Paul Gauguin was an important French post-impressionist who had considerable success and personal conflicts in late nineteenth century Paris. Gauguin took his first trip to Polynesia in the 1880s, and began living there nearly full time by 1890. Gauguin's work featured the women of Polynesia in his work in bright colors and interesting poses, and with odd symbolism.

The use of the many Japanese images behind the central figure suggest a sense of chaos, but the individual's pose suggests serenity and calm. This is an intentional choice by the artist, Vincent van Gogh, so that his subject, Père Tanguy, can have his serene nature enhanced. The comfortable setting and the relaxed position of the arms also strongly contribute to this sense.

Figure 1: The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh (1889)

Figure 2: Portrait of Père Tanguy by Vincent van Gogh (1887-8)

The Japanese government underwent a major shift in 1868 with the "Meiji Restoration," which saw it open up to outside powers for the first time in centuries. In Europe, this sparked an intense interest in Japanese art traditions, particularly among impressionists and post-impressionists. Vincent van Gogh was one of many artists to place Japanese artwork into his own work, as in his Portrait of Père Tanguy from 1887-8.

Figure 1: The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh (1889)

Figure 2: Portrait of Père Tanguy by Vincent van Gogh (1887-8)

These two paintings portray the most famous generals of early nineteenth century Europe. The painting in Figure 3 portrays Napoleon Bonaparte, as painted by Jacques-Louis David, and the painting in Figure 4 portrays Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, as painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence. These two men met in battle numerous times, most famously at Waterloo in 1815, in Southern Belgium. There, Wellington's allied forces soundly defeated Napoleon's Grand Army of France, forcing him into a second and more permanent exile.

Figure 3: Napoleon Crossing the Alps by Jaques-Louis David (1801)

Figure 4: Portrait of Sir Arthur Wellesley, First Duke of Wellington by Sir Thomas Lawrence (1814)

A daguerreotype was a laborious process, which captured an image on a piece of silver, which then had to be rubbed with various chemicals to make the image appear; nonetheless, the daguerreotype, named after its inventor Louis Daguerre, was the first easily reproduceable photographic process on its creation in 1837. The daguerreotype was supplanted by the 1860s with a variety of quicker methods.

Realism, developed and argued for by Gustave Courbet, reacted harshly against Romanticism by attempting to find authenticity and commonality in stark depictions of everyday scenes. In each of these paintings, Courbet portrays himself largely as what he was, a working painter struggling to make a living. In The Desperate Man, Courbet's self-portrait still exhibits some Romantic-era traits, such as energetic strokes and movement. The Meeting, however, is a fully mature Realism, with extremely clean lines depicting a scene of common people rather than monarchs or heroes.

This painting is one of a series of paintings by Claude Monet that is a study of the front of Rouen Cathedral in different light, with this one taking place in direct sunlight. All of the Impressionists were highly interested in the different effects of light, but Monet went farther than his fellow Impressionists. The avant-garde artistic approach, including incomplete and highly visible paint lines, is contrasted with the subject of the painting, a Gothic cathedral in Rouen, Normandy.

Monet's goal in painting Rouen Cathedral was to capture the ever-changing aspect of light off the stone of the building. Due to constantly-shifting nature of the light, however, Monet had to use a unique approach, wherein he layered small amounts of different but related colors to create a naturalistic effect of shimmering light. This technique and effect would be used later by Monet in his famous series of Water Lillies from his own garden.

The "hierarchy of genres" was the dominant view of the different forms of painting by the academies that controlled art in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, especially in France. Different types of painting were seen as requiring more mastery than others. History painting (which included religious and mythological themes) was above all other genres, as it was believed to require more control over its scope and perspective.

The painting, of the Northern European Renaissance, is of Giovanni Arnolfini and his young wife, and the detail of the characters and their home suggests it was commissioned by the couple, likely the husband, for their wedding.