Art History and Movements

Dante was an Italian poet who had written an epic poem called 'Divine Comedy' on the state of the soul. It reveals the religious and social life of the day. 

A great painter and sculptor, Leonardo was also a great musician and a scientist. His paintings of 'The Last Supper' and 'Monalisa' are the great masterpieces of art. New techniques were adopted in his paintings to give a fine feeling of reality. 

The Mona Lisa is a famous painting of the Renaissance period. The mysterious smile of Mona Lisa has led to much discussions and debates. Leonardo da Vinci, one of the famous artists of the Renaissance period, completed the painting in between AD 1503 and AD 1505. It is preserved in the Paris museum.

Leonardo-da-Vinci was a multi-talented personality having proficiency in painting, sculpture, architecture, engineering etc. His world famous oil painting, Monalisa, sparked a new trend in portrait painting influencing European paintings of the coming centuries and gave new colors to the ideals of Renaissance. His paintings were a combination of science and art which is well reflected in this masterpiece. 

Titian was noted for his mastery of colour. His use of paint and brushwork made him the foremost painter in Venice and his execution of both landscapes and portraits brought him great fame in his own lifetime.

Last Judgement was the remarkable painting of Michaelangelo. Last Judgement was one of the influential fresco works in the history of Western art. The Last Judgement is painted on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican city. The painting depicts the Second Coming of Christ, a future return of Jesus to Earth, and the final judgement by God of all humanity.

The Last Supper is a painting by Leonardo da Vinci. It is a picture of the last supper of Jesus and his disciples. It shows how they reacted when Jesus said that one of them would betray him. Each disciple has their own expression showing their own reaction to what Jesus has just told them.

The sculptors of middle ages carved faces, hands, and draperies but the form of the human body could not be detected under the draperies.

Micrographia: or Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses. With Observations and Inquiries Thereupon. is a historically significant book by Robert Hooke about his observations through various lenses. It is particularly notable for being the first book to illustrate insects, plants etc. as seen through microscopes. Published in January 1665, the first major publication of the Royal Society, it became the first scientific best-seller, inspiring a wide public interest in the new science of microscopy. It is also notable for coining the biological term cell.

The School of Athens is a famous Renaissance fresco painted by Raphael between 1509 and 1511. Located in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican, it depicts a gathering of great classical philosophers, including Plato and Aristotle.

When the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in 1911, police arrested and questioned the poet Guillaume Apollinaire, who implicated his friend Pablo Picasso. Picasso was brought in for questioning because he had previously purchased stolen Iberian sculptures, but he was ultimately cleared of any involvement in the theft.

Francisco Goya is widely regarded as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. His innovative use of bold brushwork, subjective emotional expression, and dark, imaginative themes paved the way for modern movements like Romanticism and Expressionism.

Michelangelo Buonarroti painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel between 1508 and 1512 under the commission of Pope Julius II. The masterpiece features iconic scenes from the Book of Genesis, including 'The Creation of Adam'.