Oath of the Horatti is considered as one of the best-known paintings in the Neoclassical style by Jacques Louis David.

The picture depicts a scene of a dispute between two warring cities from a Roman legend, Rome and Alba Longa stress the importance of self-sacrifice, masculine and patriotism for one’s country. The history tells us that instead of sending their armies to war the two cities agree to choose three men from their own each city, the man who won the fight will be regarded as the victorious man and victorious city. So, three brothers from a Roman family (namely the Horatii) agreed to fight with the three brothers from a family of Alba Longa (namely the Curiatii) resulting from the winner by the end of the war. The three brothers of Rome, willing to sacrifice their lives are shown in the picture, saluting their father who holds their swords out for them.

This painting of Edouard Manet was inspired by the previous work of Titan in Venus of Urbino and the Goya’s in La Maja Desnuda. The idea of using a black servant who brought flowers was already covered by Ingres in many of his paintings. In Titian’s painting, Venus was also a prostitute who was directly looking at the viewer. The idea of the nude provoked several violent reactions and a scandal at the Paris Salon.

In 1863, Olympia made even bigger controversy than Edouard Manet another painting The Luncheon on the Grass which also created many controversies. Several termed the work of Manet to be vulgar. They wanted the canvas to be destroyed but the government took precautions. Edouard wanted to tell the truth to the people through his paintings, he hated lies

The work can be viewed at Louvre in Paris.

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The name of the painting was inspired by a manufacturing company having the same name.

This painting depicts a scene of a field after the harvest where three women were gleaning the grains of wheat. For this work, Jean François Millet had done a research on the theme of gleaners for over ten years. These woman from the working class were authorized to gleaner the grains at the sunset and pick up corns missed by the harvesters in rural area. In the foreground of the painting, three-woman workers were working with their eyes focused on the ground and they were bent double. They had to complete three tasks which the artist wanted to convey that the first task was to bend, second task was to pick up ears of corn while the last one includes straighten up. These workers had to repeat these three steps over and over again.

The Gleaners was regarded as the most famous and best works of Millet. The image of the woman bending over inspired several young artists such as Seurat, Renoir, van Gogh, etc. Robert Rosenblum was a famous historian said that this painting had introduced a new presence of theme during the mid-century.

This painting rather focused on the lower class of the French society featuring sympathy to workers but this was not received well from the Upper class of French society. This painting was discussed in the film The Gleaners and I by Agnes Varda. The dimensions of the painting were 83.8 cm × 111.8 cm or 33 in × 44 in.

The Gleaners is an oil painting produced in 1857 by French painter Jean François Millet.

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Manet painted the water lily series in 18 different canvases.

Claude Monet devoted the last thirty years of his life developing a series of famous landscape paintings some includes Seine at giverny. Among many series, the water lily series paintings were the smallest which were painted during 1897 to 1926. The views were of the wooden Japanese footbridge begun in 1899 over his pond. Monet was known for his Impressionist paintings and from several best painting some of his include Water lily pond series now located at Musee d'Orsay, Paris, Bridge over a Pond of Water lilies now located at Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Monet painted several painting at Giverny where he lived from 1883 until his death in 1926. Monet found two other close friends Manet and Renoir at Giverny. The dimensions of the painting were 88.3 x 93.1 cm


The work can be viewed at Musee d'Orsay, Paris.

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With The Cradle painting, Berthe Morisot was the first woman to exhibit this painting in 1874 at Impressionist exhibition.

The Cradle was regarded as one of the most famous paintings that Berthe Morisot has ever made. It was painted in 1872 in Paris. This painting contains two females one was Berthe Morisot sister and the other was her own daughter. One was Edma who was watching over her younger daughter Blanche. The Cradle was the first impression of motherhood painted by Berthe Morisot and also became later her favorite subject. She continued learning from other impression paintings which interested her to capture and paint the essence of the modern women. When she showed her painting at the exhibition, it scarcely noticed among others. Several critics commented on this painting about its elegance and grace.

Berthe Morisot made her sister Edma modeled for her painting in 1872. The born child was Morisot’s niece. Morisot focused the day to day life activities when painting about the motherhood and the love to her children’s. In this picture, Morisot focuses on the genuine absorption of Mother’s attention even when she was sleeping, to her child well-being.

The picture shows deep meaning to mother’s gaze bent left arm and the child arm which seems to be a mirrored image and her closed eyes. All these things were forming a diagonal line which was further noticed to viewer’s eyes by the movement of the curtain shown in the background above the child’s image. The dimensions of the paintings were 56 cm × 46 cm.

The work can be viewed at Musée d’Orsay, Paris

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The Floor scrapers were given another name, called The Floor strippers. It was painted in the artist Gustave Caillebotte’s family home.

This portrait was regarded as one of the first paintings showing urban class working in houses. Many believe that the painting reintroduces male nudity subject in an updated form. The picture depicts heroes of modern life who are both strong, masculine and works as honest labor. There was a motif of curls shown in the portrait from wood shavings on the floor to armed and arched backs of the workers. The pattern of ironwork was depicted in the window grill. The three workers were repeated in many paintings and were engaged in different aspects of the same activity but the artist used to paint them having similar poses only. The work is quite similar to the works of Edgar Degas, Gustave Caillebotte’s contemporary.

Gustave Caillebotte painted many portraits getting inspired from everyday life and this picture also shows how much he was interested in the personal lives of people. The observer who was viewing the scene was on hands and knees standing above three workers. A window shown on the back wall in this portrait admits natural light. Here, an important thing to notice is that all the workers shown were in nude torsos and tilted heads suggesting that there was a conversation.

Gustave Caillebotte was linked to his presumed homosexuality because of his interest in the nude art of male. The dimensions of the painting were 102 cm × 146.5 cm or 40.2 in × 57.7 in. Originally, in 1894 the portrait was given by Gustave Caillebotte’s family to Musée du Luxembourg then in 1929, it was transferred to the Musée du Louvre in Paris. It was moved to Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume in 1947 and it was again transferred to where it is currently displayed on 1986 in Musée d’ Orsay, Paris.

The work can be viewed at Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

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The Card Players is an oil painting produced between 1894 and 1895 by French painter Paul Cezanne.

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