The great Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1526/31-1569) was an astoundingly inventive painter and draftsman, who made his art historical mark with beautiful, evocative landscapes as well as religious subjects, both notable for their vernacular language and attention to everyday, contemporary life. Immersing himself in rural or small-town communities, Bruegel is particularly nota…
As cryptic as they are compelling, the masterpieces of Hieronymus Bosch (1450–1516) remain some of the most enduring enigmas of the art world. Their intricate, allegorical, and often startling content has captivated not only art historians, but also fashion designers, rock stars, writers, and punk rockers, as well as countless modern and contemporary artist successors. Although rooted in t…
Diego Rivera (1886–1957) is a loud presence on the art historical stage. With devout political principles and a turbulent romantic history, he was at once husband and paladin of Frida Kahlo, advocate and adversary of Stalin’s Soviet Union, and liberator and traitor of Leon Trotsky. Vibrant, graphic, and often monumental, Rivera’s paintings carry the same live political and passionate c…
Hailed as the first American-born art movement to have a worldwide influence, Abstract Expressionism denotes the non-representational use of paint as a means of personal expression. It emerged in America in the 1940s, with lead protagonists including Jackson Pollock, Philip Guston, Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko, and Willem de Kooning. Abstract Expressionism spawned many different stylistic…
Lucian Freud (1922–2011) was interested in the telling of truth. Always operating outside the main currents of 20th-century art, the esteemed portrait painter observed his subjects with the regimen and precision of a laboratory scientist. He recorded not only the blotches, bruises, and swellingings of the living body, but also, beneath the flaws and folds of flesh, the microscopic details of …
The rebel hero of Abstract Expressionism, Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) careened through his life like a firework across the American art landscape. Channeling ideas from sources as diverse as Picasso and Mexican surrealism, he rejected convention to develop his own way of seeing, interpreting, and expressing. Pollock’s most famous works are his drip paintings, where he dripped and poured …
Meet Neel, who has the most noble intent
Books in Barron's Pocket Art Guides series offer practical advice and instruction to art students and amateur painters. Each of these books focuses on a specific aspect of painting or drawing, and includes many tips that even experienced professionals will find new and helpful. All titles have many captioned color illustrations, as well as enlightening notes on how famous artists solved specifi…