Claude Monet | Springtime, 1872

Monet moved to Argenteuil, a suburban town on the right bank of the Seine River northwest of Paris, in late December 1871.

Many of the types of scenes that he and the other Impressionists favored could be found in this small town, conveniently connected by rail to nearby Paris.

In this painting, Monet was less interested in capturing a likeness than in studying how unblended dabs of color could suggest the effect of brilliant sunlight filtered through leaves.

Max Weber (1881-1961) | Cubist painter

Painter, sculptor, poet. Weber was an adventurous modernist who assimilated the influences of Cubism, Futurism, Orphism and Postimpressionism. Weber later memorialized his Jewish heritage in such works as Students of the Torah (1940) and Adoration of the Moon (1944).

At age ten Weber immigrated with his parents to Brooklyn. He studied at Pratt Institute and with Arthur Wesley Dow and subsequently taught in public schools in Virginia and Minnesota.

In 1905 he left for Paris, where he met Matisse🎨, Pablo Picasso🎨, and other vanguard painters of the day and organized the art class taught by Matisse.

Rembrandt | Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem, 1630

Downcast, the biblical prophet Jeremiah leans his tired head on his hand. He mourns the burning city of Jerusalem (left background), the destruction of which he had predicted.

The most important part of the depiction - the figure of Jeremiah - is painted with great precision, while his surroundings are barely worked out.

Rembrandt used powerful contrasts of light and shadow to heighten the drama of the scene. | © Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Monet and his Muse, Camille

Camille Doncieux (15 January 1847 - 5 September 1879) was model, lover and wife of French ⎆ painter Claude Monet (1840-1926) ⎆, whose early paintings of her gave him his first taste of commercial and critical success.

But when Camille died young, at 32 years, after a long illness following the birth of their second child, the woman who replaced her in Monet's life was determined to obliterate her memory.

Alice, Monet's second wife, was consumed by jealousy of her departed rival and destroyed all photographic records of Camille.

Eugène Delacroix | Legacy

Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix (26 April 1798 - 13 August 1863) was a leader of the French Romantic school.

At the sale of his work in 1864, 9140 works were attributed to Delacroix, including 853 paintings, 1525 pastels and water colours, 6629 drawings, 109 lithographs, and over 60 sketch books.

The number and quality of the drawings, whether done for constructive purposes or to capture a spontaneous movement, underscored his explanation, "Colour always occupies me, but drawing preoccupies me".