Unexpected Visitors was made by Russian critical realism painting master Ilya Repin in the late 19^th century. It depicted that an exile (left one) suddenly returned home. This oil painting showed to the audience that a revolutionary suffered from lots of pains through the character’s facial expressions in detail. His family members were sad, but they did not expect the exile returned unexpectedly. The family felt unexpected and excited. This was made by the Russian realistic master Repin in the late 19^th century. The painter created the revolutionary intellectual image under the persecution at the Tsar autocratic rule. After a long exile and slavery, the revolutionary suddenly returned. A thin and bearded middle-aged man walked into the room and still dressed in prison garb. The maid in the door regarded him as the “stranger” and his aged mother surprised to stand up from the sofa. His wife and two young children were also shown on this painting. This painting was displayed after many setbacks.

The painter’s talent was embodied in this work. Every character in this painting was very vivid: a black old woman stood up from the chair she sat before and turned to the “unexpected visitor” and seemed to rush to embrace him; among the two children sitting at the table, the older one happily looked at him with his mouth half open as if to shout; the younger one timidly turned his eyes into this “stranger” from the book. Look at the returned tall and thin exile with unshaven face, beards in his face, faded mast coat and heavy muddy boots. It was apparent that he had gone a long way to meet his relatives. He seemed to be hesitated and even not confident. He felt like an outsider in this home that he had no time to stay, but his expression was strong and brave. From the exile we feel the revolutionary heroism spirit. Repin caught hold of the complex emotional feelings when the exile crossed the threshold, the expressions and actions of he and every family member to show the surprise.

Zaporozhian was the association organized by Cossacks in Ukraine between 16^th and 18^th century, most of whom were the serfs escaped from the slavery. They were very brave and indomitable had an army consisting of more than 20,000 people. The Turkey Sultan King once advised them to surrender to the Empire of Turkey. But these Cossack men loved their motherland and never surrendered, so they wrote a letter to the King of Sultan.

What this painting depicted was about the reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mahmoud Iv. People were ridiculing at the languages that the king of Turkey used, which made all laugh. All the people in the painting were laughing, but their smiles and expressions were different because of their different positions, backgrounds, attitudes and personalities. It could be said that this was an encyclopedia of human laugher. To create this work, the artist visited the places where Zaporozhian lived and not only studied their history but also painted many props and accessories with national cultural characteristics in order to show the Great Russian national spirit and traditional culture. Repin featured two figures back to the audience in the foreground and decorated many items at their back and waist. These microscopic items not only reflected Zaporozhian people’s love for life, but also contained philosophy, namely the Russian Cossacks had their own cultural tradition. Everyone in the painting had its distinctive characteristic to show a nation’s spiritual image as a whole—they could not be conquered. Repin once said about the conception of the painting, “The freedom of Zaporozhian made me very happy. They created the equal brotherhood to defend their beliefs and personality. Warriors of these small stocks nation with a strong spiritual power not only defended Europe against oriental predators, but also made fun of the Oriental predator pride.”

The Origin Of The Milky Way was made in 1578, which was a representative work in the painter’s late time. This painting was very large, measuring 148 × 165 cm, which is preserved in London National Gallery. This work was based on the Greek mythology: Hermes was ordered by Zeus to bring the new born Heraclas to Hera; he wanted to such the milk when she was asleep for longevity. Hera woke up from sleep, and the milk gushed into the flashing Milky Way in the sky. Here the painter wanted to show the moment that the flying Hermes was bringing Heraclas to Hera. Because Hera was unprepared, so he was a bit bewildered and hurriedly dodged. His body seemed to be out of balance. Then Hera’s milk splashed and formed the galaxy od nowadays. So in English the galaxy was also called Milky Way.

This was certainly a beautiful legend. The painter intended to show his artistic characteristics based the theme of this painting. He was good at accurately describing the characters’ movement, no matter how difficult was to depict the forms. He was able to accurately reproduce on the painting screen. At the same time, he was good at the performance of the human body, especially the beauty and charm of the female nudes. This painting fully displayed Tintoretto‘s human skills. In this painting, we can see the artist’s incomparable performance in characters’movement, naked beauty as well as the rich and complex light changes. In addition, the painter paid much attention to the rich composition. The little angel around, the giant eagle (symbolizing the lord Jupiter), the green Peacock in the lower right corner were all the decorations to make the painting full, which made the whole painting show a magical world of myths.

But we had to point out that The Origin Of The Milky Way was not perfect. Although it was full of imagination, the character’s psychological description of performance was not enough. The panic and sudden surprise look of the goddess was not profoundly portrayed. The painter only paid attention to the performance of characters’ movement, treatment of naked beauty and space, while ignored the subtle changes of human inner and psychological feelings.

This painting was named Venus And Mars Surprised By Vulcan, which was made by Tintoretto (1518-1594), a famous Italian Venice painter in the 16^th century. He was born in Venice and died there on May 31, 1594. He was formerly known as Jacob Losity. In his 40-year creation career, he mainly stayed at Venice. His works inherited from Titian‘s traditions and already made some innovation. In the aspect of narration, he stressed on the strong movement with colorful fantasy. He developed a unique way of painting. This painting showed a flirting scene. What the painter used was the figures’ gestures, interleaving pleats and reflected lights, which made the painting with very vivid screen processing. Eros languidly reclined on the black-white bed and the light casted on her rosy skin which was quite sexy; in the face of a beautiful love, Vulcan seemed to be somewhat uncomfortable, and the Mars wearing the helmet and dressing in armor looked sly and showed his head under a table.

This painting had one of the biggest characteristics that the painter adopted a very modern and all-round performance method of using perspective and a round mirror behind the painting to achieve this goal. We can not only observe the Vulcan from the mirror, but also see his embarrassment after Vulcan clumsily found the beauty of Eros and pulled a cloth to cover her key body parts. In addition, there was a little dog under the painting. Its barking direction made the audience find Vulcan hiding under the table. The structure of the whole painting was built the diagonal line extending from the left to the right, the upper to the lower, which not only was cute filled with flirty but also added a bit of banter taste.

The Birth of Venus is Botticelli’s masterpiece, it is said that this painting is painted for one of Medici’s distant cousin, and according to Arnold’s long verse. What the verse described about Venus is that she is the beauty of classical mythology god who born out of the water. This painting’s composition is relatively simple, which set Venus in the center. A large shell that holding her looks like a blooming flower, it floats toward the shore slowly in the help of Aeolus. While the god of spring Fauna welcome her at the shore with starry woven silk, waiting to put new cloth on the naked beauty of god. Venus is slender and fit, and her posture is

of Venus[/caption]

Actually, under strict ideological control in the Middle Ages, Venus, the god of love and beauty, was being considered as “the sirens of pagan.” But in the Renaissance, the Italian citizens who yearned for classical culture thought that she is a new era goddess like messenger brought beauties to man’s world. Consequently, Botticelli has the image to challenge religious asceticism, and he is the forerunner who set the naked goddess as the main image.

This painting employed light and shade technique of expression, emphasized the contour line at the some time, which made the body has a sense of relief, and increased the decoration in this picture. From the charming and nude goddess, what we could observe is a sense of spiritual beauty that making it originally a work with pagan theme become deeply touched our hearts.

The Lady of Shalott is one of John William Waterhouse‘s representative works. What we can see is in the gloomy thorn jungle, a pretty blonde in long white dress sat in the bow. She raised his head slightly and her eyes full of bitterness. Do you couldn’t stop wondering that why she looked so sad, why the three candles set in the bow, or why her hands shackled by the chain? All of these bring us to another world. So what happened behind this painting? What does the painter want to tell us?

Actually, all the elements in this oil painting, no matter the gesture, arrangement or the image, are comes from a beautiful and sad literary allusions which Tennyson wrote in his long verse The Lady of Shalott. This poem described a girl of congenital deficiency name Shalott who has to live in the shadow and mustn’t step into the sunlight, what she could do was doing embroidery repeatedly and seeing her residence and the scenery outside the window through the image projected by the mirror, but all the images were unreal. One day, she suddenly

world.

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema was a Dutch-born, British painter. His works are remarkable for the way in which flowers, textures and hard reflecting substances, like metals, pottery, and especially marble, are painted – indeed, his realistic depiction of marble led him to be called the ‘marvelous painter’. He likes painting stories or scenes in the ancient world. This painting is called Bluebells which is a kind of blue flower like bells. Scotland is rich in bluebells. Alma-Tadema was influenced by the strongest spirit of romance, so even though he was a classical painter, the painting is a romantic painting.

In a forest, under a good many trees, bluebells cover all the ground. Sunlight filters through the gaps between the leaves on the ground. It is so placid and wonderful. Two women are immersed in the beautiful scenery. One woman is against a tree restfully in a little far distance. It seems that she is thinking something, or she enjoys the scenery so much. We can’t see very clearly her facial expression, but it must be joyful. The other woman is sitting in a fabric with her left hand against the ground. The pose is so natural and comfortable. She enjoys the beautiful view. For romanticism, natural scenery is a good bridge to connect the reality and fantasy. All the painting, the people, the objects, the colors express a strong romantic feeling. People who see the painting will be attracted by it and look forward to it.

The painting Embarkation for Cythere was a famous representative work of Watteau. The theme was taken from an opera at that time, depicting a group of noble men and women were dreaming to have a carefree love paradise. Cythere was a beautiful island full of love and amusement in the Greek mythology where the cupid Venus lived. Watteau tried to describe the scene that the noble men and women were ready to visit there. Since it was a pleasant ground, the painter took the azure blue sea as the background and used the wide mist-covered waters to make people crave the environment wings of imagination.

In this painting, the three sisters were depicted to embark for Cythere with their lovers and seek the heaven scenery and eternal love. The painter divided the characters into several groups. The foreground was three siblings and their lovers. They were in couples to be ready to leave with their dear lovers. The painter carefully conceived the plot which men and women sitting in the front extended the audience’s attention gradually to the pair of lovers who was getting up, walk slowly and then check out. The whole oil painting formed a flow of time curve, resulting in the contrast between the characters and the peaceful activities silent scenery.

As this painting was very successful, Jean Antoine Watteau was appointed as the academician by the French Art Academy on August 28, 1717. Henceforth, he gradually became famous. Lots of people were looking for his paintings, so that he was too busy to attend to all. His life had greatly improved, but he was still diligent in painting. In early 1716, he finally had a separate house provided by Xiluwa and he was able to feel at ease in his painting creation. This painting was completed in 1717, which measured 129 x 194 cm and now preserved in the Le Louvre Museum in Paris.

The famous oil painting Et In Arcadia Ego is difficult to find out the inter meaning. It is known as the most difficult workings to interpretation in art history. Arcadia was celebrated as an unspoiled, harmonious wilderness in ancient fame. The painting depicts a wild land where warm sunshine overshines the tombstone. There are only several trees around the tombstone. The background is blue sky. Four shepherds, wearing crowns, taking crosiers, are reading the inscription in the tombstone. A shepherd with beard are kneeling down and reading out the inscription. He turns around and says something to the female shepherd in his left side. The inscription is “Et In Arcadia Ego.”

According to art historian, Et means death. So the meaning of inscription seems that even in the land of heaven, death is inevitably avoided. Obviously, this is a kind of exclamation that scenery is good, but life is short. From the left shepherd’s facial expression, who leans on the tombstone, he is looking down which seems to miss the dead in contrast to the woman. The woman wears blue dress which is the most outstanding color in the painting. The female figure is difficult to interpret. It is said that she represents the wonderful life. Even though she looks down and listens carefully to the inscription, which gives us a sense of comfort. Doubt and comfort, melancholy and sorrow, all are about philosophy of life, which makes people thinking deeply. The female and male shepherds show us a contrast of different emotions. It seems to tell people: “why do we need to fear death? Arcadia is the place which people dream of.”

When people saw the painting, most of them loved it at the first sight. The woman is so beautiful in the evening scene. Human integrates with nature, and nature sets human off to beauty. There is a new moon in the sky and the sky is dull. What’s more, the distant mountains, the stones around the woman, the ground are all dull. The painter uses the black fabric to cover part of the woman’s body. The fabric seems to blow in the wind. There is a detail that the woman’s right foot is rising and against the left foot, but the left foot is on tip-toe. The posture seems that the woman is dancing among mountains. All the colors the painter uses in the oil painting are dark-colored except the woman. Her head cocks to one side with a hand holding and eyes closing. So we maybe know why the painting called Evening Mood. Such kinds of color show the sad and depressed feelings. Because of the outstanding white skin’s color, the sad and depressed moods become stronger. The comparison between the dark and white colors makes people have strong feelings for the woman. We wonder what happen to her, what she is thinking about, or what her feelings are.

William-Adolphe Bouguereau was an excellent painter of human figure. The painting is a good example. The figure’s emotions are depicted by the woman herself, and also by the scenery. The woman is dancing alone in the twilight. But she seems to be unhappy and sad. Maybe no one knows her, and she can’t find the right man or the man she loves doesn’t love her. People have many imaginations about why she is sad.