Sandra Forty
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Comics entered their "golden age" in 1938, when a new idea revolutionized the industry: the creation of the first and archetypal superhero. Superman, pioneered by Detective Comics, better known as DC, was quickly followed by Batman, another brainchild of DC, in 1939. An explosion of acrobatic superheroes, such as Captain America, Wonder Woman, and The Green Lantern, quickly made the previous heroes of the crime, cowboy, and romance genres look dated....
2) Degas
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Edgar Degas began as a classical painter of genre history scenes and died as one of the greatest and most innovative names in French art-although as with so many other artists, he did not receive a great deal of recognition in his lifetime. Along the way his style changed completely from strict academic formalism to near-abstract scenes of contemporary Parisian life. His primary subject was the human form, especially that of women, and he also loved...
3) Modigliani
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Modigliani's human subjects invariably have almond-shaped eyes with long, slightly twisted noses, small pursed mouths, and elongated necks. The majority of his works are semi-formal portraits that radiate a somewhat sculptural quality, suggesting his early roots as a sculptor. Amedeo Modigliani was an Italian Sephardic Jew, born in the port town of Livorno on the northwestern coast of Tuscany on July 12, 1884. He died young, just on the verge of discovery...
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The greatest artist of the 18th century, Francisco de Goya began his career as an apprentice to a local artist where one of his jobs was adding draperies and modesty items to nude figures in religious paintings; for this he was titled "Reviser of Indecent Paintings." But by the age of 40, Goya had established himself as a leading Spanish artist. Goya simultaneously pursued a number of disparate projects, commissions he received from prestigious churches...
6) El Greco
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El Greco, or Doménikos Theotokópoulos, was born to Greek parents on the island of Crete. He is considered by many art historians to be the last great Mannerist painter. El Greco, or "The Greek," left Crete for Venice, Italy, in his mid-twenties. Following the Venetian Renaissance tradition, he began to elongate his figures, a style that would come to be associated with his most famous works. But like all artists of the time, El Greco needed a patron...
7) Hokusai
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Katsushika Hokusai is the most famous of a sequence of names used by a versatile and long-lived Japanese artist who worked in many genres and schools, evolving a unique style that made him known then as well as now as a true master. He was an unusual and restless man who slipped boundaries and made fresh connections, yet never sought great wealth or position. Hokusai produced over 30,000 different designs, prints, illustrations, paintings, and sketches....
8) Seurat
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Georges Seurat was one of the most important Post-Impressionist painters to lead the way toward the modern era in art. He is best known for developing pointillism, an exacting and time-consuming technique whereby tiny dots of paint are combined to create a composition. His work is stylized and considered, in complete contrast to the impetuous spontaneity of his precursors and contemporaries, the Impressionists. Seurat had a life-long fascination with...
9) Hiroshige
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Ando Hiroshige is considered by many as the last of the great creative masters of the traditional Japanese woodblock print. His skill has won him worldwide fame and artistic influence, along with his contemporary, Katsushika Hokusai. Both artists widened the range of subjects they covered to encompass every aspect of life in Japan's Edo period. Although famous primarily for his landscapes and the studies of his home city of Edo, Hiroshige produced...
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Painter of languid, elegant, Edwardian beauties and sharply dressed gentlemen, John Singer Sargent was the ultimate society painter. He knew everyone who was anyone and was on personal terms with many of them, including Edward VII and the U.S. presidents Roosevelt and Wilson. This social standing was justified. Sargent was one of the greatest portrait painters ever, able to convey the personality and style of his sitters-comparable to the great Velázquez...
11) Hans Memling
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Hans Memling was one of the greatest artists working in northern Europe in the late medieval period. He made his home and his name in the city of Bruges, Belgium, where he lived and worked for almost 30 years. Often described as a Flemish Primitive, he almost singlehandedly transformed Bruges into the most prestigious location for northern European artists and craftsmen working at that time. Memling developed what became known as the Bruges Style,...
12) Monet
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Monet's gift was to show the world a different way of seeing and interpreting everything around us. He brought his canvases to life with dabs and swoops of color put together to give an impression of the scene. He is the ultimate Impressionist: not only did one of his paintings inspire the label "Impressionist" and so name one of the greatest art movements of all time, but he was its leader, whose work changed the way that artists represented nature,...
13) Egon Schiele
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Egon Schiele is considered by many to be the greatest draftsman of the 20th century. The undeniable fact, however that a considerable share of his work is of an explicitly erotic nature has blinded many people to his remarkable ability, so much so that he is primarily known as an Austrian Expressionist artist of the erotic. Schiele's full artistic flowering lasted only a little over 10 years. He was cut down at the cruelly early age of 28, just as...
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The first modern postal stamp, the Penny Black, appeared in England in 1840 and marked a decisive step in the democratization and modernization of telecommunications. The hobby of stamp collecting and the study of philately are pursuits that draw on this fascinating history. Rowland Hill, the inventor of the Penny Black, was essentially a reformer. His intent was to provide the impetus and the means to make communication across distances available...
15) Botanical Prints
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The earliest botanical illustrations are found in ancient herbals-practical works of knowledge, written to pass on crucial information about how to heal the sick. Around the time of the Renaissance, however, flowers began to be more generally appreciated for their beauty, so talented artists set about capturing their magic. Botanical illustration developed into a high art form during the golden era of the 18th and early 19th centuries. From that era,...
16) Bruegel
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The Flemish artist Pieter Bruegel-sometimes called Peasant Bruegel-was the first great artist to paint scenes of ordinary peasant life and show the common man and woman as they went about their daily tasks and amusements. He is credited with bringing a humanizing spirit to painting- something that was lacking in medieval works and entirely absent from contemporary Renaissance paintings. His compositions are full of rich details and reward close examination;...
17) Paul Gaugin
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Gauguin's paintings are redolent of the South Sea islands, full of exotic women, vibrant flora, and brilliant color. In addition, his scenes range from normal life in France's Brittany, to Provence where he painted and lived briefly with Vincent van Gogh, to French Polynesia. Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was born in Paris on June 7, 1848. After Napoléon III became the president of France, Gauguin's family left for Peru in December 1849. They remained...
18) Paul Klee
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Paul Klee's philosophy of art is perhaps best summed up by his own statement: "A drawing is simply a line going for a walk." As one of the great avant garde artists of the 20th century, Swiss-born Klee was swept along with the changing moods and philosophies of the time. Klee did not readily fit into a particular artistic category. He used many styles and techniques, always exploring the different variations that each media opened up to him. An important...
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Coins allow us a glimpse into times that have left few other artifacts and serve as a record of important historical events. They tell the story of the world's cultures in religious, social, and economic evolution over many thousands of years and in many parts of the world. China is thought to be the first country to mint and use copper coins, as early as the eleventh century BC. These coins, introduced by the Shang Dynasty to replace the traditional...
20) Renoir
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Pierre-Auguste Renoir was, above all, a painter of people, especially young women and rosy-cheeked children. In many ways, he is the most approachable Impressionist. Not for him were the grim realities of a hard life. Renoir painted people enjoying themselves: talking, flirting, laughing, often dancing, eating, drinking, and simply passing joyful times together. A constant theme throughout his works is the female nude. It was a subject he approached...