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MWW Artwork of the Day (1/21/25) Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973) Girl in a Chemise (c. 1905) Oil on canvas. 72.7 x 60 cm. The Tate Gallery, London (C. Frank Stoop Bequest)

This waif-like girl is among Picasso’s cast of people from the margins of society. A melancholic mood is conveyed with veils of paint. The chemise accentuates, rather than disguises, the slenderness of the girl’s body that the painter shows as sexually desirable. She is fragile, perhaps sickly. Her delicate pink flesh evokes the skin-colour that Picasso’s friend Guillaume Apollinaire identified among street performers: ’that purplish pink one finds on the cheeks of certain fresh young girls close to death’.

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MWW Artwork of the Day (1/20/25) Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828) Young Lady Wearing a Mantilla and Basquina (c. 1800-05) Oil on canvas, 109.5 x 77.5 cm. National Gallery, Washington DC (Gift of Mrs. P.H.B. Frelinghuysen)

The mantilla, a gauze and lace headdress that drapes over a woman’s shoulders, is a distinctly Spanish form of attire. Also unique to Spain is the basquiña, a short-sleeved overdress for outdoor wear. This canvas, known for more than a century as “The Bookseller’s Wife,” may instead represent a character study of an upper-class woman. As yet unidentified, she is much like some figures in Goya’s tapestries that show Spaniards from all walks of life.

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MWW Artwork of the Day (1/19/25) Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471–1528) Self-portrait: Study of a Hand and a Pillow (1493) Pen and brown Indian ink on paper, 27.8 x 20.2 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Though Dürer lamented Germany's medieval conception of artists, Italian Renaissance ideas first came north in a powerful way through him. Unlike his earlier, more Gothic woodcuts, Dürer's engravings of 1513 and 1514 suggest the influence of Italian chiaroscuro and were conceived in painterly terms, using a range of velvety tones rather than lines. His drawings include studies of hands, draperies, and costume, portraits, Madonnas, and intimate and detailed watercolor studies of nature. Despite the impressive scope of his workshop, Dürer left no direct successors, though his easily transportable prints were influential throughout Europe.

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MWW Artwork of the Day (1/18/25) Francis Luis Mora (Uruguayan/American, 1874–1940) An Out of Town Trolley (1916) Oil on canvas, 132 x 180.3 cm. Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga TN (Gift of Mr. & Mrs. Scott Probasco, Jr.)

Mora is known for his attempts to translate the techniques of the Spanish Old Masters to a modern American idiom. Since Mora's initial travels in Spain coincided with the emergence of the Generation of '98, a portion of his oeuvre has been interpreted as an attempt to understand modern Spain and Spanish–U.S. relations in the aftermath of the Spanish–American War. He also produced a series of nudes, many with Spanish shawls as backdrops. Mora also produced a large series of Impressionist paintings with American subjects.

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MWW Artwork of the Day (1/17/25) Jules Pascin (Bulgarian/American, 1885-1930) La Mélancolique (1909) Oil on canvas, 71.1 x 58.4 cm. The Boston Museum of Fine Arts (Gift of Robert & Cheryl Fishko)

Julius Mordecai Pincas (known as Jules Pascin, or the "Prince of Montparnasse") was a Bulgarian artist known for his paintings and drawings. He later became an American citizen. His most frequent subject was women, depicted in casual poses, usually nude or partly dressed. He is best known as a Parisian painter, who associated with the artistic circles of Montparnasse, and was one of the emigres of the School of Paris. Having struggled with depression and alcoholism, he died by suicide at the age of 45.

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MWW Artwork of the Day (1/16/25) Sandro Botticelli (Florentine, c. 1445–1510) Portrait of a Young Woman (Simonetta Vespucci)(c. 1476-80) Tempera on wood, 47.5 x 35 cm. Gemäldegalerie, Berlin

Simonetta Cattaneo de Candia Vespucci (c. 1453–1476), nicknamed "la bella Simonetta," was an Italian Renaissance noblewoman from Genoa and the wife of Marco Vespucci of Florence. She was renowned for being the greatest beauty and "supermodel" of her age. Botticelli used her as a model in many of his most famous paintings.

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MWW Artwork of the Day (1/15/25) Gianlorenzo Bernini (Italian, 1598-1680) The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa (c. 1647-52) Marble statue, 350 cm. high Cappella Cornaro, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome

Bernini tackles a theme, as old as the tradition of images: the female principal transmuted by the action of the male principal. The two figures are situated in space with a subtle displacement of their bodies. Almost indescribable is the gesture of the angel-satyr, shown as he draws the dart from the female body, caught in momentary abeyance before it falls back. The figures are brought to life before our eyes. The centre of gravity of the complex mass of marble is shifting: the saint is sinking down (her symbolic foot emerging), and the young satyr moves into the forefront. The focal point of the whole is in that flame-tipped arrow so vividly described by St Teresa of Avila in her spiritual autobiography.

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MWW Artwork of the Day (1/14/25) Bruno Liljefors (Swedish, 1860–1939) Winter Landscape with Fox and Prey (1922) Oil on canvas, 70 x 100 cm. Private Collection

The greatness of Liljefors lay in his ability to show animals in their environment. Sometimes he achieved this through hunting and observation of the living animal, and sometimes he used dead animals; but he also used his memory of the flocks of black grouse in the meadows around a cottage he once lived in at Ehrentuna, near Uppsala. He wrote: "The hawk model -— a young one —- I killed myself. Everything was painted out of doors as was usually done in those days. It was a great deal of work trying to position the dead hawk and the grouse among the bushes that I bent in such a way as to make it seem lively"

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MWW Artwork of the Day (1/13/25) Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926) Boulevard des Capuchines (c. 1873-74) Oil on canvas, 80.4 x 60.3 cm. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City MO

Today, we view this celebrated painting by Monet as a convincing depiction of a bustling Paris boulevard as it might appear from high above, seen through the cold, damp air of winter. Typically Impressionist are the blue shadows and bold, individual brush strokes used to indicate pedestrians whose forms become blurred in motion. In the first Impressionist exhibition of 1874, where either this painting or another similar version was exhibited, such marks were described by a critic accustomed to precise outlines and controlled brushwork as “black tongue-lickings.” Most of the general public agreed.

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MWW Artwork of the Day (1/12/25) Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) Portrait after a Costume Ball (Portrait of Madame Dietz-Monnin)(1879) Distemper, with metallic paint and pastel, on fine-weave canvas, prepared with a glue size, 85.7 x 75.3 cm. The Art Institute of Chicago (Joseph Winterbotham Collection)

A perfectionist who hated to declare any picture finished, Degas was especially devoted to such subjects —- the cafe singer, the thoroughbred horse, the dancer —- as involve hard training undergone in hopes of flawless performance, and the whipping of indolent flesh toward a moment of spirit. Degas’ disinclination to apotheosize is found not only in his ballet paintings, but everywhere else: he tends to see his subjects not afloat in vignetting, or complacently central, but involved in role and time and circumstance —- in the process of their lives. It is in his exact seizing of the split-second gesture (social, professional, habitual, artistic, or involuntarily expressive) that Degas is most universally human, and most transcends time.

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MWW Artwork of the Day (1/11/25) Qing Dynasty artist (Chinese, fl. mid 18th c.) Vase with Golden Pheasants (c. 1736–95) Porcelain painted vase in polychrome enamels over transparent glaze, 7.3 cm. in diameter The Cleveland Museum of Art (John L. Severance Fund)

This is an example of Jingdezhen porcelain produced in or near Jingdezhen in southern China. The flower-and-bird painting in this vase was intricately executed in colored enamels, with careful modeling, shading, and blending of colors reflecting European influences through missionary-artists at the Qing court. The Jesuit artist Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766), in particular, exerted tremendous impact at the Qianlong academy.

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MWW Artwork of the Day (1/10/25) Ilya Ivanovich Mashkov (Russian, 1881-1944) Margarita and Zinovy Soloviev on Holiday at Artek (c. 1925-27) Oil on canvas, 67 x 87 cm. Private Collection

Opened on 16 June 1925 as a sanatorium for children on the initiative of Zinovy Soloviev, the Chairman of the Russian Red Cross, Artek embodied all the ideals of the young socialist state and soon became the most famous pioneer camp in the Soviet Union. Ilya Mashkov’s "Zinovy Petrovich Soloviev with Pioneer" shares Zetkin’s utopian view of Artek. It shows the founder of the camp gazing pensively into the distance, whilst his hand rests on the shoulder of the youngest pioneer who glances at the beholder cheerfully. . Mashkov portrays the protagonists in morning gowns and immersed in their own thoughts, as he shares with the beholder an insight into the private lives of his friends.

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MWW Artwork of the Day (1/9/25) Jean-Jacques Henner (French, 1829–1905) Madame Paul Duchesne-Fournet (1879) Oil on canvas, 193 x 131.4 cm. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Jean-Jacques Henner's portrait of Madame Paul Duchesne-Fournet, the wife of a prominent politician of the French Third Republic, created a sensation in Paris. Henner's portraits were particularly appealing to a clientele eager to display in a dignified manner their newly acquired wealth and social rank. As in this portrait, Henner typically set the sitter against a plain background so as to enhance the subject's fine features. In this portrait, Madame Duchesne-Fournet's black outfit is thinly painted in a manner prefiguring Whistler,but the austere atmosphere of the composition also recalls the full-size portraits of van Dyck and Goya.

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MWW Artwork of the Day (1/8/25) Michelangelo Buonarroti (Italian, 1475-1564) David (1501-04) Marble sculpture, 13 feet 6 in. high Galleria della Academia di Belle Arte, Florence

Michelangelo's David differs from previous representations of the subject in that the Biblical hero is not depicted with the head of the slain Goliath, as he is in Donatello's and Verrocchio's statues. Most scholars consider that the work depicts David before his battle with Goliath. Instead of appearing victorious over a foe much larger than he, David's face looks tense and ready for combat. The tendons in his neck stand out tautly; the muscles between his upper lip and nose are tight; his brow is furrowed; and his eyes seem to focus intently on something in the distance. Veins bulge out of his lowered right hand, but his body is in a relaxed contrapposto pose, and he carries his sling casually thrown over his left shoulder.

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MWW Artwork of the Day (1/7/25) Vincent Van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890) First Steps [after Millet](Jan. 1890) Oil on canvas, 72.4 x 91.2 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Gift of George & Helen Richard)

"First Steps" remains one of Van Gogh's most admired works. The intimate family scene has a universal appeal and the harmonious colour scheme would be typical of Van Gogh's final paintings. The subject of Millet's original and Van Gogh's copy may have spoken to Vincent on several levels: a passionate admiration for the great master Jean-François Millet, delight at the prospect of the impending birth of his brother's son, and perhaps a sense of regret for a family life that Vincent had long hoped for, but never attained.

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MWW Artwork of the Day (1/6/25) Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch, 1606-1669) Jacob Blessing the Sons of Joseph (1656) Oil on canvas, 175.5 x 210.5 cm. Gemäldegalerie, Kassel

The subject is taken from the book of Genesis, chapter 48. The dying patriarch Jacob is shown blessing his grandsons Ephraim and Manasseh. In Rembrandt's version Jacob blesses Ephraim but there is no sign of Joseph's questioning of his father - indeed he steadies his father's hand and the presence of Asenath is not mentioned in the Biblical account. She is mentioned only once in the Bible (Genesis chapter 41, verse 45) but Rembrandt makes her a major figure of great dignity, balancing the two men on the left. The prime focus of the painting is, however, on the tender gesture of the aged patriarch as he blesses Ephraim, and Joseph's outstretched hand and kind smile as he assists his father.

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MWW Artwork of the Day (1/5/25) Joseph Mallord William Turner (British, 1775-1851) The Scarlet Sunset (c. 1830–40) Watercolor & gouache on paper, 13.4 x 18.9 cm. The Tate Gallery, London (Turner Bequest CCLIX 101)

This composition is painted with a limited range of colors, arranged to give strong contrasts between primary colous. It also incorporates the pale blue wove paper so that it makes a significant contribution to the image. Artists who try to copy a Turner watercolor in order to understand his methods often seem to be drawn to this work, and a description of one way to go about it, using modern materials, has recently been published. It would be possible to create many versions of this composition, with different brown ochre marks to represent figures, buildings and boats. The most difficult part would be to create the yellow reflection in the water, in one assured brush-stroke.