greatest painters in history

Greatest Painters in History

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PABLO PICASSO (1881-1973)

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Picasso is to Art History a giant earthquake with eternal aftermaths. With the possible exception of Michelangelo (who focused his greatest efforts in sculpture and architecture), no other artist had such ambitions at the time of placing his oeuvre in the history of art. Picasso created the avant-garde. Then Picasso destroyed the avant-garde. He looked back at the masters and surpassed them all. He faced the whole history of art and single-handed redefined the tortuous relationship between work and spectator

Pablo Picasso in 1962

LEONARDO DA VINCI (1452-1519)


For better or for worse, Leonardo will be forever known as the author of the most famous painting of all time, the "Gioconda" or "Mona Lisa". But he is more, much more. His humanist, almost scientific gaze, entered the art of the quattrocento and revoluted it with his sfumetto that nobody was ever able to imitate

Self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci

GIOTTO DI BONDONE (c.1267-1337)


It has been said that Giotto was the first real painter, like Adam was the first man. We agree with the first part. Giotto continued the Byzantine style of Cimabue and other predecessors, but he earned the right to be included in gold letters in the history of painting when he added to it a quality unknown to date: the emotion

Portrait of Giotto, by Paolo Uccello

PAUL CÉZANNE (1839-1906)


"Cezanne is the father of us all." This lapidary phrase has been attributed to both Picasso and Matisse, and certainly it doesn't matter who actually said it, because in either case is true. While he exhibited with the Impressionist painters, Cézanne left behind the whole group to develop a style of painting never seen so far, which opened the door for the arrival of Cubism and the rest of the vanguards of the twentieth century

Self-portrait of Paul Cézanne

REMBRANDT VAN RIJN (1606-1669)


The fascinating use of the light and shadows of his works seem to reflect his own life, moving from fame into oblivion. Rembrandt is the great master of the Dutch painting, and along with Velázquez the main figure of the 17 th century Painting. He is, in addition, the great master of the self-portrait of all times, an artist that had never show mercy at the time of depicting himself

Self-portrait of Rembrandt van Rijn

WASSILY KANDINSKY (1866-1944)


Although the title of "father of abstraction" has been assigned to several artists, from Picasso to Turner, few painters could claim it with as much justice as Kandinsky. Many artists have achieved the emotion, but very few have changed the way we understand art. Wassily Kandinsky belongs to the latter

Wassily Kandinsky

CLAUDE MONET (1840-1926)


The importance of Monet in the history of art is sometimes "forgotten" by the fact that Art lovers tend to see only the overwhelming beauty that emanates from the canvas, ignoring the complex technique and composition of the work ( a "defect" somehow caused by Monet himself, when he declared "I do not understand why people want to understand my paintings, when it is enough to enjoy them). However, Monet's experiments, including studies on the changes caused by the daylight on an object at different hours of the day, and the almost abstract quality of their "water lilies" are clearly a prologue to the art of the twentieth century. Self-portrait of Claude Monet

CARAVAGGIO (1571-1610)


The tough and violent Caravaggio is considered the father of Baroque painting, with his spectacular use of lights and shadows and "tenebrist" scenes using complex perspectives

Caravaggio

JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER (1775-1881)


Turner is the best landscape painter of the Western painting. Academic painter in his beginnings, Turner was slowly but unstoppably evolving towards a free, atmospheric style, sometimes even outlining the abstraction, which was misunderstood and rejected by critics who had admired him for decades

Self-portrait of William Turner

JAN VAN EYCK (1390-1441)


Van Eyck is the colossal pillar on which rests the whole Flemish paintings from the later centuries, the genius of accuracy, thoroughness and perspective, well above any other artist of his time either Flemish or Italian.

JAN VAN EYCK

ALBERT DÜRER (1471-1528)


The real Leonardo da Vinci of the Northern European Rennaisance was Dürer, a restless and innovative genious, master of the drawing and the color. He is one of the first artists to represent nature without artifice, either in his landscapes or his drawings of plants and animals

Self-portrait of Alberto Durero

JACKSON POLLOCK (1912-1956)


the major figure of the Abstract Expressionism and the painter who divides the twentieth century between avant-garde and post-avant-gardes. His "drips" from the period 1947-1952 are one of the milestones of contemporary art

JACKSON POLLOCK

MICHELANGELO (1475-1564)


Some readers will be quite surprised to see the man who is, along with Picasso, the greatest artistic genius of all time out of the "top ten" of this list, but the fact is that even Michelangelo defined himself as "sculptor", and even his painted masterpiece (the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel) looks like a painted sculpture. Nevertheless, a masterpiece of this caliber is sufficient to guarantee him a place of honor in the history of painting

MICHELANGELO

PAUL GAUGUIN (1848-1903)


One of the most fascinating figures in the history of painting, his works moved from Impressionism (soon abandoned) to the symbolsism, colorful and vigorous, shown is his paintings in Polynesia. Matisse and Fauvism can not be understood without the works of Paul Gauguin

Self-portrait of Paul Gauguin

FRANCISCO DE GOYA (1746-1828)


Goya is an enigma. In the whole History of Art few figures are as complex for the study as the artist born in Fuendetodos, Spain. Enterprising and indefinable, a painter with no rival in all his life, Goya was the painter of the Court and the painter of the people. He was a religious painter and a mystical painter. He was the author of the beauty and eroticism of the Maja desnuda and the creator of the explicit horror of The executions of May 3rd. He was an oil painter, a fresco painter, a sketcher and an engraver. And he never stopped his metamorphosis

Self-portrait Francisco de Goya & Dr. Arrieta

VINCENT VAN GOGH (1853-1890)


Few names in the history of painting are now as famous as Van Gogh, despite the complete neglect he suffered in life. His works, strong and personal, are one of the greatest influences in the painting of the twentieth century, especially in the German Expressionism

Self-portrait of Vincent van Gogh

ÉDOUARD MANET (1832-1883)


Manet was the origin of Impressionism, a revolutionary in a time of great artistic revolutions. The "Olympia" or "Déjeuner sur l'Herbe" opened the way for the great figures of the Impressionism

Self-portrait of Édouard Manet

MARK ROTHKO (1903-1970)


The influence of Rothko in the history of painting is yet to quantify, because the truth is that almost 40 years after his death the influence of the large masses of color and the emotion of Rothko's large canvases continues to increase in many painters of the 21st century

MARK ROTHKO

HENRI MATISSE (1869-1954)


Art critics tend to regard Matisse as the greatest exponent of the twentieth century painting, only surpassed by Picasso. This is an exaggeration, although the almost pure use of color in some of his works strongly influenced many of the following avant-gardes

HENRI MATISSE - self portrait

RAFAEL (1483-1520)


Picasso is to Art History a giant earthquake with eternal aftermaths. With the possible exception of Michelangelo (who focused his greatest efforts in sculpture and architecture), no other artist had such ambitions at the time of placing his oeuvre in the history of art. Picasso created the avant-garde. Then Picasso destroyed the avant-garde. He looked back at the masters and surpassed them all. He faced the whole history of art and single-handed redefined the tortuous relationship between work and spectator

Self-portrait of Rafael

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