Water is one of the fundamental keys to life as we know it. Throughout history, H2O has inspired, sustained, and relaxed us. Scroll to take a world tour of the tranquil sights and sounds of water.

Picture yourself overlooking the beach and listen to the water crash, as Joaquín Sorolla did when he painted this serene scene in 1905. Let Sorolla's impressionistic vista capture your imagination and scroll on to continue your journey.

Envision yourself in the Roman countryside almost 400 years ago. A goatherd guides his flock to a nearby lake while you enjoy a picnic. A soft breeze makes the water lap at the banks. French Baroque artist Nicolas Poussin captured this view around 1650 CE.

You find yourself at the Château de Versailles, touring the palace grounds on a lovely day. When the sun is shining, these pools reflect the light onto the exterior wall of the Hall of Mirrors. Versailles is renowned for its water features--click to explore using Street View!

You discover a waterfall hidden in a forest. For a change of pace, watch the water pour down and try to hear the crashing cascade in your mind. This peaceful animated loop was created by Hisbaan Noorani, a 10th grade student at the time!

The sun sets over Manhattan and a you admire the artwork wrapped around a rooftop water tank. This piece by Marilyn Minter, Gush, is part of The Water Tank Project, an art exhibition focused on the global water crisis.

You are mesmerized by the raw beauty and immense power of water as you approach a massive waterfall in Nikkō, Japan. Painted by Hokusai in 1833, you can still see Kirifuri Falls today. Scroll down to explore.

Click to see more of the stunning area using Street View!

In Wuzhen, China a river guides you to a large lakeside theater where you can stop and admire the tranquility of nature among the gorgeous architecture. Though the water here is glassy, you can still hear the river when you close your eyes. 

During the early twentieth century, Paris was the destination of choice for talented, independent American women who were determined to move beyond the limitations that restricted them at home. Many used their newfound liberty as an opportunity for self-reinvention and discovery.

In Paris, American women explored a variety of options for making their mark on contemporary culture. They carried out transformative work in wide-ranging fields including art, literature, dance, publishing, music, and fashion.

“I have a thrilling hope that women are going to do something glorious in the arts.  It is my passionate conviction. I am always indignant when women are denied creative power in art.”

The illustrator and women’s rights activist Rose O’Neill became a self-made millionaire thanks to the commercial success of her “Kewpie” cartoon character. In Paris, she found support for more experimental artwork inspired by dreams, imagination, and the  unconscious.

“I was forced to go abroad to achieve the recognition [my] own society was not willing to give. There I was treated with great respect and afforded the privilege of having my paintings judged and exhibited.”

This self-portrait reflects the confidence Loïs Mailou Jones gained in Paris during her first visit in 1937-38. She portrays herself at work in her studio, paintbrushes in hand. The African figurines in the background were key to the artistic identity she developed in France.

“She is coming, the dancer of the future: the free spirit, who will inhabit the body of new women; more glorious than any woman that has yet been; more beautiful than all women in past centuries: The highest intelligence in the freest body.”  

Isadora Duncan arrived in Paris in 1900 and began to fulfill her vision for a revolutionary approach to dance. Her freedom and self-expression laid the groundwork for the international modern dance movement and encouraged bold new experiments in the visual arts as well.

“So Paris was the place that suited those of us that were to create twentieth-century art and literature, naturally enough.”  –Gertrude Stein

After moving to Paris in 1903, Gertrude Stein assembled a pathbreaking modern art collection and developed an experimental form of writing. She further defied convention by committing to a lifelong partnership with Alice B. Toklas, shown with her in this double portrait.

“What a dark age we are living in and what a privilege to behold the spectacle of ignorant men solemnly deciding whether the work of some great writer is suitable for the public to read or not!” 

Sylvia Beach was one of several American women who published radically experimental literature in Paris. Her bookshop and lending library, Shakespeare and Company, became a crucial hub for progressive literature, banned books, and international cultural exchange.    

“Sometimes I have felt that my growth as a writer has been hampered in my own country. And so—but only temporarily—I have fled from it.” 

Jessie Redmon Fauset played a crucial role in the Harlem Renaissance as a novelist and literary editor.  Seeking relief from racial prejudice, she went to France in 1914 and 1924. In her novels, she often drew on her experiences as a Black woman in France.

“What was the good of having the statue without the liberty, the freedom to go where one chose if one was held back by one’s color? No, I preferred the Eiffel Tower, which made no promises.”

At age nineteen, Josephine Baker sailed to France with dreams of fame that were beyond her reach in the United States. Her performance in an all-Black revue took Paris by storm. Her eccentric whimsy, anatomy-defying movements, and supercharged energy left audiences dazzled.

“I packed and made preparations without any idea of what was in store for me. It was a spur-of-the moment thing, a new adventure just for the sake of adventure.” 

A job offer at a Montmartre nightspot lured Ada “Bricktop” Smith across the Atlantic in 1924. Over the next fifteen years, she owned and operated some of the most renowned nightclubs in interwar Paris. African Americans in Paris found a second home at Bricktop’s.

“[I] had to get to Paris…. That need to go to Europe burned in me like the flame in a steel furnace, bright and fiery and harsh and terrible. It consumed me. And I never really let anything stand in my way.”

Eager to advance her career as an opera singer, Lillian Evanti journeyed to Paris in 1924. There, she became the first African American to perform with the grand opera companies of Europe. In this colorful portrait, Evanti wears her costume from Rossini’s The Barber of Seville.

“Paris has always seemed to me the only city in which one can express oneself as one pleases…. In France, thought, food, and love have remained a matter of personal taste and one’s own business.” 

For sixty years, the writer Natalie Barney oversaw a Paris institution: a weekly salon that promoted literature and the arts. She introduced women of different nationalities to each other’s work, and she provided a congenial gathering place for lesbians such as herself.

These American women took a leap into the future by crossing the Atlantic to pursue their personal and professional aspirations. They experienced liberties, opportunities, and tolerances that were yet to be achieved in the United States in the early twentieth century.