On a tabletop spread with an ivory-white cloth, plates, and white porcelain bowls containing sweets, fruit, olives, and a cooked fowl are arranged around the largest platter, which holds the head, wings, and tail of a peacock stuck into a tall, baked pie, in this horizontal still life painting. The front, left corner of the table is near the lower left corner of the painting, so the tabletop extends off the right side of the composition. The white tablecloth lies over a second cloth underneath, which is only visible along the right edge. The cloth underneath has a leafy, geometric pattern in burgundy red against a lighter, rose-red background. The peacock pie is set near the back of the table, to our right, so it fills the upper right quadrant of the composition. The bird holds a pink rose in its beak. In front of it, near the lower right corner of the painting, a white porcelain bowl painted with teal-green floral and geometric designs holds about ten pieces of pale yellow and blush-red fruit. A pewter plate next to it, to our left, holds dried fruit and baked, stick-like sweets, some covered with white sugar. A pile of salt sits atop a gold, square vessel between the sweets and the peacock pie. Another blue-patterned, white porcelain bowl filled with green olives sits near the back of the table next to a lidded, pewter pitcher with a long spout. Other pewter plates hold a baked fowl, like a small chicken, and, closest to us, a partially cut lemon with its peel curling off the plate. Nuts, more fruit, an ivory-handled knife, bread rolls, and flat biscuits sit on the white cloth among the plates. One glass with a wide stem covered in nubs and a flaring bowl sits near the back, left corner of the table, filled with a pale yellow liquid. An empty glass lies with the upper rim on another pewter plate, to our left. Also on the plate is a bunched up white napkin and a leather case for the knife. The background behind the still life is brown.
Pieter Claesz, Still Life with Peacock Pie, 1627, oil on panel, The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund , 2013.141.1

17th-Century Dutch Painting

During the 17th century, the arts flourished in the Netherlands. The Dutch republic was young, and its prosperity and recent independence from Spain led to a surge in creativity. Some of the most influential Dutch artists of the period included Rembrandt van Rijn, Judith Leyster, and Johannes Vermeer. 

  • A woman stands drinking from a tall glass as two men sit at a table in a courtyard enclosed by wood paneling and brick buildings in this vertical painting. The people all have pale, peachy skin. The men, table, and woman take up the lower left quadrant of the composition. Both men wear broad-brimmed, black hats. The man closer to us, on our side of the table, faces our right in profile and holds a long white, clay pipe to his lips. He wears an ink-black jacket and tan leggings. A white stocking hangs down in a wide cuff from his knee on the leg we can see. A dove-gray cape is draped across his lap and a brown coat with gold-colored buttons is slung over a railing behind his back. Across the table, a bearded man wears a shining armor breastplate over a brown shirt. He looks up at the woman and smiles, holding a blue and white tankard with the lid flipped open in one hand. Another pipe and piece of paper sit on the narrow table between the men. The woman stands to one side of the table, facing our left in profile and the toe of her shoe touching or nearly brushing the black shoe of the man closer to us. Her brown hair is covered by a white cap, and she wears a tan-colored jacket, a long, crimson-red skirt, and an ultramarine-blue apron. Across the courtyard, in the lower right corner of the painting, a young girl also wears a white cap and blue apron but with a slate-gray shirt and laurel-green skirt. She approaches the table. A glowing ember is visible inside the ceramic brown dish she holds in both hands. The slightly uneven floor is paved with long, pale yellow bricks. A building rises to our right, a red shutter opening out from a window on the ground level. The other, closed shutter is painted with triangles of black, white, and gray. A half-wall of red brick across from us surrounds an open door, through which are stairs and a tree trunk. More trees rise above the top of that wall. Horizontal paneling encloses the courtyard to our left, behind the men. A church steeple in the distance is silhouetted against the sky over the paneling. A few wispy white clouds float across the vivid blue sky above.
  • Shown from about the knees up, a pale, smooth-skinned woman in a fur-lined yellow jacket looks out at us as she sits writing at a table in this vertical painting. The woman’s body faces the table to our left. She turns her head to gaze at us from the corners of her dark gray eyes under faint brows. She has a wide nose, and her pale lips are closed. Her light brown hair is pulled back and held in place with white bows, and gleaming teardrop-shaped pearl earrings dangle from her ears. Her lemon-yellow jacket is trimmed with ermine fur, which is white with black speckles, at the cuffs and down the front opening. A full, elephant-gray skirt falls to the floor beneath the jacket. Both hands rest on the table, and she holds a quill in her right hand, farther from us, on a piece of paper. She leans forward in her wooden chair. The back panel of the chair is covered in black fabric and lined with brass studs. Two gilded finials, carved into lions’ heads, face the woman’s back with mouths open. The table is covered with a celestial-blue cloth crumpled near the left edge of the canvas. On the table are a strand of pearls, a pale yellow ribbon, and a black box with three brown panels studded with pearls around silver keyholes. Two pewter gray vessels are visible just beyond it, in front of a second chair, which faces us. On the putty-gray wall behind the woman, a framed painting hangs in the upper left quadrant of the composition. The painting-within-the painting is done in muted tones of brown and shows a cello and other unidentifiable objects.
  • We look slightly down onto a panorama with dozens of pale-skinned men, women, and children skating and standing on a frozen river in this horizontal landscape painting. Most of the men wear black hats and suits, some with white collars and hip-length capes. The women all wear ankle- or floor-length skirts, and some are covered with black cloaks that drape over their heads to their feet. Many people wear black but some of the clothing is scarlet red, sage green, celestial blue, beige, or slate gray. A few people draw the eye, like the man standing with his back to us, wearing dark gray and holding a tall pole in the lower left corner. To the right, a man kneels to tie a skate with a brown and black dog nearby. A woman wearing a crimson-red skirt and a couple clad entirely in fur-lined black clothing look toward a man and woman riding a horse-drawn sled on the ice, at the lower center of the painting. Another black-draped form in the sleigh could be a second woman wearing a cloak. A pair of boys play a game like hockey in the lower right corner. People gather and skate in pairs and small groups, or ride in sledges into the deep distance. The buildings and boats lining the horizon, which comes about halfway up the composition, are painted in shimmering grays. The sky above is the same cool white as the ice below. A few birds fly across the scene.
  • Shown from the hips up, a man with pale skin and shoulder-length brown hair, wearing a long-sleeved, rose-pink satin jacket and pants, props a flagpole with a voluminous blue flag against one shoulder in this vertical portrait painting. He stands with his body facing our left in profile with his left hand on his hip, elbow jutting out at us. He turns his face to look directly at us with dark eyes. He has a straight nose, rosy cheeks, and a mustache and narrow goatee below his lips, which are slightly parted. He wears a wide-brimmed black hat generously adorned with pale blue, turquoise, pale yellow, and orange plumes. The fabric of his pink clothing reflects the light in wide patches of white, creating the impression of a satin sheen. Wide, pale gray lace lines the front opening of the jacket, the shoulders, the arms, and the sides of the trousers. His white lace collar is tied with a pale celery-green bow and a bow of the same color ties the lace cuff of the wrist we can see. A baby-blue sash wraps around his waist and is tied in a large rosette at the back. Both hands are covered with ivory-white gloves. His left wrist rests against his hip so the underside of those fingers dangle down, while the other hand supports the flag pole, which is wrapped in blue fabric. A sword hangs from his front hip. The topaz-blue fabric of the flag, or standard, drapes down from the flag pole, which extends off the top right corner of the canvas. A coat of arms, about the size of a person’s palm, hangs from a nail with a string in the upper left corner on the taupe-colored wall behind the man. The coat of arms is made up of three fleur-de-lis lined up in a diagonal band and the remaining two corners are filled with stylized lions, long tongues curling out. The artist dated the work “1640” in the lower left corner.
  • A jumble of pewter plates and a pitcher, glass goblets, a gold chalice, a brass candlestick, and other vessels along with lemons, olives, and the remains of a mince pie are arranged on a cream-white tablecloth bunched on a dark green tabletop in this square still life painting. The scene is painted almost entirely in shades of cool grays, gold, brown, and white against a deep beige background. The objects span width of the canvas across its center. At the left edge of the painting, a vibrant yellow lemon has been cut so its rind curls in a spiral that hangs over the front edge of the table. Behind the lemon, a scissor-like candle snuffer is propped against the wide ledge of the tall brass candlestick, its white candle nearly burned down. A few glistening olives sit in a small pewter plate, and one olive sits on the tabletop near the lemon and candlestick. A glass goblet with a wide stem with textured knubs rests upended on an elaborately chased, gold, footed vessel that has been tipped over so its wide shallow bowl faces away from us. The tall pewter pitcher behind this is dented on its rounded body. The lidded gold chalice next to the jug is the tallest object in the painting. Next to the chalice, along the right half of the painting, is a glass oil cruet with a long, curving spout, a tall, cylindrical vessel holding a small pile of salt, and a straight-sided, low glass holding beer. In front of these objects, an untouched bread roll and knife sit on a pewter plate at the center of the composition. The remains of the mince pie with its pastry crust sit on a large pewter plate to our right. In front of it is a smaller plate holding a broken goblet and a piece of black and white paper rolled into a cone. A few empty oyster shells sit on the table to the left and right, near the lemons and mince pie. The artist signed and dated the painting along the edge of the white cloth near the lower right corner: “HEDA 1635.”
  • A basket overflowing with flowers sits on a table alongside fruit, berries, and seashells in this horizontal still life painting. The wide, low straw-colored basket has a woven base and more open, rib-like sides. The bouquet is made up of white and pink roses, a sky-blue iris and another with pale yellow and lavender-purple leaves. There are also a carnation striped with red and white, flame-orange poppies, and at least three tulips, including one that is scarlet red, a white tulip veined with red, and one with red petals streaked with yellow. Other flowers and dark green stems and leaves fill out the arrangement. The basket sits on a slate-gray tabletop that extends off both sides of the painting. Four shells sit to our left of the basket. These include a woodcock murex shell with a spiraling head with spikes and a long, spiny tail; an elongated, smooth conch shell with an ivory-white and brown calico surface; and light blue snail shell. Finally, closest to us, the largest, spiraling triton shell is occupied by a hermit crab. A sprig of glowing red berries sits at the front center of the composition. To our right, a cluster of fruit includes purple and green grapes on the vines, red cherries, a red plum, and two pieces of yellow and blush-pink fruit. The scene is lit from our left against a darkened background, so a dragonfly in the upper right corner is nearly lost in shadow. The artist signed the painting in the lower left corner, “B.vander.ast.”
  • This vertical portrait painting shows a pale-skinned older woman wearing a full, long-sleeved black dress with a wide white ruff at her neck and white lace cuffs at her wrists. She sits in a curving, low-backed wood chair against a pale brown background. Her body and the chair are angled slightly to our left, and she looks directly at us. She has small eyes, pink, rounded cheeks, and a wide chin. Her lips are parted in a slight smile, and her hair is covered by a starched, sheer white cap that flares at the sides. The ruff around her neck is gathered in accordion-like, narrow figure-eight folds, and it extends flat and stiff, nearly to her shoulders. Close inspection reveals that the dress is woven with a black-on-black brocade pattern and has a line of small black buttons down the front. She holds a small brown leather book tooled with gold ornament in her right hand, on our left, and her other hand rests on the arm of the chair. She wears a gold ring on each hand. An inscription is painted to our left of her head: “AETAT SVAE 60 ANo 1633.”
  • Eight cows bathed in warm sunlight stand and lie on a riverbank carpeted in mossy green in this horizontal painting. The cows are amber, ginger, or tawny brown, bone white, or black, and all have short, curving horns. Seven are clustered closely together, at the bottom center of the painting. There, one tawny red cow with a white face looks at or toward us as it lies at the middle of the grouping, legs tucked under her big body. The eighth cow is black with a white face, and lies just to our left of the group. Behind the cows, to our right, a hill rises about halfway up the right side of the composition. Three men meet at the top. One man is on horseback with his back to us, while the other two stand to the right holding tall staffs. They are dressed in sage-green, tan, or peanut-brown tunics and knee-length pants, and they all wear hats. Beyond the cows, the silvery-blue river extends back to a row of low trees in the deep distance on the horizon, which comes about a quarter of the way up the composition. A few sailboats with white sails navigate the waterway. The sky, which takes up about three-quarters of the composition, is filled with puffy white, pale gray, and shell-pink clouds. A shaft of sunlight breaks through the clouds near the top center of the composition and falls toward the men on the hill. Birds flying in a loose band are painted with a few swipes of brown, tiny in the distance. The artist signed the lower right, “A:Cuijp.”
  • Shown from about the waist up, a woman with smooth, pale skin sits in a chair facing our right in front of a canvas on an easel in this vertical portrait. She leans onto her right elbow, which rests on the seat back. She turns her face to look at us, lips slightly parted. Her dress has a black bodice and a deep rose-pink skirt and sleeves. She wears a translucent white cap over her hair, which has been tightly pulled back. A stiff, white, plate-like ruff encircles her neck and reaches to her shoulders. She holds a paintbrush in her right hand and clutches about twenty brushes, a wooden paint palette, and a rag in her left hand, at the bottom right of the canvas. The painting behind her shows a man wearing robin's egg-blue and playing a violin.
  • Shown from the waist up, an older man with pale, peachy skin looks out at us with deep-set, gray eyes under a furrowed brow, in front of a sable-brown background in this vertical portrait painting. His body is angled to our left, and his face turns to us. He has a faintly pink, bulbous nose, and his slightly sunken cheeks are shaded with gray. His peach-colored lips are framed with a wispy, gray mustache and goatee. Bronze-orange lines are incised within the battleship gray of his hair to create soft curls under his brown beret, which has gold trim around the base. The dark collar of his fawn-brown coat is turned up so his neck is covered. He is lit from the upper left, so his body and the right side of the painting are deeply shadowed. On our left, the canvas is painted with blended strokes of tawny and dark brown. His dark coat blends into the background, and his folded hands are in shadow in the lower left corner. The brushstrokes are visible in some areas, especially in the man’s face. The painting is signed and dated next to his shoulder, to our left, “Rembrandt f. 1659.”
  • On a tabletop spread with an ivory-white cloth, plates, and white porcelain bowls containing sweets, fruit, olives, and a cooked fowl are arranged around the largest platter, which holds the head, wings, and tail of a peacock stuck into a tall, baked pie, in this horizontal still life painting. The front, left corner of the table is near the lower left corner of the painting, so the tabletop extends off the right side of the composition. The white tablecloth lies over a second cloth underneath, which is only visible along the right edge. The cloth underneath has a leafy, geometric pattern in burgundy red against a lighter, rose-red background. The peacock pie is set near the back of the table, to our right, so it fills the upper right quadrant of the composition. The bird holds a pink rose in its beak. In front of it, near the lower right corner of the painting, a white porcelain bowl painted with teal-green floral and geometric designs holds about ten pieces of pale yellow and blush-red fruit. A pewter plate next to it, to our left, holds dried fruit and baked, stick-like sweets, some covered with white sugar. A pile of salt sits atop a gold, square vessel between the sweets and the peacock pie. Another blue-patterned, white porcelain bowl filled with green olives sits near the back of the table next to a lidded, pewter pitcher with a long spout. Other pewter plates hold a baked fowl, like a small chicken, and, closest to us, a partially cut lemon with its peel curling off the plate. Nuts, more fruit, an ivory-handled knife, bread rolls, and flat biscuits sit on the white cloth among the plates. One glass with a wide stem covered in nubs and a flaring bowl sits near the back, left corner of the table, filled with a pale yellow liquid. An empty glass lies with the upper rim on another pewter plate, to our left. Also on the plate is a bunched up white napkin and a leather case for the knife. The background behind the still life is brown.
  • This horizontal painting shows a group of eight light-skinned musicians and onlookers gathered closely around a rectangular, carpet-covered table. The front edge of the table runs parallel to the bottom edge of the painting, and seems close to us. Shown from about the waist up, the men and women’s vivid lapis-blue, coral-red, buttercup-yellow, lilac-purple, and moss-green garments fall in crisp folds. Bright reflections on the fabric suggest a satin-like material. Two women wear feathers in their hair and one man’s hat is plumed. One man, wearing crimson red and black, sits with his back to us to our left on the near side of the table. He holds the neck of a bass viol, about the size of a cello, with his left hand, and points to pages of an open music book with the bow in his right hand. The other people cluster on the far side of the table. A man to the left plays a violin; a woman at the center plays a guitar-sized bandora, and a woman to our right plays a lute. The musicians, along with a man who leans over the table from between the two women, look down at the music books. A young man behind the woman at the center holds up a glass of pale liquid with his right hand as he touches his left forefinger to his smiling lips. A man and woman stand close together in the background to our right, in the top right corner of the canvas.
  • A nude man and woman, both with pale, luminous skin, recline together under an apple tree in front of a deep landscape in this horizontal painting. Their bodies entwined, Adam and Eve gaze into each other’s eyes. To our left, Adam’s muscular torso faces us as his slightly bent knees, resting along the ground, come toward us. He braces his upper body on his elbow, which rests on a low, mossy rock, and he holds a small green fruit in that hand. A sprig of rounded leaves covers his genitals. He has short, tousled, copper-brown hair, dark eyes, a straight nose, and his parted lips curl in a slight smile. A wispy, ginger-brown beard lines his jaw. He looks at Eve in profile as she leans against his chest. Her torso faces away from us, and her legs are tucked under her body, so their feet nearly touch. She lightly touches his chest with the fingertips of her left hand, and she holds up a small green and red apple in her other hand. A bite has been taken from the apple. Eve’s honey-brown hair is gathered at the back of her head, and she has dark eyes, a delicate nose, rosy, rounded cheeks, and full, coral-pink lips. In the lower left corner of the painting, a brown and white cat sits near Adam’s hip and looks out at us with gold-colored eyes. A tree rises behind the pair, along the left edge of the composition, and branches with oblong, sage-green leaves and red fruit frame the couple. Upon closer inspection, a snake winds around the trunk. The snake’s body is mustard yellow and dark teal, and it has a human face with flushed cheeks and blond hair. The snake’s face looms just above Eve’s head, and it looks at or toward us. To our right of Adam and Eve, the scene opens up onto a landscape with a grassy expanse leading back to rocky mountains in the distance. Closer to us and near the right edge of the painting, a goat with almond-colored fur stands facing away from us as it turns its head back to look at the people, munching a tuft of vegetation. The head of a black goat peeks in from the right edge, also looking toward the center of the painting. Tiny in scale, an elephant, two camels, and several other animals move through the landscape near the base of the mountain. A streak of ruby red appears in the otherwise hazy blue sky, near the snake’s head. The artist signed and dated the painting as if he had inscribed the rock on which Adam rests his elbow: “HG AE 1616,” with the HG conjoined to make a monogram.
  • A windmill stands on a promontory cutting into a waterway under a partially stormy sky in this square landcape painting. The promontory and mill are painted in muted tones of brown and rust orange, while steel-gray and white clouds encircle a topaz-blue sky above. The promontory juts into the scene from our left, and the front of the windmill is angled to our right so its golden-tan sails catch the light. Silvery water winds around the base of the promontory and extends to a dark green, shadowy bank on the far side. A boat in the lower right corner of the composition is rowed by a man wearing a red jacket and cap. A path runs to the water’s edge from the left edge of the painting, in front of the promontory’s retaining wall, which is shored up with stones or panels. A person in dark clothing close to the windmill seems to rest their arms on the retaining wall, their back to us. Closer to us, a woman holds a child’s hand as they walk down the path to the bank. A bearded man with tattered brown clothes and bare feet stands leaning against the wall near a woman wearing burnt-orange garment. She sits or kneels at the water’s edge in front of a basket of clothes and holds up a brown cloth. The olive-green forms of the trees on the far bank are reflected in the water, and closer inspection reveals two cows near the water there. Charcoal-gray clouds pile up along the left of the painting and span the top edge. There is a brilliant blue sky beyond and a screen of white clouds near the horizon, which comes about a third of the way up the canvas.
  • A man bows to a woman as another man looks on from the shadowy background, while a woman sitting at a table plays a lute in this vertical painting. All the people have pale skin. The bowing man enters from an open door to our left. He faces our right in profile and has a bumped nose, a dark mustache, and his brown hair falls loosely over his shoulders. He wears a voluminous, black jacket that has a wide white collar and flat, plate-like, starched white cuffs. He bends forward with one foot stretched in front of him, as he gazes at the woman to our right. His hands are spread wide. His left forefinger and thumb touch to make an O shape, and he holds a wide-brimmed, black hat in his right hand, closer to us. At the center of the composition, the woman wears a dress with a coral-pink bodice and a cream-white satin skirt trimmed with gold down the front and around the hem. She faces our left in profile and looks at the man, her cheeks flushed. Her eyebrows are slightly raised over dark eyes, and she has a straight nose and the hint of a double chin. Her blond hair is pulled back under a lace covering, and curls frame her face. A black ribbon is tied into a bow at the shoulder closer to us. A brown and white dog, about knee-high, stands between the man and woman. To our right, a young woman sits at the far side of a table playing a lute. She wears a sapphire-blue dress and looks down at her instrument. One elbow is propped on the patterned rug that covers the table. A second instrument, perhaps a cello, lies on the table, and a wooden chair with a pine-green upholstered seat has been pulled up to our side of the table. Almost lost in the shadows at the back of the room between the two women, a man with a goatee and wearing a brown jacket and trousers stands with his body angled to our right as he looks over his shoulder at the couple at the door. He stands in front of a fireplace with an opening so large that the mantle is supported by columns as tall as the man.

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Shown from about the waist up, a woman with smooth, pale skin sits in a chair facing our right in front of a canvas on an easel in this vertical portrait. She leans onto her right elbow, which rests on the seat back. She turns her face to look at us, lips slightly parted. Her dress has a black bodice and a deep rose-pink skirt and sleeves. She wears a translucent white cap over her hair, which has been tightly pulled back. A stiff, white, plate-like ruff encircles her neck and reaches to her shoulders. She holds a paintbrush in her right hand and clutches about twenty brushes, a wooden paint palette, and a rag in her left hand, at the bottom right of the canvas. The painting behind her shows a man wearing robin's egg-blue and playing a violin.

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Two roosters, a rabbit, and three small birds hang from the top of this vertical still life painting, so the heads of one white rooster and the rabbit come to rest on a dark stone ledge, about a third of the way up the composition. To our left, the tawny-brown rabbit’s nose faces us as the head rests on an azure-blue purse with silver lining. A pair of scissors is tucked behind the strap, which falls down over the ledge. To our right, the head of the rooster curves away with its red coxcomb coming toward us. A black fly rests on the rooster’s comb. The black tail feathers of another rooster arc out behind it, near the upper right corner of the painting. In front of the rabbit's bound, hind legs is a small bird with puffed, silvery-gray feathers, and one black leg tied up with a dark cord. To our left are two more small birds, one with gray, cream, and tan feathers, the other with cream, golden orange, and lapis blue. These two are secured with their beaks pointing upward. Two white and scarlet-red caps, falcon’s hoods, are strung up by white ribbon near the pair of birds. Below the ledge is a carved scene with nude or nearly nude people, but this area is mostly in shadow. Behind the animals is a dark, nearly black wall.

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Shown from about the knees up, a pale, smooth-skinned woman in a fur-lined yellow jacket looks out at us as she sits writing at a table in this vertical painting. The woman’s body faces the table to our left. She turns her head to gaze at us from the corners of her dark gray eyes under faint brows. She has a wide nose, and her pale lips are closed. Her light brown hair is pulled back and held in place with white bows, and gleaming teardrop-shaped pearl earrings dangle from her ears. Her lemon-yellow jacket is trimmed with ermine fur, which is white with black speckles, at the cuffs and down the front opening. A full, elephant-gray skirt falls to the floor beneath the jacket. Both hands rest on the table, and she holds a quill in her right hand, farther from us, on a piece of paper. She leans forward in her wooden chair. The back panel of the chair is covered in black fabric and lined with brass studs. Two gilded finials, carved into lions’ heads, face the woman’s back with mouths open. The table is covered with a celestial-blue cloth crumpled near the left edge of the canvas. On the table are a strand of pearls, a pale yellow ribbon, and a black box with three brown panels studded with pearls around silver keyholes. Two pewter gray vessels are visible just beyond it, in front of a second chair, which faces us. On the putty-gray wall behind the woman, a framed painting hangs in the upper left quadrant of the composition. The painting-within-the painting is done in muted tones of brown and shows a cello and other unidentifiable objects.

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This square portrait shows the head and shoulders of a young woman in front of a spiky bush that fills much of the background except for a landscape view that extends into the deep distance to our right. The woman's body is angled to our right but her face turns to us. She has chalk-white, smooth skin with heavily lidded, light brown eyes, and her pale pink lips are closed. Pale blush highlights her cheeks, and she looks either at us or very slightly away from our eyes. Her brown hair is parted down the middle and pulled back, but tight, lively curls frame her face. Her hair turns gold where the light shines on it. She wears a brown dress, trimmed along the square neckline with gold. The front of the bodice is tied with a blue ribbon, and the lacing holes are also edged with gold. A sheer white veil covers her chest and is pinned at the center with a small gold ball. The bush fills the space around her head with copper-brown, spiky leaves. A river winds between trees and rolling hills in the distance to our right. Trees and a town along the horizon, which comes about halfway up the painting, is pale blue under an ice-blue sky.

Painting

Since ancient times, artists have made paintings to tell stories or capture beauty. They’ve used egg tempera, oil, and more recently acrylic to create compositions of all shapes and sizes. The results include radiant altarpieces, striking portraits, luminous landscapes, and abstract expressions.

An abstracted painting of a roughly oval-shaped jack-in-the-pulpit flower fills this vertical composition with cool, saturated blues, grays, and greens. A royal-blue elongated, rounded core at the bottom center is surrounded by a pale gray flame-like shape. Petals flare outward and up around the core to reach toward the sides and top of the canvas. A thin white line extends upward from the top center of the core to meet the pointed tip of the unfurling, innermost midnight-blue petal. Layers of green, reminiscent of leaves, curl outward around the top half of the flower. Pale blue in each of the four corners creates the impression of a background behind the flower, and fades to white at the top corners.

Flowers

A bounty of bouquets can be found in art. Flowers have inspired artists from Vincent van Gogh to Alma Thomas. Eighteenth-century Dutch artist Jan van Huysum painted lavish floral still lifes, while modern painters like Georgia O’Keeffe created far more abstract flowers. Not only are these floral forms beautiful but they also often have symbolic meaning.