Top 5 Artworks Downloaded via CMA's API

Legend has it that she was abducted by bandits, and wore the garment to symbolize her belief that her suffering in her current life was punishment for sins committed in a former life.

Here, in a parody depiction of the garment, the courtesan stands in for Benzaiten, the goddess of everything that flows, while the remaining members of the Seven Gods of Good Fortune appear on her outer robe.

One of them reports sins to Enma, the King of Hell, who is writing out his judgments on the recently deceased.

Her companion buries her head beneath the blanket to stay warm, her bare feet exposed by a girl tending the hot coals in the pit in the floor.

Rushing to capture the yellowing leaves, he painted this composition on an unusual cloth with a pattern of small red diamonds, visible in the picture’s many unpainted areas.

“In spite of the cold,” he wrote to his brother, “I have gone on working outside till now, and I think it is doing me good and the work too.”

After painting this composition directly from nature, Van Gogh used it to produce a second version in the studio known as The Road Menders at Saint-Rémy.

Painted on a traditional canvas covered by a ground layer, the second version is more restrained, the explosive yellows balanced by larger areas of cool color.

While his initial exploration of the water lily theme (1902-8) produced smaller works more descriptive of a garden setting, the later paintings focus on the water's shimmering surface, indicating the surrounding trees and lush bank only through reflections.

Here reflection and reality merge in strokes of blue, violet, and green. Fronds of water plants sway underwater and passing clouds are reflected above.

By 1915 Monet had conceived a plan, called his Grande Décoration, for arranging a series of monumental water lily paintings in an oval room, thus creating a continuous panorama that would surround and enclose the viewer in an environment of pure color.