Georges Seurat's "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" (1886) remains a landmark painting. It established the Parisian artist as one of the figures who would push Impressionism towards its logical conclusion. And push he did, in the direction of abstraction and a radically scientific

Bright, Clean, Mathematical, Pioneering, Pointillism, Tense

French Impressionism was not just a style, an approach to brushwork, or a sensitivity to light. It was a new kind of content: a focus on the middle-class life of afternoons at the park, outings to the seashore, and a domestic world of well-appointed interiors. This turn toward familial and private sc

Clean, Demure, Domestic, Impressionism, Serene, Tranquil

In 1921 a French critic posed a priceless question: "By what witchcraft did [Vermeer], representing the most daily and commonplace sights, manage to give the viewer so mysterious, so grand, so exceptional an emotion?" Vermeer produced only 36 paintings before he died at 43. Yet each piece blissfully

Baroque art, Clean, Contemplative, Domestic, Serene, Tranquil