Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) was an erudite, well-read, and intelligent man. He used modern painting techniques in his art, such as pointillism and impasto. The system of pointillism was originally developed by George Seurat (1859–1891). He called this system Divisionism, but it is better known as Pointillism. Vincent van Gogh valued the expressive power of color and even elevated it above form (which was a modern way of thinking at the time). He was also influenced by Japoni

Portrait of Zinaida Yusupova wearing La Pelegrina pearl. Public domain image (detail) The world’s most famous 16th century pearls are La Peregrina and La Pelegrina. Both pearls were found in the Gulf of Panama and then sent to Spain, where they became crown jewels for the Spanish royal family. The smaller of the two pearls, La Pelegrina, ended up in the French royal family and was later spotted in the outfits of the Russian aristocratic Yusupov family in 1820. If you want to

In the second half of the seventeenth century, a beautifully painted cityscape often adorned the interior of many a better-off family. Despite the increasing popularity of cityscapes as a genre in seventeenth-century art, we only know of two cityscapes by Johannes Vermeer (1632 - 1675). At least that is what we think, because no other cityscapes by this artist are known to us.[1] This fact does not alter the fact that the cityscape View of Delft (1660-1661) was named by the F