Claude Monet | Le Parc Monceau, 1876

Situated on the boulevard de Courcelles in Paris and surrounded by fashionable town houses, the Parc Monceau was planned in the late eighteenth century in the form of an English garden.

Monet painted three views of the park in the spring of 1876.

This one, shown at the 1877 Impressionist exhibition, focuses on the swaths of green grass and blooming trees.

The building visible at left in this painting also appears in two works from 1878, including one in the Museum’s collection. | © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Claude Monet | The Parc Monceau, 1876 | Metropolitan Museum of Art

Oscar Ricciardi | Capri

Charles Caryl Coleman | Apple Blossoms

Norton Bush | A river in the tropics, 1891

Maurice Prendergast | Along the Seine, 1892

Maurice Prendergast (1858-1924) was one of the first American painters to adopt a post-impressionist style.

His distinctive paintings utilize a pattern of flat, short brushstrokes and bold outlines to create brightly colored scenes of outdoor leisure.

Prendergast was born in St. John's, Newfoundland, in 1858.

In 1868 the family moved to Boston, the hometown of Prendergast’s mother, where the artist attended school through the eighth grade.

Prendergast first worked in a dry goods store and then began earning a living creating show cards—hand-lettered advertisements for store windows.

Maurice Prendergast | Along the Seine, 1892 | Whitney Museum of American Art

John Neagle | Portrait of a young girl, 1836

John Neagle (November 4, 1796 - September 17, 1865) was a fashionable American painter, primarily of portraits, during the first half of the 19th century in Philadelphia.

Gabriel Mark Lipper | Oregon, United States

Gabriel Mark Lipper is an Ashland-based artist whose work addresses, in his words, "the growing schism between self and other".

He works predominantly in oil and makes paintings that are classical in nature.

He has studied in Germany, Italy and Japan and has been shown at numerous galleries in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere on the West Coast, including at the Hanson Howard Gallery in Ashland and at the Elan Gallery in Jacksonville.

Vincent van Gogh | Vase with Gladioli and Chinese Asters, 1886

This is one of more than 35 flower still lifes that Van Gogh painted in Paris in the summer of 1886.

He hoped that paintings of flowers would sell well.

These were also exercises in the use of colour and a loose style of painting.

Henri Matisse (1869-1954)

Henri Émile Benoît Matisse è uno dei più noti artisti del ventesimo secolo, conosciuto principalmente per essere l'esponente di maggior spicco della corrente artistica dei Fauves.

La sua prima esposizione avvenne nel 1904, senza grande successo.

Nel 1905 si trasferì nel sud della Francia, per lavorare con André Derain 1880-1954, esperienza durante la quale si accentuò la sua tendenza ad enfatizzare fortemente il colore.

I dipinti di questo periodo sono caratterizzati da forme appiattite e linee controllate, con l'espressione che domina sui dettagli.

Alfred Sisley e la scuola di Barbizon

Sisley si inserì con grande entusiasmo nella traccia di Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, Théodore Rousseau e Charles-François Daubigny, pittori che distaccarono la pittura di paesaggio dagli schemi accademici e si rapportarono con la natura in maniera più sincera e diretta.

Da Rousseau Sisley imparò ad apprezzare la modestia dei soggetti agresti, sul tipo di quelli proposti nei paesaggi di La Celle-Saint-Cloud.

Alfred Sisley | L'approdo impressionista

Quando il giovane Alfred Sisley compì diciotto anni i genitori, come era consuetudine per una famiglia dell'alta borghesia dell'epoca, lo mandarono a studiare a Londra per indirizzarlo alla carriera commerciale.

L'apprendistato commerciale di Sisley durò quattro anni: dal punto di vista paterno questo soggiorno londinese si rivelò un vero e proprio fallimento, in quanto il giovane dimostrò subito di avere poco fiuto per gli affari.

Fu proprio a Londra, tuttavia, che Sisley si avvicinò alla pittura, avendo modo di fruire del ricchissimo patrimonio artistico della National Gallery.

Alfred Sisley | Impressionist landscape painter

Alfred Sisley (30 October 1839 - 29 January 1899) was an Impressionist landscape painter who was born and spent most of his life in France, but retained British citizenship.

He was the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedication to painting landscape en plein air (i.e., outdoors).

He deviated into figure painting only rarely and, unlike Renoir and Pissarro, he found that Impressionism fulfilled his artistic needs.

Federico Beltrán Masses | Pittore simbolista

Federico Armando Beltrán Massés (1885-1949) nasce a Cuba.

Il padre, originario di Madrid, era un ufficiale dell'esercito spagnolo mentre il nonno materno, medico di Agramunt (Lérida), era sposato ad una ricca cubana e per questo residente a Cuba.

Il piccolo Beltrán Masses cresce principalmente con la famiglia materna a Cuba dove sono stanziati periodicamente anche i genitori fin quando, nel gennaio 1892, il padre e la madre decidono di tornare in Europa per installarsi a Barcellona.

Édouard Manet | Laundry (Le Linge), 1875

'The laundry' was created in 1875 by French Realist/Impressionist painter Édouard Manet (1832-1883).

It is part of the collection of the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia.

A woman washes linen in a flower-filled garden.

A child to her right, as if eager to help, tugs at the pail of suds.

Washerwomen were popular figures in 19th-century art and literature.

Manet's good friend Émile Zola, for example, described their tough lives in his novels.

But this depiction is idyllic.

Édouard Manet | Laundry (Le Linge), 1875 | Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia

Laurie Kersey (Canadian, 1961)

"If there’s a common thread that runs through my work, I’d have to say it’s a sense of peacefulness. Whether the subject is a herd of horses grazing contentedly, an untouched landscape under a golden sun, or fresh flowers from the garden… perhaps I can offer the viewer a moment of tranquility in his or her busy life" - Laurie Kersey.

Born in Canada, Kersey spent most of her youth on the move.

Her father raised horses, and the family relocated frequently, often going south for the winter. "I grew up in Ohio and went to school in Pittsburgh, New York, and Florida”, she explains. “Everywhere I moved I took my can of crayons”.

In the schoolyard, she heard a frequent request from the other children: “Draw me a horse!"

At home, she observed her mother’s artistic pursuits. “Every Friday night, she had three friends come over and they set up easels in the kitchen to paint,” she remembers.