The preeminent art critic of Victorian England, John Ruskin elevated a personal and sentimental response to art into a manifesto against modernity. Like the poet Wordsworth, whom he greatly admired, Ruskin found in nature the stimulus to an untapped repository of emotion. He admired art that reflecte

Classical, Sincere, Sophisticated, Witty

Giotto di Bondone, whom art historians designate the first painter of the Italian Renaissance, was apparently discovered while sketching sheep. A well-known Florentine artist looked over the boy's shoulder and was impressed by what he saw -- so impressed that he persuaded Giotto's father to let the l

Bright, Classical, Huge, Joyful, Monumental, Religious, Renaissance art

Leonardo da Vinci was one of the world's most celebrated generalists, equally fluent in science and art, and a supreme innovator in both. Leonardo's scholarship and his contributions to painting, science, and engineering have raised him to such heights of glory among the cultural heroes of Western ci

Classical, Clever, Elegant, Experimental, Masculine, Mathematical, Pioneering, Renaissance art, Representational, Sophisticated

Recognized as a major figure almost from the moment of his arrival in New York in 1905, George Bellows proceeded to win every imaginable artistic award and honor before he was 30, and continued to produce acknowledged masterpieces up to the time of his death. Bellows enrolled at the New York School o

Ash can school, Classical, Composed, Homoerotic, Improvised, Phallic