Franz Marc (February 8, 1880 – March 4, 1916)

                                                                                          

Cow, Yellow, Red, Green

1912 

Franz Marc was one of the original founders of the Der Blaue Reiter group, along with Kandinsky. He was an extremely talented painter, who's work mostly concentrated on animals, representing them in a very spiritual fashions often with vivid colors. The paintings always seem somewhat alive to me, somewhat in motion–even more successfully representing mobility than the Futurists, who held the static representation of movement as one of their goals. His life was prematurely ended by a WWI bullet.

Deer at Dusk

1909

Fairy Animals I

1913

Cats

1909-1910

The Waterfall

1912

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (November 24, 1864 – September 9, 1901)

                                                                                                  

Cuirassier

1881

Toulouse-Lautrec is one of my favorite painters. And when I stare at his paintings, I lose the ability to really comment on them. I can only say that he creates a life within his works that transmutes emotions and characters in aeternum. As for Lautrec, his life was terrible one: he was off a stunted height, because of a childhood injury and illness, standing at 5'0"; he was constantly mocked for his appearance, which turned him to alcohol; and at 36 he died from the dual effects of alcoholism and syphilis (a while ago I read that he might not have had syphilis, because a possible deformity of his genitals would have made him unable to fornicate–but I'm not sure if this theory is still in vogue). Anyway, his life, though fecund in artistic talent, was terribly barren of happiness.

Marcelle Lender Dancing the Bolero in "Chilpéric"

1896

Margot

1881

The series of works below is one of my favorites of all artists, and illustrates so well that unparalleled way in which Henri could capture the romance of a situation.

The Kiss

1892

In Bed - The Kiss

1892

In Bed

1892

In Bed

1892

Arthur Bowen Davies (September 26, 1863 – October 24, 1928)

                                                                                              

Avatar

Arthur Davies was perhaps the premier Symbolist in the United States. He's also associated with the Ashcan School, but I wouldn't label him as a part of it, since he was completely antithetical to the style and ideals of the group: portraying New York in a Realistic Style (if you can find Realism or New York in his works, I'd be impressed). Overall, Davies was a talented and well-received painter, whose beautiful Symbolism was touched at times with Realist and Cubist influences. 

Wild H-Goats Dance

1920

Heart's Hansel 

Four Figures

1911

Aubrey Beardsley (August 21, 1872 – March 16, 1898)

                                                                                            

A Nightpiece

1894

Beardsley was an amazing illustrator with a strange, elaborate and beautiful Art Nouveau style. His life was wild and short–encapsulated in rumors of his strange habits and affairs–but ultimately he fell pray to his chronic disease, tuberculosis, and died at a young, young 25. It would have been interesting to see the progression of such a talented youth–especially after his conversion to Catholicism and repudiation of some of his former works, in the last year of his life–would he have gone on to draw more religious works? would he have carried into newer mediums? It's sad that we can never know.

Incipit Vita Nova

1893

The Peacock Skirt

1894

Chopin Ballade III

1894

How King Arthur Saw the Questing Beast

1893

Venus Between Terminal Gods

1895

Simone Martini (c. 1284 – 1344)

                                                                                            

Equestrian Portrait of Guidoriccio da Fogliano

1328-1330

Gothic Art is, as I've mentioned before, a mode that has fallen by the wayside. I've even heard people talk of it as a sort of Primitive style. But, there was great emotion, skill and beauty in Gothic art that bled into and enriched the Renaissance. Martini was one of the most famous artists of the period, whose paintings express a wonderful austerity and deep spirituality. Also, interestingly, his Christ tends to be, but is not always, rather sullen in youth.

Christ Returning to his Parents

1342

Madonna and Child

1308-1310

St. Andrew

1326

Madonna of Mercy

1308-1310

Francis Picabia (January 22, 1879 – November 30, 1953)

                                                                                              

Calf Worship

1941-1942 

Picabia was a busy fellow. He is best known as a Dadaist (The Boy Carburetor) and as a Surrealist (Calf Worship), but he also worked in Abstract Expressionism (Animation), Fauvism (Adam & Eve), Impressionism (Sunrise in the Mist) and Symbolism (Salome). Actually, I have not exhausted all of the styles he worked in, but I don't want to exhaust Google. Out of these my favorite painting is the Impressionist piece; what's yours?

Animation

1914

Adam & Eve

1911

The Boy Carburetor

1919

Sunrise in the Mist

1905

Salome

1930

Walter Sickert (May 31, 1860 – January 22, 1942)

                                                                                                

Minnie Cunningham at the Old Bedford

1889

Sickert founded the Camden Town Group, which was influenced by–and is often technically labeled as a part of–Post-Impressionism, though this denies the strong influence that Expressionism played on the creation and identity of the artistic movement. As for Sickert, he was a strange man, often finding himself absorbed with macabre murders–he was obsessed with Jack the Ripper. I always found a dark quality emanating from his paintings, something that seems to be a couple of steps from insanity. 

The Bathers, Dieppe

1902 

The Raising of Lazarus

1929-1932

Self-Portrait

1896

Victor Lécour

1922-1924