Jan Van Eyck (1390-1441) was the court painter to the Duke of Burgundy, Phillip the Good, a diplomat, and the artist who painted the mysterious Arnolfini Marriage Portraits.
This artist was the favorite of the Medici in the 1400s.
Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) was the much preferred artist of Lorenzo de Medici and painter of The Birth of Venus (1485).
This painter helped bring a new realism to the painting of the late 1500s. His passion was painting the ordinary man, like his famous Bean Eater (1585).
Annibale Carracci's eyes burn with the fire of a new art,the Baroque.
2020
This woman's eyes tell us she knows something about what it is like to claw one's way to the top, and she did it in the 1600s!
Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1652) was born the daughter of a painter, suffered abuse from a teacher, and still became the most famous woman artistt of her day. Here she sees herself as Fame (1630).
A clever side-eye from the painter of a famous nude.
Francisco Goya (1746-1828) was famous for many great paintings, including Spain's most famous nude, The Naked Maja, the model for which may have been a duchess.
Yes, it is Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890). Here he looks rather normal though quite serious. This portrait from 1887 was done during time he spent in Paris.
Do these eyes tell us what is to come for Vincent?
Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), master of the symbolic self-portrait, and the most famous :one brow" in art history.
Norman Lewis (1909-1979) was a Black abstract expressionist painter who sadly predicted that his work would not be truly appreciated until 40 years after his death - no wonder his woeful expression.