In Detail

Details of paintings - in no particular order - photos by yours truly:

Courbet

Matisse

Pollock

Seurat

Guston

Bonnard

Inness

Twatchman

Balthus

Close

Johns

Bruegel

Picasso

Manet

Cole

Ryder

Hopper

Vermeer

Velasquez

as much mystery

Interesting older article on Dutch landscape paintings by the Guardian's Jonathan Jones. He writes,

"...anyone who gazes at Ruysdael's river under a cool sky [pictured above] will soon notice what is strange about it. The soft pale green trees that fringe the river are reflected in its calm glassy surface so completely and clearly that the painting depicts two worlds, not one: the mirror-world in the water conjoins with its counter-image above, the roots of the trees literally pointing in two directions. What at first seemed a simple scene turns out to hint at a portal to another dimension, a grotesque intertwining of worlds. There is as much suggestion, as much mystery in this painting as in any surrealist dreamscape."

I agree - and on a more personal note I find the mysterious qualities of Dutch landscapes to be much more intriguing than most surrealist works. Probably no suprise.

Fin

These are the last works made by each artist before he or she died:

Frida Kahlo, Viva la vida, 1954

Jackson Pollock, Search, 1955

Gustav Klimt, The Bride (unfinished), 1917/18, 99.6 x 104.5cm

Edit: Sun in an Empty Room (1963) was not Hopper's last painting. Two Comedians, from 1966 was his last painting.

Winslow Homer, Driftwood, 1909

Edouard Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Bergere, oil on canvas, 1882

Edgar Degas, Mlle Fiocre in the Ballet "The Source", 1867-68, Oil on canvas, 51 1/8 x 57 1/8 in

Raphael, The Transfiguration, 1516-1520, oil on wood, 405 × 278 cm

Michelangelo's Rondanini Pieta, photo by flickr user Tigg