Pierre-Auguste Renoir | Still life

The Impressionism, a movement, first in painting and later in music, that developed chiefly in France during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Impressionist painting comprises the work produced between about 1867-1886 by a group of artists who shared a set of related approaches and techniques.

The most conspicuous characteristic of Impressionism in painting was an attempt to accurately and objectively record visual reality in terms of transient effects of light and colour.

In music, it was to convey an idea or affect through a wash of sound rather than a strict formal structure.

Pietro da Cortona | Drawings

Pietro da Cortona was an Italian Baroque painter and architect.

Along with his contemporaries and rivals Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini, he was one of the key figures in the emergence of Roman Baroque architecture. He was also an important designer of interior decorations.

Pietro da Cortona | Baroque painter

Pietro da Cortona (1596-1669), original name Pietro Berrettini, Italian architect, painter, and decorator, an outstanding exponent of Baroque style.

Pietro studied in Rome from about 1612 under the minor Florentine painters Andrea Commodi and Baccio Ciarpi and was influenced by antique sculpture and the work of Raphael.

Benjamin West PRA | Neoclassical painter

American-born Benjamin West (1738-1820) was one of the most prominent artists in late eighteenth century London.

President of the Royal Academy (PRA) from 1792 until his death, he received many commissions from George III and other English patrons, and at the same time served as teacher and advisor to three generations of American artists in London.

Michael Ancher | Skagen painter

Michael Peter Ancher (1849-1927) was a Danish realist artist.

He is remembered above all for his paintings of fishermen and other scenes from the Danish fishing community in Skagen.

He achieved his artistic breakthrough in 1879 with the painting "Vil han klare pynten" Will He Round the Point?.

Michael Ancher's works depict Skagen's heroic fishermen and their dramatic experiences at sea, combining realism and with classical composition.