Frank Carlson Library

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...

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...

Hieronymus Bosch is a Dutch painter of the late Middle Ages. He died in 1516. His work is known for its use of fantastic, now-viewed as horrific, imagery to illustrate moral and religious concepts and narratives of the Roman Catholic church during that time. Balancing the images of hell and tormented sinners are the bucolic, delicate, and detailed landscapes he painted on the back of his triptychs typically created for display and use in churches....

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was one of the great personalities of fin de siecle Paris, a famous and popular figure known by, and knowing, everyone who mattered in bohemian circles. He is usually classified as a postimpressionist painter, along with his contemporaries Gauguin and van Gogh. In common with many artists, Toulouse-Lautrec had to struggle to gain acceptance, but unlike his peers, his fight was not so much for his art as for himself. At just...

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...

Caravaggio is variously labeled a uniquely gifted artist and an arrogant, rebellious, and dangerously violent murderer. But for all his wild behavior, he was a profoundly religious man. Caravaggio, the first artist to bring realism to painting, is considered by many to be the greatest Baroque painter of all. The Old and New Testaments are brought vividly to light by Caravaggio's talent. Many of his paintings depict the grace of God as a shaft of light...

Late nineteenth century Paris was a thriving, exciting place for artists, and Alphonse Mucha was the most celebrated artist working in the city. Everywhere you looked his posters and advertisement designs caught the eye and influenced popular culture. He was the favorite artist of the great actress Sarah Bernhardt and she contracted him for six years to design all her posters, costumes, set designs, programs, and more. However he was much more than...

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...

Vincent van Gogh is indisputably one of the greatest painters of the late nineteenth century. His works are some of the most recognizable and sought after of any artist. His paintings are the highlights of virtually all the greatest galleries and art collections around the world. On the rare occasions when one of van Gogh's paintings comes up for sale, it invariably breaks auction records-yet, heartbreakingly, van Gogh himself rarely had enough money...

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;...