyday moments of mothers and children with warmth and intimacy.
Berthe Morisot
1841–1895
Berthe Morisot (1841–1895) was a French painter and a founding member of Impressionism, who painted the daily lives of women and children with a light, quick, luminous brush.
Joaquín Sorolla
1863–1923
Joaquín Sorolla (1863–1923) was the Spanish master known as the painter of Mediterranean light, famous for his sunlit beach scenes and the light glowing on white clothing.
James McNeill Whistler
1834–1903
James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) was the American painter who composed his pictures like music, as “arrangements” and “nocturnes”. His most famous work is Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 (1871), known as “Whistler’s Mother”.
Vilhelm Hammershøi
1864–1916
Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864–1916) was the Danish painter known for his quiet, grey-toned, almost empty interiors. His calm, spare works are favourites for minimal and Scandinavian interiors today.
Winslow Homer
1836–1910
Winslow Homer (1836–1910) was a leading painter of 19th-century American Realism, known for his scenes of the sea and coast.
Pierre-Joseph Redouté
1759–1840
Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759–1840) was the botanical painter known as “the Raphael of flowers”. The plates of his book The Roses (Les Roses) are among the most reproduced botanical images in the world.
Maria Sibylla Merian
1647–1717
Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717) was a German naturalist and artist who painted the metamorphosis of insects together with the plants they feed on. Her book based on observations in Suriname is a masterpiece of natural history illustration.