drjeff:

Botticelli’s Venus updated by Anna Utopia Giordano to reflect modern day’s “ideals” of beauty. In this recreation, she reduced Venus’ hips, thighs, and tummy. It’s a very interesting look at some of art history’s great nudes. The differences are quite striking in some of the samples. 

Click here to see the rest.

(via kissuponhershoulder)

somehowsomeway:

serge-marshennikov:

167. 2011 85x90cm

Well if that’s not a painting for the ages, I don’t know what is.

O_O

A work once thought to be by Vincent van Gogh but later dismissed has now been confirmed as an authentic painting by the Dutch master.

Still Life With Meadow Flowers and Roses has belonged to a Dutch museum since 1974, but doubts crept in due to the painting style and the unusual canvas size, and it was discredited in 2003.

However, experts have now authenticated the painting using an X-ray technique. Van Gogh originally painted a canvas of two wrestlers and then painted Still Life With Meadows and Roses over it, which experts say accounts for the “uncharacteristic exuberance” of the floral still life.

A painting thought to be the earliest copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and painted alongside the original has been discovered in Madrid’s Prado museum. The discovery, hailed as one of the most remarkable in recent times, was made during conservation work and is believed to reveal how the famous sitter would have looked at the time.

The Prado painting was long thought to be one of dozens surviving replicas of the masterpiece made after Leonardo’s death but it is now believed to have been painted by one of his key pupils working alongside the master.

“Almond Blossom,” by Vincent Van Gogh (1890)

More than 30 years after it was stolen from a French museum, Camille Pissarro’s “Le Marche aux Poissons” (“The Fish Market”) was handed over to the French ambassador by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Wednesday.

The roughly greeting-card-size work is a color monotype, a one-of-a-kind print made by painting on glass and then transferring the wet paint to a piece of paper.

Wednesday’s return was staged in a hall of a Washington museum filled with other French impressionist works, including some by artists who were inspired by Pissarro.

The customs bureau said that since 2007 it has returned more than 2,500 items to more than 22 countries.

Interior of an Imaginary Catholic Church in Classical Style (1638-40); oil on panel, by Gerard Houckgeest

veronicles:

Lascaux animals

“The Dance Class” (c. 1873) is part of a Degas show coming to the Phillips Collection in Washington. (Photo: Corcoran Gallery of Art)

Have you ever noticed how much detail he managed to convey? It’s kind of amazing.

Detail, “Woman Holding a Balance,” by Johannes Vermeer; c. 1664, oil on canvas. [my flickr]

“Moonlit Landscape with Bridge,” by Aert Van der Neer; c.1650, oil on panel. The treatment of light is always fascinating to me, no matter what the medium. [my flickr]

“Marquesa Brigida Spinola Doria,” by Peter Paul Rubens; 1606, oil on canvas. The amount of detail in the dress is amazing. [my flickr]

Detail, “Two Women at a Window,” Bartolome Esteban Murillo; c. 1655/1660, oil on canvas. [my flickr]

“The Repentant Magdalene,” by Georges de la Tour; c. 1640, oil on canvas. One of my favorite paintings. [my flickr]

malygina:

Vincent Van Gogh. Branches Of An Almond Tree In Blossom (Artist Interpretation in Red). 1890

(via petrichloroform)