The Coronation of Napoleon by Jacques Louis David

The Coronation of Napoleon is a famous painting completed by Jacques Louis David in 1807. It was commissioned by Napoleon in September 1804 to show political and symbolic purpose. Jacques Louis David started work on it in 1805 and took two years to finish it. Its official title is Consecration of the Emperor Napoleon I and Coronation of the Empress Josephine in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris on 2 December 1804.

The history painting is huge and imposing, with ten meters wide and about six meters tall. There are over 150 characters in the painting, royal family, ministers, generals, officials, big shops, and ambassadors, all vividly showed. All of the eyes are gathered to the center of the painting, where stands Napoleon, holding a crown in his hands, who is about to crown his Empress. Empress Josephine is kneeling below the stairs before Napoleon. She is going to receive the crown from his husband, rather than the pope. Napoleon and his wife dress in exquisite red robe with silk, demonstrating their great glory. The pope, who is supposed to crown the emperor, is sitting in the back.

On the ages when camera has not been invented, Jacques Louis David used his skillful painting technique vividly reshow the splendor coronation to the rest of us. This Coronation of Napoleon is a great realism work, though David combined accuracy with artistry treatment. David initially painted the scene Napoleon crowned himself, as he really did in the history. However, conventionally, it’s pope’s power to crown for emperor. For fear of being regarded to contempt the pope, David made the final painting to show Napoleon crowning the Empress. Under David’s polish Napoleon’s and Josephine’s images are beautified, being taller and slimmer. He also painted Napoleon’s mother in the painting, sitting on an important place on the second floor. However, in the history, she was absent in the ceremony. She refused to attend out of rage for the friction of Napoleon with his brothers.

The Consecration Of The Emperor Napoleon
The Consecration Of The Emperor Napoleon

Matzo Paris Classical Oil Paintings Most Valuable for Collection and Appreciation

Over the past decades, the price of domestic oil painting gradually get warming up，and in the various categories of painting collections, classical European oil painting occupies a unique position in the world history of art. Matzo Paris classical masterpieces are unanimously recognized by the international and domestic fine arts and collectibles industry, and are named as most collectible value and appreciation potential.

It is known that the value of the European classical oil painting in the domestic market is constantly rising, already over Chinese paintings, so the classical European oil painting was hailed as “IPO” or “potential shares” in painting collection. Thus, the Matzo Paris classical European oil paintings got the huge appreciation in the country, and are already coming out on top of the trends.

It is understood that the Matzo Paris classical European oil paintings are no less than a thousand pieces, which brings together a great number of painters of artistic potential, who have strong drawing skills, unique understanding of painting art. We can feel the flourishing power of European painting arts in their paintings which bring about many amazing artistic moments for collection industry, and reflect the extraordinary value of art collection. One of the most representative works is the French Painting Water Night, sought after by many collectors. This collection of painting has been kept in Matzo Paris Art Fund, and will meet with collectors in the next auction.

Today, the European classical oil painting Auction has caused a lot of attention of collectors, and many collectors believe that the current auction price of European classical oil Paintings has greater appreciation of space compared with other art auction price. The official of Matzo Paris said, financial investment, private enterprises, and even ordinary citizen family have started to pay attention to the potential of art collection and investment, and more and more social groups and individuals join in the collection team, to promote the national industry of collections to grow and develop continually. With the change of the value of the function of art, collecting art investment has shown more profit than operating securities, stocks, real estate, etc. The risk of art investment is relatively small, making it get more and more social attention.

In addition to highly decorative, more importantly, classical European oil painting has great potential for appreciation. A collector said that in recent years, the value of European classical oil paintings, are gradually welcomed by domestic and international art market. The transaction price and turnover rate of Classical paintings are constantly refreshed.” There are several reasons for its huge potential. First Most classical oil painting art is the sparkling masterpiece in history of European painting art. Secondly, the price of European classical oil painting, especially the one painted by famous painters, is still much higher than the other painting auction price, with a very great appreciation of space. It is understood that painting collection requires themes, that is to aim realistic style works like landscapes, figures, still life works, because these three kinds of paintings have the most classical traditions of European painting, better highlighting the value of the investment and collection of classical European oil painting.

Matzo Paris
Matzo Paris

Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus by Rubens

Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus is an oil painting by Peter Paul Rubens, a German Flemish Baroque painter, during about 1615 to 1618. He is well known for his history paintings of mythological subjects, portraits and landscapes. The painting originated from Greek mythology that the twin brothers Castor and Polydeuces abducted and later married Phoebe and Hilaeira, daughters of king Leucippus.

Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus vividly depicts the scene of the abduction. The two young girls were abducted in their wedding party. The grooms fought with the robbers and stabbed Castor to death. Later Castor was brought back to life by his father Zeus. In this baroque painting, Ruben just showed the moment the abduction happened, without draw out the whole plot. Warriors is seizing the two naked maidens and trying to take them away on horseback. Phoebe and Hilaeira are extremely frightened. They struggled fiercely against the touch by the men.

Contrary to the dynamic state of human characters and horses, the background is calm and peaceful. Rubens used static background environment to further highlight the intense motion. The white forms of the nude victims also make a contrast to the tanned, strong rapists. In the painting, there are two divergent diagonals, one is formed by the head of brown horse, twin brothers and the woman; the other separates the bodies of Phoebe and Hilaeira. The contrast and use of diagonals in the painting lead to a new kind of painting style, and completely reconcile Baroque and Rubens’s feature.

Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus c. 1617
Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus c. 1617

The Raising of Lazarus by Rembrandt Van Rijn

The Raising of Lazarus is an oil painting on panel by the Dutch artist Rembrandt in 1630. It’s based on the Bible story in the Chapter 10, Gospel of John, depicting the scene of the rebirth of Lazarus. It is now hold in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

The miracle of the raising of Lazarus is an important sign in the Gospel of John. Jesus is informed of Lazarus’ illness by messengers, and Lazarus’ two sisters try to seek for his help. But Jesus does not go to the Lazarus’ and wait till he has been dead and buried for days. Jesus says he is doing that for purpose, in order to show miracle and be glorified. He tells people that if they believe, then they can see the glory of God. Then he calls in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”, and the dead man comes up from the tomb.

This baroque painting Raising of Lazarus shows the moment Lazarus coming back to life and sitting up from the coffin. His motion looks weird, for the reason of the stiffened body. His face still looks like a corpse, for he has not got used to the sudden physical changes brought by rebirth. People around the tomb are showing their great astonishment toward the miracle. Jesus, Lazarus and people around form a stable triangular composition, echoing each other. The colors used in the painting are simple and clear. The application of black and gray, together with two beams of mysterious lights, attribute to a grisly and gloom atmosphere.

The Raising Of Lazarus 1630
The Raising Of Lazarus 1630

Ivan The Terrible And His Son Ivan On November 16 1581 by Ilya Repin

The Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan on November 16, 1581 was painted by Ilya Yafimovich Repin, a Russia painter and sculptor. It depicts a historical tragedy of 16th century in Russia.

Ivan the Terrible was the first ruler as the Tsar of All the Russia. He was a great politician, militarist, and diplomatist. He leaded the country from a medieval state to and empire. He had a complex personality: he was intelligent and ambitious, but he was also ruthless, cruel and suspicious. And he killed his son in a confliction as Repin painted in the history painting: Ivan the Terrible argues with his son, and wound him fatally on the head out of anger. His son lay quietly and lifeless in Ivan’s arms, with blood dripping down along the face. The Emperor’s thin face is full of terror with regret, with frightened big eyes.  He puts his hand on the bloody wound as if want to stop the blooding, but just in vain. Repin used dark red in the painting, against the dark and gloomy background, to sharpen the horror atmosphere of scene. The realism painting, on one hand, implies that Ivan’s atrocious government would finally go to an end, while on the other hand, presents the complexity of human beings.

Ivan The Terrible And His Son Ivan On November 16 1581
Ivan The Terrible And His Son Ivan On November 16 1581

Repin began to consider painting this kind of historical episode after the assassination of Alexander II in the 80th. The bloody massacre irritated Russian people and evoked rebellion. Therefore, Repin painted this artwork as an attempt to recall other bloody events of Russian history, and expressed his rejection of violence and bloodshed.

Houses Of Parliament Fog Effect by Claude Monet

Claude Monet was a famous French artist, who was the founder and representative of impressionism. The term Impressionism is derived from the name of his painting Impression, Sunrise. Monet drove all his life to Impressionism.

Monet was a good natural observer. He had a keen eye for every minute detail and extremely for the change of lights. Monet often depicted the charming part from ordinary scenery. On the same place and theme, Monet would paint many times in different days and weather conditions. During the year 1900-1905, Claude Monet made his stay in London and painted a series of paintings of the Palace of and shocked, and they could not understand Monet, because in people’s impression, gray is the normal color of fog. Many people particularly went to observe fog on stress, and surprised to find out that the fog was purplish red, as Monet painted. Because of the development of London’s industry, ash and coal particles sprayed in the air, mixed with which fog reflected in purplish red in the sunshine. Thus Monet was admired for his vivid fog painting, and named “the creator of London fog”.

View of Toledo by El Greco

View of Toledo is a landscape oil painting made by El Greco in 1599. El Greco, a Spanish painter, sculptor and architect, is regarded as a precursor of Expressionism and Cubism, inspiring and influencing many artists such as Pablo Picasso. At that time, Toledo was the religious capital of Spain, and the place where El Greco created many great artworks until his death.

As one of the two surviving painting of El Greco, View of Toledo is among the best known depictions of the sky in Western art, along with some landscapes by William Turner and Monet, and The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh. In the painting, El Greco had chosen the angle of view that overlooking the city. There are many usual elements of a landscape painting in it, sky, hills, trees, roads, buildings, and a river. But it is quite different from many other classical landscapes works. It’s painted in a Mannerist, or Baroque style, featuring a sharp color contrast between the upper sky and the hills below. The sky is covered by dark clouds, with bright lighting flashing through, as if a heavy storm is coming on. The castle and Cathedral tower are standing upright on the hill. The River Rio Tajo is flanked by trees, which is now still running west to east across Spain and Portugal into Atlantic Ocean.

El Greco regarded color as the most important element of paintings. In the View of Toledo, there are four main colors, black, white, green and pain blue. The sharp contrast of colors adds more tension to the painting, together with the brushstrokes, breaking the static state of the quietness. At the same time, the View of Toledo is enlivened with mysterious and dynamic atmosphere, as if the clouds and trees are moving with the wind. The primacy of imagination and intuition is El Greco’s discipline and style. In fact, the layout of Toledo in the painting is not strictly conformed to that in reality. Some buildings are depicted in different positions than actual location, such as the position of the Cathedral. It is rather a space created by El Greco than a direct copy of the scene or moment, interpreting deeper into the painter’s thought and soul.

View Of Toledo
View Of Toledo

The Massacre of Chios by Eugene Delacroix

The Massacre of Chios is the second main oil painting by the French Romantic artist Eugene Delacroix. It depicts a wartime scene based on real historical event. On April 11th, 1822, Ottoman forces launched a military attack on the inhabitants of Chios. They captured Chios belonging to Greece, and plundered the whole island by bloody massacre. The atrocity resulted in the deaths of twenty thousand citizens, and made slavery of almost all the surviving inhabitants. The progressive people in Europe were irritated by the invaders’ outrage, and British Romantic poet Byron even sacrificed his life in the battle to support the Greek.

Eugène Delacroix was also greatly irritated by Ottoman’s behaviors. Therefore, he created this history painting to show the horror of the destruction of the island of Chios, and express his rage on the invaders and sympathy
the verge of despair. A young man on the front is embrace by a young woman, lying on the ground, hopelessly. In the left pyramid, an old woman is sitting on the front looking up to the sky, as if looking for the God’s help. To her right, a baby seeks for the mother’s comfort, but she is almost dying on the floor. A naked young girl is tied to the horse, dragged by the soldier upon it, who represents the atrocity Ottoman soldiers.

In the Massacre of Chios, there is no heroic figure to save the suffering victims. We can also see the ruin and despair in it, without a little hint of hope. The suffering characters, atrocious solider, ornate costumes, disease and death are vividly painted by Eugene Delacroix, showing the scene of widespread desolation. The painter used dark tone to strengthen the tragic and violent atmosphere, and showed great sympathy on the victims. Presently the orientalism painting hangs at the Louvre Museum in Paris.

Scenes From The Massacre Of Chios 1822
Scenes From The Massacre Of Chios 1822

Guernica by Pablo Picasso

Guernica is a town in Basque Country in northern Spain. It was bombed by German and Italian warplanes of the Nationalist forces of General Franco during the Spanish Civil War on 26 April 1937. Rage against the atrocity, at the same time, commissioned by the Spanish Republican government, who expect him to create a large mural for the Spanish display at the World’s Fair in Paris in 1937, Pablo Picasso determined to created a painting in response to the war. Therefore, the oil painting Guernica has been born,

painting appear in grotesque shapes, close to the images of ghosts and monsters. It combined the style of Cubism, realism and surrealism to show the sufferings up individuals. In the right of the painting, a crying person falls down from a roof on fire, and a woman is dragging her broken leg to the center of the painting. On the left corner of the painting, a mother clutched her dead kid in her arms with great pains on her face. On the ground lies the corpse of a soldier, with a broken sword tightly grasped by the hand that has been cut off. There are no planes and no bombs in the painting, but we can see the despair and terror out of the silent scream. It only consists of three colors: black, white and gray, using simple colors to exude a complex and serious atmosphere.

Guernica 1937
Guernica 1937

Now, Guernica is a perpetual reminder of the tragedies of wars, and admired by the world as a representative artwork in memory of the anti-Fascist war victory. As an anti-war symbol, it reminds people of peace and reflecting on the war.